Page 28 of The Trouble With Spells
He blinked hard, looking up from his phone with a startled look. “Uh, okay.”
“I like the salty fishiness of them. Especially if you get the ones with the heads still on, and the eyeballs are deadstaring at you as you eat them.” I rubbed my belly, “Delish!”
He blew out a small breath, and I bit the inside of my bottom lip to keep from laughing. “One sausage and anchovy pizza coming up. I’m gonna get pepperoni on half and put yours on the other side, if that’s okay?”
Not able to contain my amusement any longer, I broke into peals of laughter. “You’d better not even order anchovies on my pizza. Just get a sausage and pepperoni, on both sides. I’m a basic witch when it comes to my pizza toppings. But, damn, your face! And points for being on board with ordering that for me.”
Michael shook his head at me, laughing as he put the phone up to his ear. “Dick! I was totally going to get that for you, too. I hope you weren’t expecting me to kiss you after you ate it though.”
The thought of Michael kissing me caused liquid heat to race through my body. What would it feel like to have his lips on mine? His tongue teasing, wanting to be let in? What would he taste like?
Michael’s blue eyes heated when it dawned on him what he had teasingly said. His hot gaze never left mine as he ordered our pizza.
My mind was racing with so many thoughts, while I tried to come up with some flippant, joking response but came up empty.
I wanted Michael to kiss me. Couldn’t hardly believe that I might actually find out what kissing him would be like. Would it live up to all my many, many teenage fantasies? Would it be even better?
“Michael?” A woman’s curious, questioning voice called, “What are you doing here?”
He jerked at the sound of his name, eyes wide and panicked, his shoulders stiffening. He had his back to the woman, but I was facing him and could see her.
She was approaching us at a rather fast clip, her brow furrowed in confusion. She was of medium height, a bit fluffy with a few extra pounds that didn’t detract from her figure at all. Her long blonde hair bounced around her shoulders, and as she got closer, I noticed her cornflower blue eyes. Identical to Michael’s.
Widening my own eyes at him, I tried to question him without bringing too much attention to myself.
Between clenched teeth, he whispered, “I’m so sorry about this. Please, no matter what I say, just play along with it.”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I couldn’t do anything besides give him a small tilt of my head to indicate my agreement. Though I wondered what he was dragging me into.
Smiling widely, he turned to face the woman. “Mom! What are you doing here?”
Mom?
Standing up straight, I pushed my glasses up, frantically running a hand over my hair. Trying unsuccessfully to flatten the flyaway strands the evening breeze had kicked up. Apparently, I was about to meet Michael’s mom.
Chapter Thirteen
Michael
“Mom! What are you doing here?” Turning to face my mother, blinding smile plastered across my face, I tried not to wince at the asinine question.
My mom tilted her head and gave me a narrow-eyed look. One I had seen far too many times in my life. Usually when I was trying to pull a fast one on her. Not that that was what I was doing now. While I’d had every intention of seeing my parents when I had decided to come home, I hadn’t really factored them into my thoughts after Callum had bound us together with his wayward spell.
“I live here, Michael,” she reminded me slowly, her lips pursed, as she gave me the once over. “You, however, can barely be bothered to show your face for a holiday. Let alone a random Tuesday.”
This time I couldn’t stop the tiny wince that crossed my face. It was true. Even when I did my obligatory holiday family time, I left shortly after the festivities. There was always work that I needed to do, always multiple cases that needed my attention.
Standing there in front of my mom, who was silently questioning, my mind went completely blank on how to respond to her question. “Uh…um…I…we…”
“It’s my fault,” Callum interrupted my nonsensical sputtering. “We’re…dating. We’re…ah…on a date.”
Watching my mom’s eyes grow comically big, I was sure we now wore matching expressions. Swiveling my head to shoot Callum a questioning look, he shrugged. His expression telling me he clearly had just blurted out the first thing he could think of and that I hadn’t been doing any better.
Mom blinked a couple of times, several emotions crossing her face at once, none of which I could accurately pinpoint to let me know what she was thinking. She leaned to the side, so she could see past me to where Callum stood behind me. Her matching blue eyes gave him a thorough once over, before she broke into a smile. Holding out her hand, she introduced herself.
“Hello, I’m Jessica Endicott, Michael’s mom. It’s lovely to meet one of my son’s boyfriends,” giving me side-eye, she added, “I do believe you are the first one, in fact.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I mumbled, knowingit very much was true.
