Page 17 of Best Hex Ever
“Always happy to be your magical guinea pig, Mama.” Dina smiled, feeling the calm settle into her bones in the way it only did when she was home. Dina and her mother spent the next few minutes part-catching up, part-bickering in the way that only mother and daughters could do, until the sound of the front door opening called Dina’s attention away.
“Dina, you home?” her father called.
“I’m here, Baba. One second!” She patted the remnants of her moisturizer into her hands and went downstairs to greet her dad.
Robert Whitlock was in the kitchen, putting away bottles of orange juice, while the house levitated the used shopping bags into a holder above the sink.
“There’s my girl,” her father said, giving Dina a warm hug. “You look well, hayati.”
It was always endearing to hear her father speak Darija. With his Welsh accent, Robert couldn’t quite sound out some of the pronunciation, but that never stopped him from trying. When she was little, Dina had told him that she was his hayati, his life, and he had called her that ever since.
“I bumped into the bride-to-be on my way back from the shops. She said to tell you to come down to the Roebuck when you’re ready. They’re having drinks,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He had more gray hairs than the last time Dina had seen him.
“Great. But I should probably eat something first.” As if on cue, an egg timer in the kitchen went off, the house’s way of signaling that dinner was ready.
The three of them—four if you counted the ghost tortoise—sat down at the dining table, which the house had decided wasnow a shade of forest green. Dina’s father served up the harira, while her mother set out small plates of zaalouk, shlada, and khobz on the table. Her mother held the basket of bread and muttered a spell. When Dina broke apart the khobz, it was warm and steaming and smelled mouth-wateringly good.
Her parents asked her all the usual questions: how was the café doing, was she tired of London life yet, and where was Heebie? The cat had probably gone off and found a bed to crawl under the duvet of, and was no doubt deeply asleep.
Dina’s father held her mother’s hand across the table, smiling at his wife as she chatted away. She noticed that he was careful to tiptoe around asking Dina any questions about her love life, though her mother clearly had no such qualms.
“Have you been on any dates lately? Met any handsome young men you want to introduce to us?”
Dina loved her mother, but she sometimes thought that Nour was best loved in small doses.
“No handsome men, I’m afraid,” she lied, “but if I meet any you’ll be the first to know.”
Dina was relatively open with her parents when it came to her love life, but that came with caveats. She would tell them about first dates with men, especially the ones that went wrong, but discussion of Rory, and any other woman she might be dating, was off-limits.
As dinner turned into dessert—asweet apple Pwdin Eva with heaps of cream that her father had baked that afternoon—Dina found her thoughts straying back to Scott Mason. To his chiseled, bearded jawline and his deep rumbling laughter. To the way he’d held Heebie in his arms. Maybe they should have swapped numbers. Maybe one drink would have been fine.
Dina looked down at her hands, the henna twisting into a thorned vine before her eyes, suffocating itself. The hex, makingsure its presence was known, no doubt. She reprimanded herself.
Dina Whitlock would be taking a break from dating for the foreseeable future. Or until someone came along who was safe for a quick fling. Scott Mason was not fling material.
Once she’d eaten, Dina changed into the classic Friday-night pub outfit: jeans and a nice top. She found Heebie asleep in a pile of freshly washed and dried linens, now covered in cat hair, and she gave the purring cat a kiss on her cold little nose before heading out.
Chapter 8
It was that perfect kind of October night, with a waxing gibbous moon and a crisp chill that made you walk a little faster to keep warm, and your breath came out in puffs of steam. Fairy lights twinkled in the windows of the pub as Dina approached.
The Roebuck was one that conjured many embarrassing teenage memories for Dina, mostly because it was the only pub that had served underage kids, provided they didn’t order anything stronger than a fruit cider or mulled wine.
The inside seemed to have been designed to feel as warm and cozy as possible. Brass sconces on the walls bathed the room in a golden glow, and a fire crackled in the wide hearth. It smelled like worn leather, beer, and cedar.
It wasn’t the kind of pub that had awkward bar stools where you spent all night fidgeting to find a comfortable seating position; the Roebuck was the kind of pub that wanted you to stay a while. Each seat was an armchair, worn and homely. The owners were a married couple in their sixties—the Hollands, Dina remembered vaguely. They offered her good-natured smiles from behind the bar as she entered.
She spotted her friends on the twin sofas by the fire and made her way over. Immy was sitting on Eric’s lap and waved,but as soon as Rosemary noticed Dina she hopped out of her seat and came bounding toward her, letting out a squeal loud enough to frighten the locals at the next table.
“You better save me from them, they’re too loved up.” Rosemary grinned, tackling Dina with a wonderfully aggressive hug.
“Shocking, almost like they’re getting married in a few days.”
Rosemary looked grave. “I know, it’s sickening. Let’s get drunk. Can you believe I’ve never had mulled wine?”
Dina gasped in mock horror. “We need to remedy that immediately.”
They hovered by the bar, Rosemary giving Dina the lowdown on the rest of Eric and Immy’s friends who were by the fire. Some she’d met before, but she didn’t recognize a lot of Eric’s workmates.
