Page 30 of Best Hex Ever
“We need your opinions on something,” Ash said, sippingfrom a cocktail. “Deep sea horror. What’s the scariest thing you can think of?”
Dina, being a thalassophobe, shuddered at the thought.
“The Mariana Trench,” Immy said. “Those cliff edges inside the water where it’s darkness all the way down. So. Much. Potential.”
“Seconded,” said Jeremy, an editor at a film magazine.
“I’ve read that there’s a church in Austria that’s completely abandoned, and over the years it’s been covered with water so now it’s at the bottom of a lake, and you can only find it if you go looking,” Dina told the group.
“I’ve never heard of it. You’re sure this is real?” Rosemary said, pulling out her phone. “Oh my god, Dina’s right. It’s the fucking sunken place. Okay, Dina wins because that is absolute nightmare fuel.”
“What’s nightmare fuel?” Eric said, wrapping his arms around Immy and planting a kiss on the top of her head.
“Dina is regaling us with stories about creepy underwater churches,” Immy replied, leaning back into Eric’s hug.
“I would expect nothing less.” Eric grinned. “But I’ve been told by Martin, who seems very stressed, that we all need to take our seats for dinner.”
Dina glanced down at the place cards arranged on the table. Immy had seated Dina next to her and Rosemary, and directly opposite Scott. No surprises there. Eric was sitting beside Scott, and opposite his wife-to-be.
Dina was about to sit down when a deep voice behind her rumbled, “Please, allow me.”
Scott was standing behind her, close enough that she could smell his moss and sea salt cologne and feel his breath on the back of her neck.
“A consummate gentleman,” she joked. “I guess chivalry isn’tdead.” She could have sworn his pupils dilated as she turned and looked up, feeling the heat of him so close to her.
Scott pulled out the chair, and when Dina sat down, he slid her closer to the table. As he did so, he bent close.
“That dress really suits you,” he said, low enough that only she would hear.
In his mouth, the compliment sounded positively filthy.
Scott took his seat and she felt his eyes on her, hungry. His hair, curling at the ends, fell across his face in the most flattering way. Dina wanted to run her fingers through it. She kept glancing his way all through the first two courses.
“What do you do then, Scott?” Dina’s mother launched into conversation with all the subtlety of a nuclear missile. Of course, trust her mum to be asking about his job, just to make sure he was adequate material. Dina’s father met her eyes over her mother’s head, and he smiled apologetically.
“I’m a curator at the British Museum.”
“And what do you curate?” Nour pressed him. Thankfully, Scott took it in his stride.
“Well, at the moment I’m working on an exhibition about symbols of protection from around the world—symbols used by ancient mystics. Did you know that mistletoe was used by ancient Celts to protect their livestock? It’s fascinating.”
“Always useful if you want to snog a sheep too,” laughed Eric.
“Oh, Nour knows all about symbols of protection,” Dina’s father said, as Nour nodded sagely.
“I noticed that, actually. You had the hand of Fatima on your front door.”
Nour beamed. “Well, you can never be too careful. Dina has lots of them in her very successful café too, as you know,” she continued, purposefully turning the conversation to herdaughter. Trust her mother to make sure all potential suitors knew how successful she was.
Is that what Scott was to her then—apotential suitor? Damn those tea leaves and their accurate predictions.
“How did you two meet, if you don’t mind my asking?” Scott said to Dina’s parents. He was handling their matchmaking like a pro, and somehow that made her like him even more.
“We were both in the same halls at university, but I was too shy to talk to her.” Dina’s father looked at his wife. “But I’d seen her around and would smile at her whenever I got up the courage. We’d never spoken though. Then, this one time, I was at the library searching for a book. I was walking through the stacks, looking for the last copy of this text on impressionist art, when I finally found the shelf. Only, the book wasn’t there. So I was looking around and I saw her”—Robert took Nour’s hand and planted a kiss there—“and she was sitting in a nearby cubbyhole with—you guessed it—the book.”
“Did you speak to her then?” Scott asked.
“I had to. She was so much lovelier up close, I must have seemed like a right buffoon trying to get my words out.”
