Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)
Talia Hibbert
For the Hopeless Romantics, and for myself
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Please be aware that this story involves sensitive topics, such as dealing with the death of close family members and handling general anxiety disorder. I hope I have treated these issues with the care they deserve.
PROLOGUE
The moon was high and full, the night was ripe for witchy business, and Danika Brown had honey on her tit. The left one, specifically.
“For fuck’s sake,” she muttered, and swiped it off.
“Daydreaming at worship, now? Tut, tut.” Dani’s best friend, Sorcha, sat across the tiny table that served as their altar, all bright, brown eyes, thick, dark hair, and crooked smile.
“I wasn’t daydreaming,” Dani said, though she absolutely had been. “My chest just sticks its nose into everything.”
“Here we bloody go.” Sorcha rolled her eyes and imitated Dani’s crisp accent with unnerving accuracy. “Oh, pity me and my incredible rack, even though I selfishly refuse to share any of it—”
“I don’t think we can share breast tissue, Sorch.”
Sorcha glared. “Well, if we could, would you give me some?”
“No. As you say, my rack is incredible. Now shut up and focus.”
“Selfish, fiendish woman. Vain, daffodil-brained . . .” Sorcha could always be relied upon when it came to creative insults. Her gleeful mutterings faded into the background as Dani set aside her pot of honey, placing the dish she’d filled near the center of the table. Behind that dish, standing back-to-back with Sorcha’s Black Madonna, was a small golden statue of the goddess Oshun.
Like any self-respecting deity of love, beauty, and abundance, Oshun was covered in jewelry and not much else—unless one counted the bees and the enormous hair. Dani had little hair, zero bees, and no established habit of public nudity; nor did she devote any attention to romantic love, empirical evidence having proven it was a drain of energy that would distract from her professional goals. But the fact that Dani and the orisha didn’t see eye to eye on that particular topic wasn’t hugely important. The golden statue was an heirloom passed on from Dani’s dear, departed Nana—the same woman who’d once told her, “There’s power in knowledge passed between generations, whether it’s by those books of yours or by an elder’s mouth.”
Danika agreed. Plus, following in her Nana’s witchy footsteps was fun and came quite naturally. Must be something about the elaborate nighttime rituals and the history of dogged womanist defiance.
“Come on, then,” Sorcha nudged, apparently done listing Dani’s character flaws. And so, at a table shared by two different idols, in a room where candlelight and the full moon’s glow twined lazily together, Danika took her friend’s hands and closed the circle.
“You first,” Sorcha whispered.
“Oh, darling, are you certain?”
“Don’t start. I know you’re gagging to invoke something or other.”
Well, yes. In the month since Dani’s last situationship had ended, her vagina had developed cobwebs (the vagina was, unfortunately, prone to dramatics), and this invocation would hopefully end that awful state of affairs.
She took a breath and began. “Hello, Oshun. Hope the twins are well. This month, I have an intention I think you’ll support: I require another fuck buddy.”
Sorcha’s eyes popped open. “Hang on. Is this a good idea?”
“Shut up,” Dani said sternly. “I’m busy.”
Sorcha, being Sorcha, plowed on regardless. “I thought you were still upset about Jo?”
Dani produced a withering glare. “I was never upset about Jo. Getting upset is the sort of pointless, time-consuming emotion I work very hard to avoid.”
“Really.” The word dripped skepticism like the candles around them dripped wax. “Because I could’ve sworn that when she dumped you—”
“She didn’t dump me. We weren’t together, a fact that she wanted to change, while I did not.”
“When she dumped you,” Sorcha continued, because Sorcha was a twat, “you bought a box of cake mix and added an egg and ate the whole thing raw in a big old mixing bowl—”
“I have a sweet tooth,” Dani said coldly, which was absolutely true.
Sorcha sighed. “You do realize it’s not good for a witch to be so out of touch with her own feelings, don’t you?”
“Rubbish. I am entirely in touch with my feelings, thank you very much.”
“Except for the times when you don’t know how to handle someone you slept with falling in love with you, so you go on a Betty Crocker binge.”
“That wasn’t about Josephine,” Dani repeated. “I must’ve been pre-menstrual or something.” Because Danika Brown didn’t mope—or at least, she didn’t mope over interpersonal relationships. Hadn’t since the day she’d walked in on her first love merrily boinking someone else, and never would. Jo wanted romance, and Dani couldn’t think of anything less suited to her skill set, so they’d ended their friendship with benefits and gone their separate ways, and everything was fine.