Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(14)

I’m not gonna tell you I took a second to imagine Gil in old-timey-treasure-hunter wear with the hat and whip, but I won’t say I didn’t. It’s not nice to lie to friends, and by this point, that’s totally what we are. Agreed? Good.



* * *



? ? ?

Imagine running into you here,” Gil says, managing to look smug and sexy at the same time.

“We’re the only two regulars,” I shoot back. “You see me every time you’re here.”

He just grins at that.

Ugh.

This man.

It’s so absolutely unfair that someone that smarmy can be so annoyingly attractive.

“So we need to talk about your abilities.”

“Nope.” I start down toward the far end of the stacks toward where my sister’s book is going to be shelved. “I don’t feel like being mocked by you right now or ever. Just leave me alone.”

Am I running? Metaphorically, yes.

And not fast enough, it seems, because he sticks with me, his long legs making easy work of the shorter steps I take.

“You can’t just pretend something isn’t going on when we both know it is,” he says, sounding know-it-all logical in that way only a stuffed shirt can. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you can tell me the truth.”

I pull to a stop, doing my best not to notice that the warm, woodsy way he smells mixes in perfectly with the worn leather of the books and the lingering hint of a buttery saltiness that has me craving a bucket of popcorn. “And you’re in my way. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go get a book.”

Being around Gil messes with my head. Has me thinking about stupid things like bingeing entire seasons of my favorite show with him while we’re both curled up under a blanket. That isn’t going to happen. Even if I messed up the tarot card reading—and let’s face it, the chances of that are pretty high—he wouldn’t be the kind of guy for me even if he didn’t look at me like he is now, as if I’m on a slide under a microscope. Still, he moves aside and I slip past, getting one last sniff in because I’m just a glutton for punishment.

I walk down to the end of the shelf that starts the BIB section and start scanning for Bibbidi, craning my neck and angling my chin higher and higher as my gaze climbs the stacks all the way to the top.

“Crap,” I grumble.

Gil ambles over to where I am as if following me around at the bookshop is the most natural thing in the world for him to do. “Need some help?”

“No, I can do it myself.” All I have to do is go sweet-talk the owner and known curmudgeon Vance into letting me borrow the ladder he keeps in the root cellar.

I can’t keep the grimace off my face, because the last time I had to do that, Vance banished me from the shop for a week for annoying him. What I wouldn’t give for a little levitation magic right about now. Instead, I pull my cell out of my messenger bag and call the bookshop’s main line. Vance answers with a grunt on the seventh ring, which for him is fast. The unicorn shifter is about as friendly as a goblin with a hangover and would rather stab his eye out with his silver horn than willingly interact with his customers.

“Vance, hey there! It’s Tilda.” I put a lot of smile in my voice hoping I’m catching him at a good time. “I can’t reach one of the books.”

He lets out a who-gives-a-fuck snort. “Guess you don’t really need it, then.”

“You know,” I say, trying to channel my inner Izzy Sherwood that has to be inside me somewhere, right? “That’s not exactly what someone would call great customer service.”

“So go write a shitty Yelp review. I’m in the middle of a chapter.” He hangs up and, I’m assuming, goes back to reading his book.

I pocket my phone and look up—way up—to the shelf closest to the ceiling and the copy of Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo and You: A Meditation on Magic that Effie needs. I could skip it, tell her I forgot or something, but she’d realize why I’d failed to bring it home as soon as she saw its location. She’d get it and give me a sympathetic hug and that look that all but screams “poor baby,” and I am so damn tired of being the object of my family’s pity and everyone else’s scorn.

“Sure you don’t want that help?” Gil asks.

I am going to regret this, but it isn’t like I could avoid seeing the smug jerk for the rest of my life if I tried really hard.

“Can you please help me get the book?” I ask, keeping my focus on the leather-bound volume and not the walking dirty-professor fantasy standing next to me.

“Of course,” he says.

But instead of using a spell to bring the book to me, he wraps his arm around me and floats the two of us upward. I would love to report that I am cool as the proverbial cucumber the entire time, but we don’t lie to each other. It’s like an electric sizzle goes through my entire body and I can feel him everywhere. His solid, muscular chest pressed against my back. The soft blow of his breath against my ear. The protective brace of his arm around my waist that makes it impossible to even imagine he could or would drop me. All of that is bad enough, but then there’s an extra blast of something that shoots us higher, like a water balloon out of a slingshot. Gil’s grip tightens and he mumbles something under his breath that slows our ascent. My heart is going a million miles an hour when we stop, floating in the air a few inches too far from the book I need to grab.