Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(27)
“I said,”—I let out a shaky breath—“what do you want?”
His gaze snaps away from me as if he can’t stand to look at me anymore. “Too many damn things I can’t have.”
“You, me, and everyone else,” I snap back, my skin cold again now that he’s looked away. “That’s called life.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says.
“Oh, piss off.” I take another step forward. We’re so close that if it had been Gil instead of his astral projection, I’d be almost plastered against him, which isn’t possible because you can’t actually touch someone who is body walking. “You’ve been acting like this toward me since you showed up in town.”
His attention lands back on me and the air cracks and sizzles around us. “I have my reasons.”
“Yeah?” I snap back. “Well, they suck.”
Heat and promise and just-fucking-kiss-me-already is whirling around us. It’s almost like the coffee shop again, that floating, fizzy, electric feeling that has me looking up at Gil with my lips parted in anticipation. He can’t, I can’t, we can’t, and yet here we are. My heart is hammering against my ribs, my nipples are so hard a cool breeze would have me halfway to orgasmic bliss, and my core aches for attention. He dips his head. I raise up on my tiptoes. Our lips brush and for one improbable second it’s real, and then on the next his astral projection pops like a soap bubble, and I’m standing at my window making out with the air.
Like a fool.
Again.
Fuck. Me.
Chapter Thirteen
Tilda . . .
One night of tossing and turning later and I’m still all betwixt, bothered, and bewildered by last night and why I can’t seem to get my horniness under control when it comes to Gil Connolly.
It’s not that I don’t have a healthy sex life between my vibrator collection and hookups that are great for orgasms but don’t work for long-term relationships, but this is something different. This is more, and it’s really starting to freak me the fuck out, which means it’s time to do what I do best—avoid confrontation. So rather than spending any time doing a deep dive into what is wrong with me now, it’s time to go to work.
I grab my phone and my social media planner book, and head downstairs to the library, where Effie and my mom are bent over looking at an old leather-bound book, the kind with yellowed pages curling up at the corners, that’s laid out in the middle of a reading table.
I plant myself by the big bay window with the blue velvet seat built into it and plaster on an encouraging smile. “Who’s social media ready?”
Mom shoots me a withering look. The woman would rather be a null like me than willingly participate in one of the family WitchyGram posts. That’s why she ends up being featured in candids only and that’s how things like the viral pic of her making weird faces mid-spell happen. Not that I’m going to tell my mom that. I like being alive.
Effie looks up from the book. “I’ll be your victim, Tillie.”
“Excellent.” Not the nickname part—I am very much not a Tillie—but the willing victim part. “All I need to do is get some video and still shots of whatever you’re doing, and that’ll be it.”
“Well then”—Mom pats her blond topknot, no doubt making sure that not even a single strand of hair will dare to defy her wishes—“I’ll leave you to it.”
With a dramatic sweep of her wide, white linen skirt, she strides out of the room before Effie can rope her into participating, which is pretty much the only way Mom ends up on the family WitchyGram account. Effie and I hold it together until Mom is out of the library, then the second my sister waves her hands to close the double doors, we both break out in a giggle fit. We can’t help it. Mom’s hatred (according to me) or fear (according to Effie) of social media always cracks us up—either way, the result is her avoiding it as much as possible and micromanaging me, the family failure, about what I post.
“The dialect in this book is almost as ridiculous as Mom’s reaction to being on the WitchyGram feed,” Effie says once we get our breath back.
“What’s the book?” I take a peek at the oversized pages complete with intricate drawings of plants and herbs bordering the text.
“Some old book Dad found at Aunt Agatha’s house.”
This was the usual answer when it came to a new-to-us old spell book that found its way into our library. Aunt Agatha lives up near the arctic circle among the reindeer and a free love commune of craft-obsessed elves. Even traveling by magical map would take a solid week, but thanks to the Sherwood house spell, each Sherwood across the globe is connected through the magical strings binding one far-flung home to the other. Rumor is that this connection is what kept the Sherwoods safe in dangerous times by allowing our familial magic to mix and strengthen each other when needed. Now it’s mostly used to cut down on commuting time for family visits.
“Okay, let’s use it,” I say, taking in how the light coming from the stained glass windows between the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that line the walls is bathing Effie in a soft pink glow. “You read as if you’re spell casting.”
She shoots me a disbelieving look. “Without the family cauldron?”