Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(9)
Chapter Five
Tilda . . .
Barkley is gonna be the death of me.
Other witches have normal pets. My sister Beatrix has a rooster with an attitude and house privileges who loves to sneak into my room and cock-a-doodle-doo me into having a heart attack.
“Bea,” I holler, my heart racing as I yank a towel from the hook because my shampoo is burning a hole in my eye. “Come get this demon spawn!”
Even if I could see with both eyes right now, the bathroom is full of steam hiding the vain bird’s location. That leaves me dripping wet on the amethyst polka-dot bathmat watching out with my one good eye, my hand palm forward, fingers spread like I’m about to lay down the mother of all curses. The sharp click-clack of Barkley’s claws on the tile floor has me girding my naked loins for attack. If this is how I die, slipping on a wet floor while running naked from an evil rooster, I am going to haunt my sister for the rest of her natural life.
Then, with an audible pop and the scent of eucalyptus, all of the steam disappears, revealing Bea with her signature honey-colored hair falling in loose finger waves down to her shoulders, eyepatch, and wild rose lipstick.
“There you are, Barkley baby, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She picks up the rooster, cuddling it as if it wasn’t all sharp claws, a razor-like spur, and a beak made for attempted blindings. “Are you bothering grumpy Matilda again?”
“I’m not grumpy,” I grumble as I wrap my towel around me, tucking the ends above my boobs with my usual hope that this time my tiny boobs will hold it in place.
Spoiler alert: They will not. They never do. However, unlike my sister Juniper, I can sleep on my stomach and pop out to the store without a bra, so there is that.
“Then why are you yelling?” Bea asks between whispering sweet nothings to Barkley.
“Because I was in the middle of a shower”—a very special moment in the shower involving the last man I should be thinking about when utilizing the handheld showerhead at the most toe-curling angle, but I’m not gonna tell my sister that—“when Barkley the Barbarian rushed in flapping his wings and charging toward the shower stall door and scared the ever-loving crap out of me.”
“Barkley, we’ve talked about this. Tilda is a friend, not food.” She nuzzles the stupid bird—did I mention we don’t even have chickens, just Barkley?—and then looks back up at me. “Your face is flush. What were you up to in the shower?”
“None of your business.” Nope. I’m close to all of my sisters, but I’m not about to tell her that I have developed the very bad habit of picturing Gil Connolly while touching myself.
It has gotten bad. I can’t go more than a few hours without thinking about him. Sure, he’s an asshole and destined for my sister, but I can’t stop myself from slipping my fingers beneath the elastic of my panties for some smarmy, know-it-all jerk relief. It’s like some secret part of me I don’t even want to acknowledge—fine, that I most definitely wish didn’t exist—has been unleashed.
He has to have pulled some shit on me at the coffee shop yesterday. If it was a spell, I would know, because the magic detectors would have gone off the moment I walked into the house. It has to be an old-fashioned, nonmagical head fucking that has left me constantly thinking about real fucking. I’d made it twenty-eight years on this earth with a healthy sex drive, but all of a sudden I am craving and obsessed. I kinda like it. Fine. I really like it and the wild feeling that came with it, one that whispered I had more power than I realized.
Yeah right.
Bea snorts. “Like I believe that. You can lie to Juniper, but I always know.” She hopped up and sat on the bathroom counter. “Tell me everything.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” There is so much to tell, but no one I could tell.
Bea sticks out her tongue at me. “You’re no fun.”
I wrinkle my nose and make a snarly face at Barkley. “I wonder why?”
Bea adjusted the black patch over her right eye. “Deep down he loves you.”
Gil? Ha! Not even close to being likely. I’m about to tell her exactly that when I realize she was talking about the rooster, not the jerk of the world destined to be with my sister and who won’t get out of my head.
“Would love to murder me,” I say, hoping against hope that my sister who notices everything missed the fact that I hesitated a few beats too long there.
“By the way, Mom wants to see you in her office.”
A groan of pure misery rises up from the depths of my soul and escapes before I can stop it. “It’s about the coffee shop, isn’t it.”
She shrugs and slips down from the counter still holding tight to Barkley. “Maybe.”
“Bea.”
Beg? Me? Hell yes, I can’t walk into my mom’s office without knowing the damage.
“Fine. Yes.” Bea gives me a supportive smile but—thankfully, since she has Barkley, who is giving me the rooster version of the stink eye—stays on her side of the bathroom. “I overheard her and Dad talking, but I’m sure it’s just that they’re worried about you.”
Yeah, worried I’ll fail them again.
Fifteen minutes later I’ve navigated the nonmagical links set up for me and only me to get from one part of the house to the other. Why would anyone need magic to go from one room to another? Because the Sherwoods are not just old magic, we are also old-school and in the dark days, keeping everyone connected could mean the difference between survival and a long, slow, torturous death at the hands of a bunch of narrow-minded, reactionary jerks who go by the not-too-lame-to-be-creepy-at-all-sounding moniker of the Council. Say it with me, oooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh, scary. Thank God they were defunct now.