Concentrating on my own warm-up, I’m doing fine until she bends down to touch her toes, and I get an eyeful of cleavage as a multi-colored stone attached to a platinum chain pops out from between her breasts.This is going to be a long afternoon.
“What’s that?” I ask, nodding at the half-dollar sized stone hanging loose around her neck.
“Shit!” She groans, then stands up straight. “This wasn’t on purpose. With everything happening, I honestly forgot to tell you guys.”
“Okay. What is it?” I question again.
She looks past me to where the mini fridge, towels, and music dock are at. “Can I use your phone? I left mine upstairs.”
“Depends. Are you going to tell me what’s up with the necklace?” I reply, already moving to get my phone from the dock.
“Yes,” she answers impatiently, following right behind me. “I just want to do it all at once. I’m starting to think I need to keep a list of crap that happens to me and make a daily newsletter.”
Chuckling, I unlock my phone and hand it to her.
She snickers when she sees my phone’s background. “A sword, really?”
“That’s not just any sword,” I explain, moving so I can look over her shoulder. “It’s akatanamade by Goro Nyudo Masamune. He’s considered Japan’s greatest swordsmith of all time. There’s literally a swordsmith competition that has the Masamune Prize, but it’s not awarded every year. The quality has to be good enough to earn it.”
Callie smiles up at me, and strands of her thick blonde hair brush against my chest. “It’s cute to see you geeking out over something.”
“Puppies are cute. I’m not cute,” I counter with a hard squint, “and I have an appreciation for quality work, even if it’s made by a human.”
“I stand corrected,” she chuckles, then brings up the camera app.
Holding out the necklace so the stone is clearly visible, she snaps a picture of herself-- that doesn’t have all of her face but does have all of her chest.Fuck me.
Quickly, she pulls up our group texts and types:
This is Callie. I forgot my phone upstairs. My aunt gave me a family heirloom that’s supposed to help keep me from blowing up the town. Filters excess magic. Now you all know.
Then she attaches the picture she took.
Thankfully, I deleted all the pictures girls have texted me. Originally, it was so Kaleb’s mom, Keziah, didn’t find them, but it’s paying off twice over now. I don’t want to think about why I care if she finds pictures of other girls on my phone, because it’ll lead to nothing good.
It’s not long before there are responses from Nolan and Kaleb.
Nolan:What a lovely looking heirloom. Practical and fashionable.
My ass. I bet if I ask him, he won’t be able to come up with a single description of that necklace past it’s blocking the view of her chest.
Kaleb:Fascinating. Sometime in the future, could we have a moment to discuss the properties of the necklace? I’m interested to know more about it and how it works.
And he probably didn’t notice there were breasts in the picture. He needs to get laid.
Callie turns so she’s facing me again and hands me back my phone. “Thanks. I didn’t want this morning to happen again. I meant what I said on Saturday that I want you guys to know everything. If I don’t tell you something about all of this witchy stuff, it’s because I forgot, not that I’m keeping it from you, okay?”
“Sure,” I answer, stepping away to put more distance between us under the guise of placing my phone back into the dock. The room fills with the music of our workout playlist. “Anything else you forgot to share?”
“Crap,” she mutters, wincing.
Leaning my hip against the fridge, I cross my arms over my chest and stare at her, letting the silence between us say all that I need to.
She sighs, pulling out her ponytail to fix it. “It’s more of an elaboration than actually anything new.”
“This should be good,” I reply, a smirk pulling at my lips, and not paying attention to her tucking the necklace back into her top.
I expect something about the binding spell or the Council, not…
