“Then why are you staring at me like you just got busted with your hand in the cookie jar?”
Because I just got busted with a full-on erection under nothing but a scrap of silk and if I move too quickly I might sprain something vital…
“I was… wondering what you thought about the grant program. You haven’t said a word.”
She snorts, but it’s not the cute one that comes with her genuine laugh. This one is derisive. Disgusted, almost.
“I was all in until she mentioned Remington Capital.” Violet sets down her paintbrush and sighs. “That’s the bank Brandt’s family runs. They bill themselves as a small-business bank, but they’re impossible to work with. I’ve applied for loans with them in the past—before Brandt and I started dating, I mean. And I always got denied, no explanation given. Plus their credit card rates are ridiculous.”
“Unsurprisingly douchey, but that shouldn’t stop you from applying for a community-based grant.”
“No point. Brandt’s on the voting committee—that’s how these things work. Mayor Singh said it herself—his bank is putting up the cash. He’s not going to pick me.”
Now it’s my turn to snort. “Because you wouldn’t be his date for the ball?”
“That, and the fact thatIwas the one who broke up withhim. He’s never forgiven me. No, not because he ever really cared about me. And no, not because he misses the sex. He was literally theworstat it.”
“Please don’t make me think about him naked, Mushroom. It’s just not good manners.”
“Sorry.” She picks up her brush for another go.
“So you wounded his pride, then. That’s it?”
“Oh, you should’ve heard him. ‘Noonebreaks up with Brandt Remington the Third!Hebreaks up withyou!’ It was at last year’s ball, actually. We’d gone together, but he kept ignoring me for his investor buddies, and then he got super drunk and I overheard him telling them he was just stringing me along for a good time—that I wasn’t really serious girlfriend material.”
“Fucking imbecile.”
“I was basically done with him months earlier—just never worked up the nerve to end it. I didn’t want to hurt him. Well, that was the final straw. So, I pulled him aside and suggested we part ways—permanently—and he lost it. Literally chased me out into the courtyard, ranting and raving like a total idiot, making a huge scene. That’s when Emmie hit him with the powdered donuts.”
“I would’ve paid good money to see that show.”
“It was pretty epic. But now?” She shakes her head. “He’ll definitely vote me out of the running. But not before reveling in the fact that I need to apply for his stupid grant in the first place. He always told me Kettle and Cauldron was a waste of time and resources. Tea isboring—he actually said that to me. Can you believe it?”
“Mushroom, that man wouldn’t know excitement if it crawled up his arse and licked him from the inside out. The fact that you need to apply only proves you’realreadya successful businesswoman. You just need a bit of capital to get to the next level. This isn’t the sort of thing a so-called boring waster of time and resources does for herself.” I put the finishing touch on my mug, then drop the brush into a cup of rinse water. “Mortal life is far too short to let a useless cunt like Remington make you doubt yourself. Pardon the crass term, but it’s fitting.”
“Agreed. Also, mollusk,” she says with an adorable smirk. “In my head, I call him the mollusk.”
“Even more fitting.”
Finished with our masterpieces, we’ve just turned our mugs over to Ricci when we’re surrounded and dragged to the dance floor by a trio of green-faced cackling witches, all dressed in the traditional pointy black hats and the slightlylesstraditional scandalous black dresses.
“Lovely to see you again, Joslyn,” I say, kissing her and the others in turn. “Althea. Lorelei. My word, I’ve never seen such breathtakingly beautiful witches.”
“Stop flirting with me, Devlin.” Joslyn gives my backside a smack, then a firm squeeze—much stronger grip than I gave her credit for, that one. “We’ll make the kids jealous.”
“We’re always jealous of you, Aunt Jos.” This from Emmie, who sweeps into our gathering in an adorable bumblebee costume, followed by two other women—a zombie nurse and a dragonfly, respectively. Finally, last in line, dressed like some sort of goth vampire, which is actually not so far off from her usual attire, my dear friend Olivy.
All of them are staring expectantly at me and Violet.
“Okay, so you’ve already met the aunts and half the sisters.” Violet loops her arm through mine. “But the zombie nurse is my sister Fiona. Darla’s the dragonfly.”
“Ah, the psychic and the writer,” I say. “A pleasure to finally meet you both.”
“You aresooogoing in a book,” Darla says, plucking a pen out of her hair, which Violet quickly steals.
“No, he isn’t.” Violet drops the pen into the bag of a passing trick-or-treater. “Best not to mess with fate on this one, Dar.” Then, to me, “My sister’s stories have a tendency to come true, but not always in the way she writes them.”
“Literary magic leaves a lot open for interpretation,” Darla confirms. “The muse is fickle sometimes.”
