I turned the key and sat there for a second with both hands on the wheel, trying to ground myself. My palms were warm. The air around the car was charged, and when I flexed my fingers, a little arc of glowing golden magic jumped between my knuckles.
“Okay,” I said aloud. “Okay.”
My magic never felt like this. Full and crackling, like I had finally connected to a powerful source. The plan had worked, and now I realized the plan hadn’t really extended beyond: fuck a stranger, get magic.
No, not a stranger.
Fucking Chase Perez.
I threw the Jeep in reverse, nearly hitting a wagon full of beach toys as I peeled out of the parking lot.
I walkedinto the house to find the TV on some terrible reality show, Lupe nowhere to be seen. I closed the door as quietly as I could, trying to sneak up to my room, when another wave of magic hit me and tossed the ceramic plate we used to catch our keys across the room. It shattered against the wall.
“Selena?”
Lupe popped her head out of the kitchen, took one look at me, and ran at me faster than I had ever seen her move in her life.
“Oh my god.”
“Don’t—”
“You’re glowing, mija.”
“I am not.”
“No, like…you are literally glowing.”
She was right. My hands were still golden, and nothing I did seemed to calm them.
“So you did it? You went through with my plan?—”
“Your plan?”
She grabbed my wrist and turned my hand over like a palm reader. “Oh, you are buzzing. He was good, wasn’t he? I love that for you. What was his name?”
“What’s going on out there?” a friendly, masculine voice called from the kitchen.
Elliot.
Just perfect. Another witness to my slutty, magical escapades.
“Nothing!” I replied, with too much desperation for my liking.
Despite that, Elliot walked out, a giant gallon Ziploc bag of tamales in his hand, and I tucked mine behind my back.
“Selena was just telling me the name of a new friend she made.”
Any woman in the room would have known exactly whatLupe meant when she saidfriendlike that. Thank god Elliot was a man and blissfully ignorant.
“It doesn’t matter.” I tried to sidestep.
“It one hundred percent matters. I was the one who?—”
“Chase Perez,” I blurted, just to get her to stop.
Lupe’s mouth stopped moving.
“Chase—” Elliot was suddenly locked in. “Like, El Tiburón Chase Perez? Like the—the RipTide Chase Perez who is currently?—”
