Page 12 of Hexes From Exes

“And this guy?” Cass asked.

Rick sighed - no use trying to protect the idiot now. “His name is Chad. He was with a group of 4 other men. They were in some living room with candles and a pentagram and shit.”

Cass snorted a laugh. “A pentagram? Dramatic.”

“It was,” Rick said with a small smile. Maybe he could be friends with Cass? This easy conversation was what he missed most about her - he couldn’t talk like this with anyone else. Well, maybe Zed, but Zed couldn’t take anything seriously. Maybe they’d fall into an easy friendship, and she’d see what she was missing, and they could get back together.

“Well, I’ll take this information to the lead investigator on Poppy. They’ll be interested to hear what she’s been up to.” Cass was walking away - now was his chance.

“Hey Cass,” he said, reaching out to stop her from leaving. She paused, her gaze flickering to his hand on her arm. “Did you want to get dinner tonight, maybe at that place…”

The look on her face made the words freeze on his lips and remove his hand from her arm. “Rick, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she started, looking pained.

To Rick’s immense relief the communicator buzzed in his pocket with a message. He pulled it out, relieved to see a message from Stephanie. “It’s fine, duty calls,” he said, holding the communicator awkwardly in his hand. “Some other time,” he said, turning away from her and speed walking toward the portal, his head bowed against his chest.

Chapter Six

Stephanie tried to be subtle about the fact that she was endlessly fretting with the edges of the skirt on her dress, acting like she was using it to adjust a wrinkle and not trying to fan her inner thighs. The Phoenix heat barely dropped 10 degrees when the sun went down. Even at 8pm with the misting system on the patio of the bar and restaurant The Grotto she felt like she was sweating a small river. Waving her dress helped to circulate some air across her lower body but did nothing about the sweat everywhere else.

The hostess wouldn’t seat her until her whole party was there - she knew this. The Grotto was really strict about their reservation system, and there was no way she was going to get a seat inside until her date arrived. He was - she checked her phone - now thirty minutes late.

Of the five she’d messaged only two responded. Diego and Frank. The rest of the guys either had new numbers or left her on read. She supposed if she wanted to, she could find them on social media, but she’d let it ride for now. She only needed to prove that the exes that were part of the curse were in the wrong, which may prove to be hard if she didn’t know who they were. Maybe she’d get a clue from the stoic demon, get him drunk or something.

Did demons drink?

She shook away the thought as she caught sight of Frank strolling up the walkway toward The Grotto. She waved to catch his attention, which he acknowledged with a mild tilt of his head.

“Hey, girlie,” he said, going in for a kiss that she diverted last minute, turning it into an awkward hug/kiss on the cheek.

“Hey, Frank,” Stephanie greeted, waiting for him to apologize for being half an hour late.

He said nothing.

The hostess gave Frank a once over before leading them to their table, blissfully inside with air conditioning. Stephanie understood the hostess’ look. Frank was conventionally attractive and usually overdressed. Scottsdale was home to its share of the wealthy, but they usually didn’t dress to the nines like Frank did. It was well over 100 degrees, and he was wearing a blazer with matching slacks, expensive leather boots and a white button up shirt with the top 5 buttons unbuttoned. He had an unmoving, botoxed forehead and salt and pepper hair that Stephanie knew he dyed with grey to make him look more distinguished. He was barely 34, and it was over the top.

Frank settled across from her at the table and pulled out the menu. The waitress appeared moments later to take their drink order. “Well, aren’t you cute,” Frank said to the waitress, who gave a polite smile. She barely looked old enough to serve alcohol, and with Frank’s attempts to look simultaneously older and younger it just added to his creep factor. “I’ll have a negroni spagliatto, with prescecco,” he said with a wink.

Stephanie rolled her eyes behind the menu, catching the waitress suppressing a laugh. “And you?” the waitress turned to Stephanie. “A glass of rosé, please. The house is fine.” Once alone, Stephanie turned to Frank. “So, how are you? How’s work?”

It was a mistake, one that she forgot from their two previous dates.

Frank made it on her list because of the nature of how they met and also how they separated. Before Eternal Beauty Systems got really big, Stephanie spent a lot of time at conventions trying to get a handle on marketing. She had the startup funds and the general knowledge of what she wanted but trying to build the empire was outside of her scope of understanding. These networking events helped both with the general knowledge from the speakers and through meeting others in the business.

Frank was in the business… kinda.

Frank’s father was the owner of at least a hundred random businesses, one of which he was always trying to get Frank to take over. It wasn’t until the trust fund was threatened that Frank rose to the challenge and accepted one of the smaller subsets of his father’s company – skincare and makeup. Frank wanted to recruit a certain scientist at one of the meetings.

He didn’t.

The scientist still worked for Stephanie.

Frank was livid.

Frank launched into a detailed description of his current business. He’d dropped the skincare line and was focusing exclusively on makeup, specifically high pigment eyeliners and eyeshadows. He went on - in excruciating detail - about each and every product as if Stephanie didn’t run a successful company herself.

“We’re currently working on a line tailored to the Zodiac signs,” he said. By now they’d breezed through salads and the main course, and Stephanie had yet to utter a sentence longer than three words. She would have - if he’d let her - mentioned that the Zodiac trend was starting to phase out. They’d released a few highlighters and shadow palettes years ago, but market research told them the trend was tapering out.

“Wow,” Stephanie allowed. She was on her third glass of wine and feeling the start of a good buzz, which was honestly the only way she could suffer through any more time with Frank.