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FOURTEEN
"Alethea? Oh, hey!"
Just hearing Tacey's voice made her feel a bit better about everything.
"One sec, I'll put you on speaker so I don't have to repeat everything for Callie."
Too bad if Alethea wanted to talk to Tacey privately. Not that she could remember the last time she'd done that. There were no secrets in Bell House. Well, not from the other girls who lived there, anyway, even if they did keep secrets from the rest of the world outside.
"Right. Callie's just getting a drink, but she wants to know how many condoms you used on your date the other night, and whether you remembered to get the good ones."
Alethea closed her eyes. Yep, that was Callie all right. "I didn't use any. I still have a full box."
"What? He was that good you want to have his babies?" Callie shrieked from somewhere in the background.
"No. There was no sex, safe or otherwise. I left early."
"Oh shit. What'd he do?" Tacey asked. "Tell me the dinner was good, at least."
Alethia swallowed. "I left before we ordered."
"Did he smell bad?"
"Was he a jerk?"
Alethia sighed. "He sounded like Justin Bieber."
Hysterical laughter came down the line.
Tacey recovered first. "You know, there are probably a lot of girls out there who'd find that attractive."
"Yeah, but she wants a guy with a voice like a phone sex operator. All deep and growly and...what was it you said when Octavia was here? That he had to have a voice that could get you halfway to heaven? More like so devilishly sexy he could persuade you to be his mistress in hell!" Callie dissolved into laughter again.
"So what if I have a thing for dark, sexy voices? It's the one thing I won't compromise on. The problem with this guy wasn't just his voice, though. It was what he was saying."
"What did he say?" Tacey asked.
"He said I was his soul mate and he was talking about having kids." Like poor little Mary Craig.
"Well, that's...not so bad, I guess. At least he's not afraid of commitment." Tacey didn't sound like she believed it, though.
"Not so bad if I was interested, but I left. Now I see him everywhere I go. He even showed up outside the dig site where I work!"
"Wait...now Justin Bieber is stalking you? I am so going to curse him!" Callie said.
"He's not Justin Bieber. He just sort of sounds like him. And you can't curse him." Mostly because curses didn't actually exist, no matter how many times Callie threatened people with them. Oh, she had a collection of old books on witchcraft that said how to cast curses, but Callie was usually the first person to admit magic didn't exist. Well, except when she was threatening to curse some guy, of course.
"If it scares off your stalker, you bet I can. All I have to do is make him believe I can, and he'll run far and fast. Remember that possessive guy I dated once, who thought we were forever when he was so just a one night stand? He believed I'd given him a horrible, incurable rash."
"Was that the one where you put cayenne pepper in his underpants?" Tacey asked.
"A good witch never reveals her ingredients, but that might have been one of them," Callie said loftily.
"More like the only ingredient," Tacey muttered.
"Hey, you can't talk. Business is booming at your café because of a hoax Moth Man that's been making my work life hell! Do you know how many theology professors believe your creature not only exists, but is some hitherto undiscovered kind of demon, and if they can only write enough papers on it, they'll have enough funding to see them into retirement?"
Even Tacey and Callie bickering helped lift Alethia's spirits. "I wish you girls were here."
"Well, we should be. I know! Next girls' night, we can all come to your place. Let's see...Mum wants to have Rory over for a sleepover in a couple of weeks, and Octavia will be back then, too."
"Where is Octavia?" Alethia asked.
"Doing a fly-in-fly-out IT support job up north at some mine site. She left this morning. As soon as she's back, we'll descend on your place, and between the four of us, we'll find a way to scare your stalker off for good, okay?"
"Okay." Alethia could hardly refuse. Besides, it had been ages since they'd had a girls' night, what with the restrictions and all. She just had to hang on until then.
