AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He turns it over to examine its cover, which shows a tiny blond girl, eerily similar to an eight-year-old me.
“That’s disturbingly accurate.” I take the book from his hands and shove it back on the shelf. “But I need at least fourteen steps to cover all of my daddy issues. We better skip to your turn.” I close my eyes and let my fingers roam over the shelves, just as Dax did a moment ago, until I feel a sudden urge to stop. “What book will solve all Daxon McGuire’s problems?” I blindly pull a large hardcover from the shelf. As I hold it up, my eyes skim the title. My cheeks heat as I realize my fuckup.
“101 Mind-Blowing Tantric Sex Positions.” Dax’s eyebrows lift as he reads the title.
Dax and I rarely talk about our sex lives. We make jokes about sex, in the general sense. But in the world of Dax and Gemma, real talk on the subject is taboo.
“Interesting choice. Maybe we should…” His voice trails off as he takes the book from my hands.
For a split second, I interpret the ending as a “Maybe we should try out position forty-three? Or maybe a twenty-seven if you’re up for it?”
I can actually feel the sensation of my blood draining from my face as the image of a naked, sweaty Dax flashes in my vision.
Until Dax places the book back in its spot and nods at something over my shoulder. “Head back? I think your aunt found the book.”
He holds out his hand as if to say,After you, Gemma.I’m grateful that I am able to turn my back because I’m worried he’ll read my expression and clue in to the entire scene that just happened in my head. He has the tendency to do that. Figure me out when I’m still unsure of my own thoughts.
When we exit the book maze, Aunt Livi is in fact standing next to the cash counter with a large, brown leather book cradled in her hands.
“I was skimming this in between customers today, and I think it has exactly what you need.”
I join her at the counter, where she sets the book down in front of me.Practical Magic: A Complete Guide for the Modern Mysticis clearly not a self-help book. Its pages are yellowed with age, and the writing looks handwritten, as if the book was once a journal. At the top of the open page, written in loopy blue letters, are the wordsLove Cleanse.
“Is that a recipe?” Kiersten’s boobs press against my back as she leans forward to get a closer look, her strawberry-blond hair falling on my shoulder.
“To cut the cord of the one who has wronged you,” she reads, “follow these simple steps—oh, hell no.” Kiersten pushes the book away. “I’m already getting bad vibes from that thing. I’ve watched enough Harry Potter movies to know nothing good ever comes from reading aloud from a creepy old book.”
“Oh, come on,” Aunt Livi chides, “it’s just for fun.”
The floorboards creak as Dax crosses the room to join us. He reaches for the book, rubbing its aging yellow pages between the tips of his thumb and index finger, the comforting scent of his soap filling my nose.
“What do you think, Dax? If things go sideways, are you up for hiding a body tonight? I think it’s worth the risk to rid Stuart from my life.”
Dax’s eyes skim the page. “I knew there was a reason I keep a shovel in my trunk.”
Aunt Livi takes Dax’s comment as consent and rips the book from my hands, barking orders to the three of us.
She sends Kiersten off in search of her old knitting bag, sincethis cord-cutting spell is not entirely metaphorical, and orders a reluctant Dax back up to the apartment kitchen to seek out chicken feet.
“Gemma, love,” she says to me. “Fetch me a candle.”
I search the cramped drawer under the cash register where she stores anything that doesn’t have a proper place in her store, then hold up the two best options.
“I would have thought you’d have a better stash of creepy candles, but it looks like you only have a birthday candle or one of those battery-powered ones you stick in the window at Christmas.”
Her brow furrows as her eyes flick from my hands to the scrawled directions on the page in front of her. “We need an actual fire.”
I close the junk drawer with my hip. “Birthday candle it is.”
“Daxon,” she calls out loudly. “Where are we at with the chicken feet?”
Dax comes down the stairs a moment later, holding a red-topped Tupperware container. “I have secured jerk chicken thighs. Not exactly what you asked for, but the best we’re gonna get tonight.”
She takes the container from his hands and sets it down on the cash counter in front of her before beckoning me to take a seat at the barstool she keeps for customers who come to chitchat.
Kiersten emerges from Aunt Livi’s back office with a ball of hot-pink yarn, which she hands to Aunt Livi as she reads aloud from the book.
“Once lovers, now enemies,
