Chick with a Charm (26 page)

He’d had unprotected sex with Lily before she’d told him she was on the pill. What an idiot. And he still wasn’t sure if she’d been straight with him, because after they’d taken Daisy for a run, he’d opted for the first shower and had a chance to check the bathroom cabinets. He’d found a couple of bottles of liquid with strange-sounding labels that had been hand lettered, but no birth control pills. Of course, she could be using something else.

Later, over breakfast, he decided to bring up the subject. Surprise pregnancies weren’t his idea of a good time. At least they weren’t this morning. He vaguely remembered actually relishing the idea of making her pregnant last night, which was crazy. Once a woman was pregnant the options narrowed.

This whole witch thing had him worried, and although he still felt completely bonded with her, he didn’t want to be rushed into anything. Sure, lots of couples decided against getting married right away when they discovered an unexpected pregnancy, but Griffin wasn’t made that way. He would want to marry the mother of his child immediately. And then he’d be married to a witch, or at least that’s what it looked like more and more.

As they munched on bagels slathered with chive cream cheese from the corner market and sipped fresh-brewed coffee from ground whole beans, Griffin wished he didn’t have to bring up a touchy subject. The morning together had been great, congenial. He hadn’t felt a desperate need to have sex with her, probably another sign the salt was working. As a consequence, they’d had several actual conversations.

The mood was mellow, with Daisy snoozing on a bed in the corner of the kitchen and soft music coming from a radio on the kitchen counter. Lily had dressed casually in cropped black sweatpants, running shoes and a lime green V-neck shirt. She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail and she wore very little makeup.

He liked this understated version of Lily almost as much as he liked the potent vixen who worked behind the bar at the Bubbling Cauldron. Today she seemed ready for a relaxed Saturday. Griffin could get used to beginning his weekends like this, but he didn’t want to be forced into domesticity because he found himself accidentally the father of her child.

He took a drink of his coffee, set the mug on the table, started to say something and picked up the mug again. But after another slow sip, he couldn’t put off his questions any longer. Soon she’d have to leave for her parents’ condo.

“You . . . ah . . . said you were on the pill.”

She glanced up, her dark eyes alert. “Last night, you didn’t seem to care one way or the other.”

He acknowledged that with a nod. “I got a little carried away.”

“We both did.” She drained her coffee mug. “But you don’t have to worry about a thing. There’s no danger I’ll end up pregnant.”

He wanted to take her word for it. He really did. But he’d feel a lot better if he’d found a container with the pills in it. “Are you taking that daily kind or something else?”

“Something else.”

“Oh.” Now he was a little lost. He realized there were other options, but he wasn’t completely up on what they were. “I guess there’s a shot or something.”

She laid a hand on his arm. “Griffin, it’s okay. I promise you won’t get a tearful phone call saying the test was positive.”

“I just wondered what you were on, exactly. You know, whether it was safe for you. Some of this experimental stuff makes me nervous.” She obviously was avoiding a discussion of her birth control method, and he couldn’t figure out why. As part of the sexual partnership, he had a right to know, didn’t he?

She gazed at him steadily for several seconds. “Wait here and I’ll go get what I use so you can see it for yourself.”

Okay, maybe she kept the pills in some special place where he wouldn’t have thought to look. All he needed was to see a familiar package, a delivery system he’d recognize. Then he could forget about the issue of pregnancy.

She came back with one of the two bottles he’d seen in the mirrored medicine cabinet. She set it on the table. “I took a tablespoon this morning. It works like a charm.”

A charm.
She would have to use that wording. He picked up the bottle. “It looks homemade.”

“That’s because it is. I brew it up using a special blend of herbs.”

I brew it up.
He couldn’t very well deny the truth now, could he? She was a witch who could make a love potion to bring him into her bed and an antipregnancy potion to prevent any unwanted consequences.

As he held the bottle in his hand, he remembered the thrill of having no-condom sex with her. As long as she took this potion, they could keep up that program. He should be worried about continuing a relationship with a certified witch, but damn, the sex was great.

“Trust me on this, Griffin. You’re off the hook.”

He chose to believe her, because the potion she’d used on him had certainly worked. The bottle was small, though, and what she’d taken this morning had left it only half full.

He held up the bottle. “So can you make more?”

She smiled. “Yes. I can make as much as you want.”

“Then I recommend you make a bathtub full.” He leaned over and gave her a kiss that would have led to more, except that she had to leave, and he had to report back to Kevin as promised. He planned to tell Kevin—nicely, of course—to take a flying leap. Sex with Lily was too good to give up, and if Kevin didn’t understand that, too bad.

Lily usually looked forward to spending time with her parents, but today was an exception. Guaranteed they’d be quizzing her about whether she’d leveled with Griffin yet. She could tell a half-truth and say that Griffin was now aware of her magical abilities. But they would have preferred that she tell him, which she hadn’t.

Plus the whole exercise in choosing items to inherit freaked her out. Her folks could be a trial sometimes, but she didn’t want to think about them not being around to give her a hard time.

Anica arrived before she did, of course. When her dad answered the door, she could hear Anica and her mom talking in the kitchen.

Her dad was dressed in another peasant shirt and loose-fitting pants, but he wasn’t wearing a headdress today. Instead he had on his reading glasses and had stuck a pencil behind his ear. He held a clipboard in his hand. “Come on in.”

“I guess you decided against the headdress for today.”

“Yeah, it gets in the way when I’m working. Which reminds me, should I put you down for the headdress? Anica didn’t sound excited about getting it. I’m taking inventory so we know what we’re talking about.”

Lily walked into the small entryway and turned to him as he closed the door behind her. “Let’s not talk about it at all, okay? You two will be around for a long, long time, and dividing up your stuff now feels creepy.”

Her dad looked at her over the top of his glasses. “It’s not creepy. It’s practical. Your mother and I got to talking during our trip up here, and while we intend to stick around long enough to teach magic to our great-grandchildren, we do travel a lot on commercial airlines. Something could happen that we couldn’t control.”

“Oh, that’s cheery.” Lily took off her backpack and set it by the hall table. “Now I get to worry about you crashing on your way back to Peru.” But mostly she was thinking about his reference to great-grandchildren.

She and Anica would have to be grandparents before that could happen. There was a concept. But at the rate Lily was screwing things up, her sister would be a grand-mother long before Lily took her first walk down the aisle.

“You know me, Lil,” her father said. “I like to anticipate problems and solve them before they come up. Your mother and I have had wills for some time, but we never got around to designating where the little stuff goes.” He walked to a bookshelf crammed with knickknacks from their travels and continued with his list.

“You have wills?”

“Yep. Anica has copies.” He moved a wooden statue of a pig and peered at the carved monkey behind it. “Anyway, I’m sure she’d show them to you or even make you your own copy if you—”

“That’s okay. Now that you mention it, she might have said something about having them. I’d rather not read through those, either, thank you very much.”

Her father glanced at her. “It does you no good to stick your head in the sand. It’s much better to figure these things out in advance, so that when you’re faced with something like the death of a parent, you—”

“Not
listening
.” She stuck her fingers in her ears and began to sing. “La-la-la-la. Do-wa, diddy-diddy-dumdiddy-dum.”

Her dad’s dark eyes, so like hers, began to twinkle. “You look about five when you do that.” He grinned and reached over to tug on her ponytail. “Have it your way, but that means Anica gets to be totally in charge.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t thought about that. “I suppose she’s like the executor or something, huh?”

“She is now, but I think we should talk about that. I’d like to modify the will while we’re home and make you both coexecutors, if you’re up to it. But if you want to plug your ears and pretend you’re a little kid again, then I guess being a coexecutor isn’t for you.”

She had to admit the idea of being on equal footing with Anica for a change had a certain appeal. “Can I think about it and get back to you?”

“Sure. By the way, have you told Griffin about your magical abilities?”

She’d thought about her answer to that question all the way over on the bus. “You know, I was so worried about how he’d take the news, but he seems fine with it.” She’d practiced that sentence several times, and she thought it sounded pretty convincing.

It wasn’t exactly a lie. Even though Griffin had a good idea what was going on, he hadn’t run away screaming. That translated to his being fine with her magic, didn’t it?

“Just so you make sure he really
is
fine with it. Your mom and I like him a lot, Lil. I think you’d be good for each other.”

That comment surprised her. “I can imagine how you think he’d be good for me, but how would I be good for him?”

“You’ll keep him loose. He looks as if he’d have a tendency to be a little too conservative and driven, to the point where he forgets to have fun. I never have to worry about that with you, and that’s a relief.”

She stared at him, blown away by the unexpected compliment. “It is?”

“Sure. See, I have that anal tendency, too.”

Gazing at the neatly lettered items on his notepad, she smiled. “Really?”

He smiled back. “As if you haven’t noticed. But you’ve probably also noticed that your mom makes sure I don’t turn it into a religion. She buys me things like headdresses and Incan ceremonial medallions so I don’t take myself too seriously.”

“So you think I should buy Griffin a headdress?”

He laughed. “Or the equivalent. And for balance, he’d be a steadying influence on you.”

“Aha! You do think I’m too wild.”

“I’m just saying it’s a good combination. I hope it works out for you two.”

That’s when she knew why he’d suggested the coexecutor gig. She’d hooked up with a responsible guy, and her father had taken that as a sign that she was growing up. Hera’s hemorrhoids. If he knew how she’d lassoed Griffin, he’d take back every compliment he’d just given her.

Her web of deception was threatening to strangle her. The urge to confess and break everything wide open was strong, but that would be selfish. Even negative attention was still attention, and Anica deserved center stage this weekend.

Lily decided that she and her dad needed a change of venue. “Let’s go see what Anica and Mom are up to in the kitchen,” she said.

“You go ahead. I want to finish cataloging everything on this bookshelf.” He turned and picked up a particularly ugly carving of a llama.

“That one has Anica’s name written all over it,” Lily said.

“I think you’re right,” he said with complete seriousness. “I’ll make a note.”

A rush of tenderness for her goofy, anal father brought tears to Lily’s eyes. She turned away so he wouldn’t see. How could she tell him what she’d done? How could she ruin his newfound faith in her?

Now she wanted to hold on to Griffin for two reasons—because she was crazy about him, and because her father probably saw in him a vision of the son he’d never had. Yes, using that elixir had been underhanded, but if she hadn’t done that, her father and Griffin would never have gotten to know each other. She had a feeling they could be great friends, and didn’t that count for something?

 

Kevin had insisted on coming over to Griffin’s apartment to strategize, and nothing Griffin could say made any difference. Miles would have been there, too, except that he’d hooked up with the clerk at the natural foods store and they were spending the day at her place.

“Typical,” Kevin said over beer and burgers. “My friends are both getting laid while I, the one with the most outstanding package, sit home alone.”

“At the moment you’re sitting on my couch watching baseball with me,” Griffin pointed out. “But if that’s not exciting enough for you, I can find out if Lily knows any other witches.”

“I almost wish you could, but I don’t think you want to tip your hand and admit you know she’s a witch.”

“I think she knows I know, which makes for some interesting sex.”

Kevin picked up his bottle of beer. “So you’ve said.” He tipped the bottle in Griffin’s direction. “You’ve also admitted to a serious lapse in judgment last night, and I blame that potion she gave you. You’re in dangerous territory, buddy.”

“Yeah, but I think the salt helped. Last night I didn’t know it was a stupid thing to do. This morning I did.”

Kevin swallowed a mouthful of beer and shook his head. “It’s still too close for comfort. I worry that you’ll buy two tickets to Vegas and get married by Elvis.”

Griffin choked on his bite of hamburger.