Page 72 of Strike It Witch

I ignored him and went to answer the door.

“Ronan?”

“Uh, hey.” He blinked, backed up a few steps to give me room to walk all the way out of the garden room. “You look … different.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m not wearing makeup. Don’t make a big deal about it.”

“No, you, uh, you look beaut—unexpected.” He cleared his throat. Tucked his hands into his jeans.

Thwack! The garden room door swung open, smacking into the wall of windows opposite. If the glass panes hadn’t been protected with magic, they would’ve shattered.

Ronan pulled me behind him and glared into the garden room. “What the hell?”

“It’s just Cecil. He has a way of making an entrance.” I circled around Ronan and wagged my finger at the door. “Dial downthe drama a notch.” I glanced over my shoulder at Ronan. “You okay? You look kind of pale.”

“That’s my normal look—my people don’t do well in sunlight. And by my people, I mean bartenders. Also, yes, I’m fine.”

Music poured out of the open door of the garden room. Cecil had cranked the radio volume to ear-splitting. Thankfully, it was a good song.

Ronan sang along with “The Joker” by the Steve Miller Band. When he mimicked the guitar twang solo with his voice, I nearly swooned. It was, after all, the only proper way to sing that part.

“I introduced Cecil to seventies music when he came to live with me,” I said, raising my voice above the volume of the radio. “He still prefers classical and speed metal, but it’s starting to grow on him.”

The gnome poked his head through the doorway and chittered in my direction. Shook his fist.

“What do you mean, where are the orchid bulbs? They’re in the drawer where Fennel and I put them. You were there with us. Buzzed out of your little purple hat on boysenberry wine, but you were there.”

Cecil whipped his head around, his hat twitching right to left. His nose pointed toward Ronan, and he made a production of sniffing the air. Then he spat in the grass, made a rude hand gesture, and stomped his foot.

I smiled brightly. “Cecil said ‘hi.’”

“My ass, he did.” Ronan said. “That gnome has a bad reputation. I can’t believe you let him move in permanently.”

“We understand each other,” I said. “Kind of.”

I went inside and turned down the volume. Cecil pelted my bare legs with small rocks then buried himself in the English lavender planter.

“C’mon, stop pouting,” I said in a sing-song voice. “You can come into the trailer and watch videos with me tonight. We’ll do a garden show marathon.”

A muffled screech was my reply.

Ronan eyed the planter. “He seems upset.”

“I took away his tablet. He likes watching gardening videos, but I can’t trust him with these sorts of devices because he also does bad things when he has access to the internet—and alcohol.”

“Don’t we all?” Ronan murmured. “May I?” He held out a hand for the tablet.

I shrugged, handed it to him.

“Give me the site addresses of the more benign places he likes to visit.”

“There are a few,” I said, and rattled off several.

He made a few deft movements on the screen and handed the tablet back to me. “I installed a parental control lock. Cecil now has to get permission from you to go anywhere on the web except his favorite gardening sites. I’ll give you the password when we’re out of hearing.”

“Huh. A child lock. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you don’t think of Cecil as a child,” Ronan said. “It’s probably the beard. Or the deviancy.”

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