Page 26 of Jimmy

The phone rang. Kurt.

He hurried to answer. “Yes.”

“Hey. Good night?”

“It was,” Jimmy said between bites. “It’ll be a good early afternoon when she wakes.”

“She’s still there?” Kurt asked.

“Yeah.” So?

“You never have anyone sleep over.”

“She changed my mind.”

“She did?”

“Yes.” He kept his answers cagey. He wanted to tell Kurt the truth. “What’s the deal?”

“I talked to a friend of mine -- well, she’s more like a… it’s complicated. Anyway, Sarah and Karey are friends, too. They’re part of a group of women who decided to use a spell to cure their love life,” Kurt said. “To find, as Sarah said, hot guys.”

“Karey mentioned the spell.” Was he her version of a hot guy? Seemed like it.

“Did she tell you she has seven days to find you? It seems she didn’t have all the details when she decided they should enact the spell.”

“No.” Did that matter? “What are the details?”

“For one thing, the spell only lasts seven days from when you hook up.”

“What?” Jesus, this spell was complicated.

“I guess you have seven days to find the person, and once you do, then you have seven days to make them love you,” Kurt said. “Something like that.”

“To fall in love?” That tended to be how such things worked.

“Yeah. It seems fast, but what do I know?” Kurt asked. “Anyway, you’d better be smart.”

“Did she say if the spell forces you to love someone?”

“What do you mean?” Kurt asked. “Like you might not love them without it?”

He hesitated, not wanting to admit that truth. “Yeah.”

“I don’t know.”

“Why’d Sarah tell you all this?”

“Because she thinks you and Karey are wrong for each other. It’s a bad-boy thing, I guess. Is that a real thing? Are we bad boys?” Kurt asked.

He groaned. He should be having this conversation with Karey. “Yes.”

“We are?”

“We aren’t wearing suits and in high finance. People see our tattoos and your piercings and think we’re into shady shit.”

“I’m not into shady shit,” Kurt replied.

“Well, they think that.”

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