Page 8 of All My Witches
“I’ll get right on that.” Landon prodded me to sit in the open chair next to him, grabbing my hand and tracing his fingers over my palm. “Bay, I’m serious about this Brian Kelly situation. Maybe you should let me talk tohim.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Aunt Tillie didn’t give me achance.
“Bay will handle her own issues with Brian Kelly. You don’t always need to swoop in. She’s perfectly capable of taking care ofherself.”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t,” Landon countered. “I’m just … worried. He’s getting progressively worse and he seems a bitunbalanced.”
“And not in a fun way, like you, Aunt Tillie,” Thistle added,grinning.
“You’re definitely on my list,” Aunt Tilliewarned.
“I’ll talk to him,” Landon announced. He was clearly ignoring the other conversations bouncing around the room. “He needs a goodwarning.”
“If you were in a soap opera, you’d throw a drink in his face and slap him around right about now,” Aunt Tillie said. “That would be a lot more fun than whatever you’replanning.”
“Yes, well, we don’t live in a soap opera,” Landon said. “I know it feels as if we do sometimes, but wedon’t.”
“Think about how much fun it would be if we did, though.” Aunt Tillie’s eyes momentarily sparkled, but she remembered where she was and quickly turned dour again when facing off with Thistle. “I would make you the person trapped in a well for months if this were a soapopera.”
“And I would make you the person locked in a basement,” Thistle fired back. “Our lives are close enough to soap operas. We don’t need to make thingsworse.”
She had a point. “So … who wants to start drinking before dinner?” I asked, hoping to change thesubject.
A bevy of hands shot into the air, including ChiefTerry’s.
“What?” he protested. “I can already see how this night is going to go. I want to numb myselfappropriately.”
He wasn’t the only one. “Let’s start with chocolate martinis and go fromthere.”
“Now that sounds like a good idea,” Landon enthused. “Now if only you smelled like chili while drinking your chocolate martini, all would be right in myworld.”
* * *
What kindof city has one serial killer, one mobster, one deranged doctor without a medical license running the hospital, the ancestor of a woman who wanted to freeze the world living on a nearby island named after a kitchen utensil, and a spy organization that doesn’t handle any of these things? Seriously, I want to start my own crime ring and movethere.
– Aunt Tillie on soap law enforcementstrategies
Three
Iwould liketo say that we turned in early and drank only a respectable amount of liquor before realizing we didn’t need alcohol to have a goodtime.
That’s simply not how weroll.
We drank until things turned silly. Landon even decided we needed to try our hand at ballroom dancing at one point, spinning me around the lobby until we both laughed so hard I thought there was a chance we might wetourselves.
Thistle and Aunt Tillie got into a spirited debate about soap operas, Aunt Tillie singing their merits while Thistle explained the absurdity of the genre. When Aunt Tillie wouldn’t agree, Thistle gave up and started barking at her whenever our elderly great-aunt spoke. That, of course, set Aunt Tillie’s teeth on edge and she started threateningcurses.
I lost track of the conversation somewhere – probably when we started dancing – and by the time we found our way to our bedroom on the second floor it was midnight and we knew we were in for a rotten morning thanks to what was sure to be some rough hangovers. We would be snowed in, so we weren’t too worried aboutit.
I woke with a start, the sunlight filtering through the window. I had a headache the size of the chip on Thistle’s shoulder and I instantly reached for the bottle of aspirin I distinctly remembered leaving on the nightstand. It wasn’t there. In fact, the nightstand in question didn’t resemble the antique one I was sure I’d spied the eveningbefore.
“Landon?” My tongue was thick, my throatdry.
Landon didn’t move. “Shh.”
I thought about letting him sleep. He was crabby when he had a hangover. Heck, we both were. Still, something was definitely wrong. I didn’t think there was any way to save him from it, so letting him escape in slumber was a wasted effort. Plus, well, I didn’t want to deal with italone.
What? I have a hangover. I can’t be giving and selfless when I feel as if there’s an alien inside my brain and it’s knocking really loudly in an attempt to escape. It’s simplyimpossible.
