Page 59 of Last Witch Attempt
Was he kidding? “I’ve been on you for months to lower your calorie intake.”
“No, you’ve been trying to take bacon away from me. You never mentioned that I was getting fat.”
“You’re not fat.” He was starting to bug me. “I don’t particularly like when people use the word fat. You’re just softer than you used to be.”
The wounded look on Landon’s face might’ve made me laugh on a different day. “That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
I shook my head and went back to scanning the trees. When we got to Aunt Tillie’s pot field, I hesitated, my eyes flitting between the trail ahead of us and the hidden field to our right. “Want to take a detour?” I asked.
It took Landon a moment to register what I was suggesting. He pursed his lips as he regarded the field. “I guess. You don’t think the monster is hiding in there, do you?”
“Unlikely. I’m unsettled, though.”
Landon forgot his calorie counter—at least for the moment—and put his phone in his pocket. His hand was warm when it landed on my lower back. “Let’s do it.”
Aunt Tillie’s pot field had grown into something bigger and better than I think even she envisioned. Originally, she’d created it to hide what she referred to as her glaucoma medicine. She didn’t have glaucoma, and the field was home to a lot more than marijuana these days. After numerous trials and errors, she’d managed to turn it into an all-around greenhouse of sorts. The temperature remained warm in the winter, so we could enjoy outdoor time even when snow was falling outside the dome.
Not anybody could find it. There were wards. Unfortunately, beings—humans and monsters—had made it past the wards more than once.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Landon asked when we were inside the dome. My gaze was busy as it bounced around the field.
“Talk about what?” I asked, moving forward. I didn’t sense danger. Right before the arachnids hit, my danger alarm hadn’t gone off either. I wanted to be certain. “I’m not worried about your four-and-a-half pack.”
“Stop calling it that,” he warned. “I’m going to be back in top shape in less than a month. Mark it down.”
“Okay, Aunt Tillie.”
“I like working out. I’m good at it.”
“You could do it professionally,” I agreed.
“Do you want to talk about what’s going on with Aunt Tillie?” Landon asked.
I knew he wouldn’t leave it alone. “Sure,” I responded. “What specifically should we talk about?”
“She seems fairly normal to me.” He laughed after he’d said it. “I never thought I would use the word ‘normal’ in conjunction with Aunt Tillie, but I’m not certain why you’re so worked up.”
“Because she’s dead serious when she says she wasn’t at Clove’s place.”
“She’s lying. She does that.”
One of the problems with telling constant lies—something Aunt Tillie did regularly—is that people come to expect it from you. Nobody I knew expected Aunt Tillie to tell the truth. They didn’t even dislike her for the lying. It was simply who she was.
“This feels different. Plus, I saw her face when we mentioned she was on the scooter and the four-wheeler today. She doesn’t remember.”
Landon was quiet a beat. “You don’t know that,” he said. “This could all be a game.” He took my hand and turned me so I had no choice but to look at him. “She’s not going to live forever. I know that. You know that. The idea of losing her is hard. I genuinely don’t think we’re there yet.”
“Something is off, Landon. I feel it.”
He brushed my hair from my face. “Let’s not expect the worst just yet, huh? Let’s take a breath, get some sleep, get a good workout tomorrow morning, and go from there.”
I gave him a narrow-eyed look. “I am not going to the gym at six o’clock tomorrow morning. It’s not happening.”
“Come on, Bay. The couple that works out together, lives forever together.”
I snorted. “You’re not getting up at six o’clock tomorrow morning. Who do you think you’re fooling?”
“Oh, it’s happening. I will have my eight-pack back before you know it.”
