Hex Appeal (The Nate Mistake)

Chapter 1

Jess

The lip gloss burped. Not a polite little ‘excuse me’ burp, but a full-on volcanic hiccup that spat peach-scented glitter across my desk, my spellbook, and my cat-shaped pencil holder.

The glitter didn’t just splatter; it drifted in slow, hectic spirals through the rays of sunlight like tiny stars, sticking to my skin in miniature warm pinpricks, like the air itself was trying to leave a kiss.

Somewhere in the chaos, the cauldron made a faint fizzing noise, the magical equivalent of carbonated soda about to explode. Raven flinched as a sparkle landed on his wing, which he tried to get rid with the disgusted precision of a cat shaking off water.

“Not a good sign,” Raven remarked from the windowsill. He’d perfected the art of a judgmental bird glare; head tilted, black eyes bright, wings tucked like a disapproving mother.

“It’s fine,” I said, jumping up and down and waving away the smoke. “Every spell gets… gassy at this stage.”

“It’s not a spell. It’s an emotional landmine in a tube,” he said. “Love magic never ends well.”

Neither does failing Calc, but, I’m fine with risking that, too. College applications are due in two weeks, and I’ve spent more time researching moonstone powder than actual tuition costs.

My eyes flicked to my laptop. “And it’s not love magic,” I lied, giving the glittery liquid a slow swirl with a charcoal pencil I’d swiped from my love interest’s desk at school. “It’s a gentle romantic push in lip-gloss form.”

He made a noise somewhere between a croak and a sigh. “So, love magic.”

I set the cauldron on a low heat and lined up the ingredients on my desk like soldiers waiting for inspection: moonstone, the dried rose petal, a pinch of gold glitter I’d left under the full moon, and three drops of honey.

I measured out the moonstone powder the way the book said, then tipped in a little extra, just for luck.

The glittering dust swirled like it couldn’t decide which way was up, sticking to the rim of the bowl.

Honey came second, slow and sticky, wrapping everything in sugar, followed by a peach and the dried rose petal from my mom’s old prom corsage.

Magical tradition said objects tied to past romance could nudge feelings in the present.

I crushed it between my fingers, let the dust scatter into the gloss, and whispered the binding charm.

The surface shimmered, pulsing with warm light.

The gold glitter caught the sunlight as I tipped more in—a girl could never have enough sparkle—and watched the tiny stars sinking into the peachy swirl.

I twirled the lip brush between my fingers, then hesitated.

Every love spell I’d ever read said to add something personal.

I wasn’t about to pluck one of Nate’s hairs, that would be creepy.

So, when Raven was busy pruning himself, I yanked one of my own loose strands and dropped it in.

It curled in the mixture, catching flecks of moonstone powder until it gleamed.

“That’s got to make it stronger,” I told myself.

I traced the rim of the cauldron with my wand and whispered,

“Peach for sweetness, rose for fire,

Let warmest wishes now conspire.

Honey bind, and gold alight,

Turn his distant heart my way tonight.”

Three times I said it, each louder than the last, until the gloss sparkled and bubbled in the pot as if it had heard me. A faint warmth rose off the surface, scented with peaches and something sharper, something that felt like a secret.

Magic was part of life in Hallowell Bay, at least for families like mine and Nate Martinez’s.

I’d seen the faint glint of a protection charm under his collar once, the kind you get from a proper witch or warlock household.

Not that we’d ever talked about it. He was the type to keep his spells tucked away like sketches in a closed notebook.

To tourists, our coastal town was just a New England postcard: cobblestone streets, historic storefronts, and salty wind drifting in off the harbour.

To witches, it was one of the anchor points keeping magic in balance.

You could walk down Main Street and smell the cinnamon-vanilla haze from the bakery that, if you knew the right words, sold cupcakes that cured heartbreak.

Souvenir shops sold seashell charms to tourists who thought they were cute knickknacks, never realizing they were low-level wards against storms.

The harbour weather didn’t follow forecasts so much as it obeyed the moon.

Fog might roll in on a clear day just because the tide felt moody.

At the corner, Mrs. Drummond’s thrift shop displayed ‘vintage’ sunglasses that just so happened to keep you from seeing ghosts.

Next door, the fish market swore their catch was always fresh, not mentioning the stasis charms they kept under the ice bins.

Tourists thought it was quaint. Us witches knew better. We passed our magic down through bloodlines, working it through enchanted objects, talismans, and spells. And sometimes, in my case, cosmetics.

The problem? Magic was as temperamental as a cat in a bath, especially when emotions got involved.

Mine weren’t just messy, they were explosive.

I’d been bottling up a crush for years, and the spellbook had a whole page of warnings about casting under extreme emotional duress.

Apparently, longing strong enough to make your heart trip over itself counts as extreme.

Which was why the peachy-gold concoction had a fifty-fifty shot of changing my life or detonating in my face.

The shimmer in the gloss sharpened into something almost too bright to look at.

The rose petal dust swirled faster than it should have, little sparks catching on the glitter like fire on dry leaves.

I frowned; the reaction was stronger than the book’s notes said it should be, but I blamed the extra moonstone powder I’d tossed in for oomph.

Or maybe it was the corsage, Mom had always said her prom night had been… complicated.

“Easy,” I muttered, tapping the cauldron’s rim. The gloss quivered like it wanted to climb out.

Raven leaned forward. “Jessica, stop.”

“I’m fine—”

Pop!

A single perfect glob of gloss shot into the air and landed neatly in the waiting tube on my desk.

I grinned. “See? Nailed it.”

“Or doomed yourself. Time will tell.”

Then another two pops sounded in quick succession, landing on my mirror. I froze, eyeing the cauldron and waiting for the whole potion to blow up, but after a few moments nothing happened, and my breathing returned to normal.

Sliding the cap on, I held it up to the lamplight. The sparkles inside danced like tiny, trapped stars and in the vanity mirror’s corner, the glass shimmered once, faint as breath on cold glass. I didn’t notice. But something else did.

I grinned at the tube. That was it. It was going to work.

I’d finally get Nate, with his dark hair, warm brown eyes, to see me as more than that girl who sits two rows over in English.

I’d known Nate since we were thirteen, and now we were aged eighteen, ready for the real world, and we were still finding new ways to be awkward around each other.

I wasn’t supposed to have a crush on Nate.

We’d been friends too long for it to make sense, the kind of friends who’d spent years trading bad puns over text at two a.m. and rescuing each other from awkward parties.

He was the person I called when my car made a weird noise, or when I needed someone to eat half a pizza with no questions asked because my other best friend, Bianca was always on a diet.

He was also the boy who’d been sketching his way into my daydreams since middle school.

But somewhere along the way, his stupid, lopsided grin stopped looking like just my best friend’s smile and started feeling like trouble and the good kind.

I tucked the gloss into my skirt pocket, ignoring Raven’s low mutter about Council violations and romantic catastrophes.

The Magical Council didn’t need to know about it.

They were the secretive bigwigs who ran the supernatural community, kept magic hidden from mortals, and punished witches for rule-breaking.

My mom worked for them and she’d kill me if she found out.

I checked my reflection in the mirror; vintage cream-and-brown skirt, combat boots, crow necklace, hair in a high ponytail so the glitter in my chocolate brown hair caught the light. Cute and capable and not doomed. Not doomed at all.

For a split second, the mirror glimmered.

The air felt colder. Something dark shifted just behind my reflection, taller, human shaped.

Then, it was gone. The temperature dropped so fast my breath puffed white for half a second.

My image warped, as if the glass had softened under heat, making my face ripple at the edges.

A cold prickling crawled over the back of my neck, and my heart thudded so hard I felt it in my fingertips.

Every instinct screamed not to blink and that if I did, whatever I’d just seen might still be there when my eyes opened.

By the time Bianca’s ancient hatchback pulled into the driveway, my nerves were buzzing.

“Let’s go get your man!” she yelled, leaning across the passenger seat, her pink-and-blue hair wild in the wind.

Bianca was human and the one person I’d ever told about me being a witch, not that my mother knew she knew.

We had been friends for fourteen years and I didn’t want to keep secrets from her.

“Or detention,” Raven muttered from behind me.

I ignored him and climbed in. Tonight, Nate was going to notice me. One swipe of gloss, one kiss, and my life would change.

The school was bustling for the annual Romeo and Juliet production. I didn’t care about the play. I cared about the boy manning the ticket booth.

Nate. Sketchbook at his elbow, dimples flashing as he chatted with some parents.

“The show is about to start. Please take your seats and enjoy this evening’s performance of Romeo and Juliet,” a voice announced over the school’s speakers.

I watched as the corridor emptied, and Nate began locking up the cash box. “Hey, Nate,” I said, stepping up to the table. My hands shook and my heart pounded the same as they always did when he was near.

His gaze flicked to mine. “Jess, hi.” His face broke into a warm smile, his eyes darting away from mine and landing on the table.

My eyes drifted to his open sketchbook. My breath caught. Staring back at me from the page was a girl with long hair, a crow pendant, and a star-shaped beauty mark under her left eye.

“Wait… is that me?”

His cheeks went crimson. He slammed the book shut, sending a stack of tickets tumbling to the floor. Then, he folded it toward him like it was something fragile. He met my eyes, held my gaze, and for a second, the hallway noises fell away.

Nate knelt to pick up the fallen tickets. “I’ll—uh—be right with you.” He called from under the table.

Before I could lose my nerve, I crouched under the tablecloth to help. His fingers brushed mine, warm and clumsy.

“Jess,” he murmured, almost apologetic, like he was about to say something he wasn’t sure how to finish.

My chest tightened.

Now or never.

I whispered the spell’s trigger, “Peach kisses,” and leaned in.

For a handful of heartbeats, it was the kind of kiss that rewrites your day: mint and peach and that faint graphite smell from his sketchbook.

His hands steadied me at the small of my back, careful as if he thought I might break.

The world narrowed until it was just our breathing.

When the sparks hit, it felt like someone had run a thread of static through both of us: bright, painful, beautiful.

Even as I tasted the ghost of the gloss, I wanted to hold onto the way his mouth softened around mine.

Then heat flared, not the good kind of heat and literal sparks shot from my lips to his.

Nate jerked back. “What the hell?”

“I—uh—have to go.” I scrambled up, smacked my head on the table, and bolted, cheeks burning.

At the last second, I glanced over my shoulder. Nate stood in the hall confused, but in the mirror behind him, something dark moved. This time it was smiling at me.