Chapter 38 #2
She won’t think that once I tell her plan B. It’s the only way I can think to attract Dane’s attention. “You know how Calvin and Dane are always competing?”
“Girl.” The word drops like a bomb.
“What if I set it up so they’re competing… over me?”
“Calvin won’t do it.” She makes a ward sign in the air like she’s preventing a curse from befalling me and my stupid plan. “He’ll cut off his left arm before he sets you up with that warlock.”
I grip her hands. “I need you to help me convince him.”
Even though the three of us have been best friends almost our entire lives, Lyric and Cal have always had a different kind of relationship than he and I have had. She once convinced him to go skinny dipping with us in February after I’d tried for three days.
He probably has a crush on her, but I don’t want to broach that subject. Too frequently I feel like their dumpy, ugly third wheel.
Watching them make out? Stab me in the heart with a spoon.
I clasp her hands. “Please, Lyric, he’ll listen to you.”
Her threaded eyebrow rises. “You think I can convince our best friend to be your fake boyfriend, just so you can use him to catch the attention of the man he hates most in the entire world? Ha! That’s beyond stupid.”
“Then make it genius. I need some way to catch Dane’s attention, and he doesn’t pay attention to me as I am.”
She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Listen to yourself. You want a guy who only wants you because of a rivalry? You’re better than that, babe.”
“But if my vision is right, he will break my curse. I’ll do whatever it takes. Cal should realize that helping me earn my freedom is more important than their rivalry.”
“Calvin won’t go for it.” She leans back and takes another sip of her drink. “He cares about you too much to help you set yourself up for heartbreak.”
“So you don’t think Dane can break my curse?”
“I don’t know what breaks your curse, but Calvin won’t put you in a position to get hurt, even for a chance at freeing you from the visions.”
“Calvin must have something he wants—something I can bargain with. What does he need that I can give him in exchange?”
She wrinkles her nose. “He needs a date to his cousin’s wedding.”
My stomach contracts like I ate a rotten cucumber. “The one in San Francisco? The one that means leaving Driftwood Pointe and exposing my magic to the outside world?” Goddess, what happens if I have a vision at the airport?
She taps my nose. “That would be the one. Is Dane worth that?”
I swallow my fear. “If he’s the man to break the curse, then yes.”
She nods toward the door. “Well, here’s your chance.”
Cal stands just inside the entryway, holding the door open for a group of crones headed out for the night. They slow to speak with him. One goes so far as to squeeze his biceps and fans herself as her cheeks flush crimson when he whispers something in her ear.
Cal has that way about him. Kindness and patience roll off him like the glow from a full moon.
Easy on the eyes. Gorgeous in the way German Shepherds steal your attention.
With his dark brown hair—a little too long—sticking out from under his backwards baseball cap and wire rim glasses that add a Clark-Kent-Superman vibe, few breathing females—or males for that matter—are immune to his sex appeal.
Add the firefighter physique poorly hidden under his fitted white T-shirt.
Yep. Nope.
Cal is every woman’s perfect man.
If it weren’t for our friendship and my curse, I’d swallow my tongue trying to have a conversation with him. Thank the Goddess, I remember him as a scraggly middle schooler. It’s enough to unstick my tongue and give me the confidence to be his friend.
He raises a hand to greet Rowan. The bartender nods, and a beer appears on our table. Cal’s gaze fixes on Lyric and me like we’re the only women in the bar. I love that about our friendship. I can always count on him to see me.
Hopefully this request doesn’t sour that.
He flips his chair around backwards and settles into it. “Ladies.” He tastes Lyric’s drink. He knows better than to try mine. “You are both looking fantastic this evening. What’s the occasion?”
“Getting Sienna laid.”
His silver eyes narrow and drop to my lips. “Are we, now?”
I flap my hand in his face. “Don’t give me that look. Goddess knows you go home with enough women. You don’t get to judge me.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a double standard.”
He sets the drink down with a thud. “Why do you need to get laid, JR?”
Lyric nudges my shoulder. “Tell him.”
My cheeks burn. My relationship with Cal doesn’t extend to telling him everything. Especially not my sex dreams.
But if I am going to convince him to help me, he needs to understand that I’ve thought my plan through.
“I had a vision. One of my dream visions. I was having sex. With a man. I couldn’t see his face, but it was intense and his fingers were…
and I was… it was everything and then my orgasm…
” My body shudders with the memory. “Anyway. But then he kissed me—lips and tongue and spit—but I didn’t have a vision.
No kissing curse. I think he breaks it.”