“I still need to figure out that last ingredient to the potion that should cure the neighbor’s cough, and hopefully it will turn out better than this enlargement spell, if I can just control myself, but it’s so dang exciting to create new stuff and I know I’m a good witch—wait, no, I’m a great witch!—just a little enthusiastic is all, like with these boobs, and, really, everyone needs to get over their stupid fears because I like Alexis and the rest of them.”
“So what are you doing this weekend?” she asked without a break in the conversation—that’s how fast she processed all those thoughts.
I pulled completely out of her head, my own spinning. “Going out of town, I think. My mom’s coming, though, so plans might change.”
“Yeah, I know.” She chewed on her lip as she looked out the window. “She’s coming to investigate me.”
So she’s honest.
“I got a little excited with my experiment and ended up with these.” Returning her gaze to me, she smushed her breasts together with her hands. “I didn’t mean to. I was pretty happy with my girls before, actually. Now they’re way too big. They get in the way all the time, and it’s impossible to find cute tops that fit right. But Eduardo—he’s the vamp who owns the coffee shop on Captiva—likes them, so maybe it’ll be worth it. He’s really yummy. You’ll get to meet him sometime.”
“Yeah . . . sometime.” If the natives ever let us come into town.
“Of course, you have Tristan. Major yummy. I think it’s so sweet that you’re real soul-mates, a match made by the Angels. I wish they’d do something for me.” She sighed wistfully.
I picked up our cake plates and took them over to the sink, debating whether to mention Owen, but I wasn’t sure how interested he was in Blossom. Not my business. It’ll happen if it’s meant to.
She asked me for some pointers for dealing with Mom and Char, and I told her to be truthful, because Mom would know anyway. Then she chatted about how exciting it was to meet all of us, especially two Amadis daughters . . . and ranted on about several other things, too.
“So where are you going this weekend?” she asked, coming full circle.
“Um . . . I’m not sure. Either Daytona or a bike ride to Lake Okeechobee.” I wasn’t exactly lying—Tristan still hadn’t decided if we would visit the witch coven in Daytona or the Okeechobee wolf pack first—but it wasn’t the full truth, either. I wanted to trust her, but I didn’t know yet. Trust never came easily to me, not since I was a kid and people hurt me one too many times. And right now, I wasn’t sure I could trust my own mother, let alone some witch I’d just met. She was probably safer not knowing, anyway.
“Well, I hope you can go,” she said. “I’m from Daytona, and it’s always a lot of fun. And Okeechobee must mean a shifter bike rally, which can be a blast. And you look like you could use some fun.”
“I hope we can go, too, but I don’t know how much fun it’ll be,” I muttered.
“Oh, it will be, especially if you go to the bike rally. Wait, maybe not—there’s a full moon this weekend. That wouldn’t be good. You should go to Daytona.”
“Ah, dude, I missed Blossom,” Owen said, eyeing the cake as soon as he, Tristan and Dorian walked through the door. I shooed Dorian back outside to clean the sand off his feet.
“Sure did, by about fifteen minutes.” I retrieved more dessert plates. “I don’t think you’re her type, though. She seems to prefer the dark and quiet type. You know, dark hair, dark eyes . . . undead.”
“Ew. She’s a vamp-tramp?”
“A what?”
“A vamp-tramp . . . someone who’s not a vamp but likes to do them. It’s disgusting.” Owen shuddered, then he shook his head.
“That’s rude.”
He pulled a face. “But they’re dead. It’s gross. Ah, well. She’s too thin and too . . . uh . . . endowed for my liking, anyway. And then there’s that mole on her cheek and how fast she talks and . . .”
I stared at him for a minute as he rattled off a few more of Blossom’s “faults” and then shook my head. No wonder he was still single—Owen was incredibly picky. And half the things he listed were turn-ons