I shake my head and pour shampoo into my hands. It smells very manly. “How are you doing? Still feeling okay?” I ask him, a pang of worry settling in my stomach as I start to wash my hair.
“Yeah, I’m good. I ate like the biggest steak ever when I got home and then went back for seconds three times, but other than being bloated, I’m right as rain.”
“Is your mom ever going to let you near me again?” I ask, trying to be funny, but it falls flat.
“I mean, I’m pretty sure she’s never going to let me out of her sight again, so as long as you’re cool with her tagging along to the bars and shit, we should be good,” he teases, and I smile, feeling a little lighter.
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse, I tried to go out tonight, just to make sure my gaydar is fully operational, and the woman almost had a conniption. She practically turned purple with outrage. I tried to take a picture, but she attacked too fast. Hey, speaking of pictures, Ma wants to know if you want a calendar, coasters, or just a hoodie of Magda and Gwen getting their comeuppance?”
I crack up. Just the image of Tad trying to take a picture of a pissed off Aunt Hillen and then her finding all the swag to put Magda’s picture on is enough to chase my worries away.
“Probably just some coasters, oh and maybe a fridge magnet or, like, a keychain if she can find them,” I tell him through a fit of giggles. “Any word about Magda?”
“Only that she was going into surgery, and the rest of the family is dead to her. Pretty sure there was something about her not having earthquake coverage and expensive repairs too, but Ma stopped listening to the voicemail about a minute in, and I have no idea what any of that means. Magda’s probably drugged out of her gourd.”
I snicker and rinse the suds from my hair. “Probably.”
“So, how’s your Death Eater?” Tad asks, king of the nonsensical segue.
“First of all, there’s nomyanything, and second of all, that’s not happening,” I inform him as I start to work conditioner through my hair.
“You’re a disgrace, Lennox! You have to ride that for posterity’s sake. I mean, even if you don’t end up happily ever after, you’ll be able to look back on those orgasms with fondness. Treat yo self, Leni!”
I shake my head, but I can’t help but laugh at his antics. “I admit that he’s hot, fuck, even Helen Keller could see that much. And yes, he’s probably packin’, not that I’ve looked,” I quickly insert. “But you know how weird I am about trust and intimacy. Like, I at least have to know someone and think they’re a good person before I get all up on that dick,” I remind him.
“I am aware of your deficiencies,” Tad states sweetly.
“So that’s where we run into an issue. I don’t know if I can trust this guy. And it’s not just because he walked into the shop and made me his familiar, there’s something else there. I know I need to help him, so I am, but really trust him...yeah, I don’t see that happening.”
“Wait. He what?” Tad practically shouts into the phone. I stop finger-combing my snarls and look over at the phone on the counter.Shit.I forgot I hadn’t told him that part yet.
“Yeah, he made me his familiar,” I hurriedly repeat. “Don’t worry, I did it back to him too, so we’re kinda even, but needless to say, we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot.”
“You two are fuckingtethered?” Tad screeches out, and my mouth drops open in shock.
“How the hell do you even know what that is?” I demand.
“Fuck, Lennox, how do you not know...never mind, I know how you don’t know, but like, this is really messed up, Leni. That’s some serious level shit, and you two need to undo that right the fuck now.”
“We are. We’re supposed to go get it sorted tomorrow after we check out his brother’s house. But tell me what you know and how the hell you know it. I didn’t find anything about this in the book Grammy gave us growing up.”
“It’s not in the books. You might find stuff about it in the grimoire, I don’t know, but I didn’t learn this from Grammy, I learned it in Magics Anonymous.”
“Are you for real right now? There’s a Magics Anonymous?” I question, completely flabbergasted.
“It has a nerdier name than that, that’s just what I call it, but it’s for people who know about the magical community but aren’t really a part of it. People who aremagical adjacentif you will,” he declares with a posh English accent for emphasis.
“Anyway, there’s this girl in there, and she was talking about how her bloodline used to have magic until it got fucked up. Apparently, some distant relatives tethered their magic because of true love or some bullshit. Everything was fine until the missus discovered that her mister had a wandering cock, and she immediately severed the bond.
“Now before you go rooting for her and screamingfuck the patriarchy, here’s were shit got fucked up. Because their magic was tethered for a really long time, it became dependent on the other person’s branch in order to work properly. They no longer had two separate branches of magic, now they had one, and it would only work if they were together.”
“Holy shit,” I whisper as I stare through the glass doors of the shower at the phone, as though I can stem the flow of words coming out of it and make them untrue.
“Exactly,” Tad agrees. “This girl’s ancestor refused to tether the magic again, and it destroyed the line. Each generation since has a small amount of ability, but not enough to make them a full-blown witch.”
“Rogan and I have only been linked for less than a day, though. That couple was married for a while, right?” I ask him, my tone practically pleading for some sign of hope.
