This wasn’t even Effie’s firstKarate Kidreference. For a supernatural being that would live nearly forever, Effie sure loved movies from the Eighties. If it wasn’t Karate Kid, she was quoting lines fromThe GooniesorDirty Dancingin her lessons.
“That is beside the point, Daph. I’m trying to get you tofocus,” the tree nymph insisted before she shot me a mischievous smile. “You know, I bet the reason you can’t focus is thanks to a certain tall, stony drink of water.”
I frowned at her, wanting to deny her words but knowing that would be a lie.
Truthfully, there wasn’t much to report on that front. Ever since that day at the shop, our kissing had grown hotter and hotter… and yet we hadn’t gone any further than that.
Wendy and the other girls used to talk about being sexually frustrated during our college days, but I’d never understood it.
But now I most definitely did.
Every time things got too heavy, Cash pulled away or stopped just before taking things to the next level. It made me want to scream and pull my hair out.
I couldn’t even be angry with him about it. He was an annoyingly good communicator and had made it clear that he was waiting for the equinox.
Never before had I so actively wanted to have sex with another person. It had always been another one of my chores on an already long list. But now I was stuck daydreaming about it more often than I cared to admit.
Effie snapped her purple fingers in front of my eyes. “Yo, Earth to Daphne,” she said, eyeballing me. “Gosh, I don’t even have to mention his name and you go all doe-eyed.”
My face flushed hot. “Sorry,” I apologized sheepishly.
“Just try to focus, think of me as your Yoda and you are my padawan. When you squint, I want you to imagine the shimmering of the magic parting like curtains,” she said, clearly pleased with herStar Warsreference.
“I think I preferKarate Kid,” I muttered under my breath.
“Focus,” Effie repeated.
Huffing a sigh, I looked at her again. She was still purple, but it was easy enough now to pick out the edges of the glamour. It shimmered around her like a glowing heatwave.
Just think of it like opening a curtain, I told myself silently and tried to imagine it.
Effie’s body shimmered for just a split second, the purple draining out of her skin and hair to reveal their normal green shade.
Then my cell rang, breaking my concentration and the purple snapped fully back into place. I’d finally upgraded from the burner phone to an actual smartphone, so Wendy’s picture popped up on the screen showing that she wanted to video chat.
Effie snatched the phone up before I could answer it myself and greeted the other woman with an exasperated smile. “Hey, Wen, you’re interrupting my training time.”
Effie and Wendy got on like a house on fire. They were instant friends and Wendy had been roped into the Scooby Gang group chat almost as soon as they were introduced.
I pulled the phone from Effie’s grasp. “My training is going fine, in fact I think I’m starting to get the hang of this glamour thing.”
Wendy grinned at me from the screen. “Yeah, are those magical eyeballs of yours finally paying off?”
One of the few benefits of Mike finding where I’d run away to was my friendship with Wendy going back to normal again. She was still worried about me, but all of our conversations didn’t revolve around whether or not I was safe anymore and it was freeing.
“She’s still got a long way to go, she’s not going to be catching flies with chopsticks anytime soon,” Effie grumbled as she crowded in next to me so that Wendy could see both of us and dropped her glamour completely so that she looked normal again.
“What’s that reference from again?” Wendy asked, her brow furrowing with confusion.
“Only the greatest movie series ever created,Karate Kid,” Effie said, clearly shocked by Wendy’s lack of movie knowledge.
Wendy shrugged. “I was born in the late Nineties, so I was always more of a slasher movie kind of girl.”
“You younglings just don’t understand how good movies were in the Eighties,” Effie grumbled, mock-offended by Wendy’s lack of appreciation.
“Maybe we can watch it together when Reg and I come to visit?” Wendy offered.
They were supposed to fly to California after the equinox to celebrate mine and Cash’s bond sealing.
