“We like a man that knows what he wants,” Gunner says. “Besides, where are the red flags?”
“He’s moving too fast.”
“It’s been nearly both your whole lives. How much slower could a man move?”
“But what if he sees what we’re capable of when we’re doing the Calling the Corners ritual and resetting the ward and decides that he’s freaked out at me? It’s going to break me. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”
“Yeah,” Gunner agrees, “that would be pretty awful. Well, you want to go down this road of worst-case scenarios? I’m being a supportive familiar.”
“So you think that he’s going to be terrified of me?”
The minute the words explode out of me, I know that’s exactly my problem, and it makes me feel sick.
I put the last bite of burger down and wrap it back up, dropping it in the bag. Suddenly I don’t want anything to eat anymore.
“Ivy,” Gunner says slowly, “no. I don’t think that man could be scared of you if you tried to scare him. I think he’d take one look at you and say something like, ‘I like that in a woman,’ and then he’d throw you over his shoulder like a caveman to take you back to his house.”
“Gunner.” I pinch the bridge of my nose.
Gunner sniffs his way into the paper bag, snout disappearing as he grabs the last bite of burger.
“That apple pie smells really good,” Gunner tells me. “Do you want it or not?”
I swat at him, but he dodges all the way, giving me a wolfish grin, tongue lolling out.
“Don’t you dare touch my apple pie,” I tell him.
“Oh, you got your appetite back already, or you just don’t want to share with me?”
“You’re literally eating the last bite of my burger right now,” I argue with him.
Sighing, I grab the apple pie. It looks delicious. There’s just something to be said for a fully fried hand pie with a molten lava filling that regular apple pies just can’t touch.
Not that I don’t love regular apple pies. I do love a good apple pie. Hell, I love any pie. Sweets are literally my entire business and livelihood and at this point likely ninety percent of my body composition.
But this fried, almost magma-level heat ooey gooey hand pie? Delish.
Especially after a day as wild as the one I just had. Especially after physical labor like the stuff I just did, which, according to my sore shoulders and back, is something I should probably do a little bit more.
All that running didn’t prepare me for lifting a bunch of heavy stuff all afternoon.
“I will eat the pie,” I tell Gunner.
“I knew you would,” he says.
I take a big bite of it, then fish my phone out of my purse, only to see a slew of text messages from my sisters.
Hazel: I found a few ingredients on my list already. Also I found a weird ass ceramic rooster in the kitchen. We can use that, so Rose, don’t worry about finding the perfect cock. We know you’re terrible at that.
Rose: You suck butt
Posey: Your ankle sure healed quick
Hazel: About that
Hazel: I might have found a little spell in that book
Posey: You absolutely did not
