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“Hi, Rose.”

She comes over and kisses my cheek as though she did not just enter my locked house without knocking. She promptly drops onto the couch in the spot Veronica abandoned and immediately reaches for the pizza box.

“So,” she says, pulling a slice onto a napkin. “Who is Flora?”

I look at Dani, and luckily she has the decency to look only slightly guilty.

“No one.”

“She’s a hot barista,” Dani says at the same time.

“Traitor.” I try to glare, but the smile that forms on my face is inevitable.

“And Merry flirted with her.”

“I ordered coffee.”

“Yes, but she laughed.”

“She laughed at me,” I say, a little self-deprecatingly. “And I make people laugh all the time, need I remind you.”

Rose takes a bite of pizza, watching me while she chews. Unlike Veronica and Dani, she doesn’t immediately demand details, which is almost worse because I know that look. I have been on the receiving end of it since she was old enough to develop opinions.

Finally, she swallows.

“Do you want to see her again?”

“Yes.”

The answer comes so quickly that I wish I could reach out and grab it from the air.

“Yes, but I don’t know if she was actually flirty with me or if she was being nice because she was at work, and I don’t want to be that person who mistakes basic customer service for sexual interest, and then the spell delivered a man.”

Rose blinks at me. “Hold up. What spell?”

I look at Veronica. Veronica looks at Dani, and again it’s like they’re communicating telepathically, something about me being pathetic, I’m sure. Dani suddenly becomes very interested in the crust of her pizza.

“Merry?”

“It’s not important.”

“You just said a spell delivered a man. I feel like we have different definitions of important.”

“It didn’t really deliver him. He was already there.”

Rose sets her pizza down and turns toward me completely now, folding one long leg beneath herself. “What did you do?”

“Why do you immediately assume I did something?”

“Your girl paid five hundred dollars to an online witch to remove her—alleged—curse and to give her love,” Veronica blurts, but she’s looking everywhere except at me.

“Vero!”

“It’s the truth! What do you want me to do, lie to your sister?”

Rose’s eyes widen. “You have a witch?”

“I don’t have a witch.”