Something Witchy (Mystics & Mayhem) (4 page)

Kim looked up from her phone as I ran toward her and I saw her eyebrows dip in concern.  By the time I made it to my car, nearly in tears and shaking like a leaf, she was already headed my way, looking like a mother hen ready to take on the whole chicken coop for picking on her baby.

“Jack?” she asked, correctly guessing the cause of my strained expression and trembling hands.

“Who else?”

I started digging in my purse for my keys to avoid looking her in the eye.  I didn’t want her to see how
much
Jack had upset me.  That would lead to a lot of questions I didn’t want to answer.  There were only two things I had kept secret from Kim in twelve years.  And thinking Jack was somehow setting me on fire every time he looked at me or touched me was one of them. 

 “I tried to tell you not to go out with him, but did you listen?” Kim asked, tossing her long hair back before resuming her position against the hood and continuing to lecture me.  “No, you didn’t.  Instead, I got a text telling me it was just Jack and you could handle your own love life without my interference, thank you very much.”  She gulped when I lifted my head and glared at her.  “Hey!  I was just saying!”

“Yeah, but your warnings were about him being the man-whore we all used to know and love, not the creeper he is now,” I growled as I continued trying to excavate my keys from the depths of my bag.  “If you had told me he was going to fall in love and start stalking me, I would have run like hell in the other direction and not looked back.”

“Either way, you still should have listened,” she said in this really awful Mom-Knows-Best kind of voice.

She was right.  I really should have listened to her.  Actually, I
had
listened to her, at first, but Jack had kept asking.  And asking. 
And asking
.  I finally caved under the pressure.  I figured we’d go out and he would realize I wasn’t all that great a catch and move on to someone else.  It had happened before.  With Jack, it was actually kind of a ritual.  Of course, he usually got what he wanted first…

That has to be it,
I thought. 
He’s not in love with me; I’m just the one who got away before he got her clothes off.

“Are you going to find those keys sometime today, Em?” she asked when I kept digging, leaning over to look in the purse with me.

“They were
right here
!” I whined, slapping my purse and nearly sending it flying.  In an act of sheer desperation, I dumped the whole thing on the hood, uncaring who saw the make-up, mints, and tampons it vomited up.  Though I did find the sparkly purple hoop earring I’d been trying to find for the last two weeks, there were no keys.

“Did you lock them in?” Kim asked, walking around to the passenger side to peer in the window to check for herself.

“No, I locked the doors with the key fob,” I groaned.  “The damn things are just
gone
.”

Dropping my face in my hands, I tried to think what I might have done that could have caused the Bad Karma Fairy to take such a sadistic interest in me.  I was a good kid.  I didn’t do drugs, didn’t drink—much—or sleep around.  I was a straight A student.  I served on every committee they would let me volunteer for.  I wasn’t as high on the popularity scale as Kim was, but I was a good and loyal friend and, I’m proud to say, a lot of fun to be around.  I was even a good daughter to my sucky parents.  So, short of committing mass murder in my sleep, I couldn’t really see any reason why I deserved the day I’d had.

I was so busy feeling sorry for myself that I didn’t even hear the familiar sound of Blake’s truck pulling up beside me.  It wasn’t until I heard him chuckling that I looked up to find him standing in front of me.  And dangling from his index finger was a set of keys—complete with my purple penguin keychain.

“Where did you get those?” I demanded, snatching them out of his hand.

“You dropped them in Chem.  I found them by the door.  That stupid penguin was a dead giveaway that they were yours.” 

I glared at him for insulting Mr. Fluffy and his grin just got bigger.

Turning away so I wouldn’t be tempted to return that grin, I used the key fob to unlock my doors.  Seriously, if he hadn’t been dating my best friend, I might have been able to fall in love with Blake Carter—I knew I should have called dibs that first day of second grade.  He was just that sweet, not to mention that gorgeous. With his dark hair, dark eyes, killer body, and his trademark dazzling, stop-your-heart smile.  He was totally perfect—for Kim. 

If there had ever been two people in the world meant to be together, it was Blake and Kim.  Seriously, it wasn’t hard to picture them still together when they were so old they had to roll around in matching Hoverounds looking for their teeth.  In fact, it was harder
not
to picture them together.  They were like two halves of the same whole.

They made me
so
jealous sometimes.

“So where are you two hotties headed?” he asked as he pulled Kim over to steal a kiss.  “Shopping?  Lattes?  Or…”

His voice trailed off and I looked around to see him staring at something across the parking lot with a cold look in his dark eyes.  Kim and I exchanged a confused glance and turned to see what had my usually laughing friend looking like he was a step away from stomping a hole in someone’s ass.  It didn’t take me long to figure it out.  Jack was sitting in the driver’s seat of his Hummer staring at us.

“Friend or not, I’m seriously considering kicking his ass,” Blake said, turning to look at me again. 

“And if I thought it would do any good, I’d let you,” I said on a sigh, wondering how I was going to get out of the parking lot without him following me.

I looked at Kim, thinking I would ask if she had any brilliant ideas, and found her giving me a piercing look.  After a second, she looked over at Blake and I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye.  Wondering what they were doing, I turned to look at Kim again only to find her reaching for her phone.

“Who are you calling?” I asked, arching an eyebrow as her lips turned up in a supremely wicked smile.

“911,” she said, shrugging and tossing her hair back.  “I’m going to report a creep flashing the cheerleading squad while they practice.  Deputy D should be here in like ten seconds, seeing as Stacy’s skanky ass is their captain.”

I laughed; I couldn’t help it. That was just so Kim.

“I knew you were more than just a pretty face,” Blake said, laughing and dropping a kiss on the top of her head.  “It’s the perfect getaway plan. As soon as you girls see blue lights, get the hell out of here.  I’ll deal with Jack the Ass.”

I winced at that and made a production of putting everything back in my purse to hide the guilty look on my face.  Just because I didn’t want to be friends with Jack anymore didn’t mean I thought Blake and Kim should hate him.  Jack, Kim, Blake, and I had been friends since third grade. We used to do everything together.  And then all that changed. 
Jack
changed. 

And, for some reason I couldn’t really explain, I felt like it was somehow my fault.

Kim’s prediction wasn’t far off the mark.  Not three minutes after she hung up with the 911 operator, three police cruisers, sirens blaring, tore into the student lot and surrounded Jack’s hummer.  When Sheriff Martin climbed out of his car, I tried to make myself as small as possible behind mine.  Really, I’d had all I could take of him for one day.

“Time to go, ladies,” Blake said, already in motion.  Turning around, he jerked the door of his truck open, picked me up, and literally tossed me in the driver’s seat.

“What about my car?” I wailed, refusing to take his keys when he tried to force them into my hand.

“I’ll drive yours,” he said as he plunked his baseball cap down over my hair.  “Make sure you drive past him so the passenger side window is the one he gets a look in.  When he sees Kim, he’ll assume she’s with me.  He’s going to go after you, then.  Won’t he be surprised when he gets me instead of the hot little redhead he’s stalking?”

I cast a dubious look at the scene playing out across the parking lot and was torn between laughing and groaning at the sight. Sheriff Martin didn’t look happy, but Jack looked furious.

Surprised?  Maybe.  Pissed?  Definitely.

“I’ll be right behind you!  Go, Em!  Now!” Blake growled.  “I’ll meet you two at Kim’s.  I’m just going to play with your boyfriend for a while so he doesn’t follow you.”

“He’s
not
my boy—!”

Blake slammed the door between us, cutting me off, just as Kim jumped into the passenger seat and started fastening her seatbelt.  Knowing they were right and I was close to wasting my last chance to get away without Jack noticing, I tucked as much of my hair as possible beneath Blake’s cap and stomped on the gas.

Blake’s plan worked like a charm.  Jack barely glanced in our direction.  Once he saw Kim, he immediately zeroed in on my car speeding in the opposite direction.  Still, I didn’t relax until we had put several miles between us and Jack. Only then did I lean back and take a deep breath, knowing my reprieve was temporary, at best.

Crash Course in Creepy

“
That
was fun!” Kim said, laughing and turning up the stereo.  “Who knew having a stalker could be so exciting?!”

“Says you!” I snorted, rolling my eyes.  “You’re only saying that because you’re not the
stalkee. 
When you’re the one diving into bushes so as not to be detected, it’s just annoying.”

Only Kim would find being stalked exciting.  Personally, I was ready to move to another planet to make it stop.  I had avoided involving my parents in the drama, but I was starting to think I didn’t have a choice.  Jack scared me a little more every day.  I didn’t want to be one of those girls you read about in the paper who’s found dead in a shack somewhere because some guy couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

“You know, I just thought of something,” Kim said after a few minutes of silence I should have known to take as a bad sign.  When Kim got quiet, she was plotting.  And when Kim was plotting, it usually meant trouble for
me
.  “I have the perfect way to get rid of Jack!”

“I’m up for suggestions.”  I was at the point where I would have taken advice from a Magic 8 Ball if it meant getting rid of Jack the Ass.

“We need to find you a man!”

Any suggestion but that one, that is.

“Please don’t start that again!” I groaned, laughing.  “You make it sound like we’re going hunting or something.”

“That’s because we are,” she said, her evil grin widening as she waggled her eyebrows at me suggestively.  “Only, instead of camo, you’re going to be dressed to impress by your dedicated, fashion-crazy best friend to lure your prey.  Oh, and the guns you’ll be using are those big bazookas on your chest.”

“God, Kim!” I cried, swatting at her and laughing when she ducked.

“Seriously, Em!  It’s not like you can hide those things!”  She ducked again when I took another swing, laughing so hard I was surprised she could talk at all.  Shaking my head at her, I turned back to the road.  “I say we throw a party and invite every male for miles around.  Small as Moonlight is, they have to be ready for some fresh meat, right?”

I shook my head at her.  Call me crazy, but I just couldn’t seem to find the mental picture of me as a nice, juicy, steak all that flattering.  Fresh meat?  Really?  If she thought that would get me excited about man-hunting, she was more delusional than I thought.

It wasn’t that I didn’t
want
to find someone.  Honestly, there were days when Kim and Blake made me nearly green with envy.  But, that was just it.  I wanted what they had.  Just finding some random guy wasn’t going to cut it.  I wanted to be the other half of someone, the one person they couldn’t live without.  I just didn’t hold out a lot of hope that it was ever going to happen.

I was eighteen years old, and the most experience I had with relationships was a few kisses.  That was usually the point when I called it quits with the guys I dated.  From the second their lips met mine, I knew they were all wrong for me.  I was waiting on someone else, someone special.  I wanted fireworks.  I wanted my heart to race and my toes to curl.

I wanted Prince Charming.

We were still laughingly discussing my lack of a love life—and Kim’s frighteningly well-thought-out plans to trap me a guy—when the sound of an engine revving up behind us caught my attention.  I glanced in the rearview mirror to see an expensive, jet-black sports car so close behind us that we were practically touching.  And behind it was a big red Hummer I would have known anywhere.

 Jack had caught up with me after all.

“What is this asshole’s
problem
?” Kim yelled as the sports car whipped around us in a move that would have looked perfect in a stunt video.

“Jack’s trying to run over him, that’s what,” I muttered, glaring into my rearview mirror as Jack got right on my tail and stayed there.  “Poor guy probably didn’t want to get—”

“Em!  Stop!” Kim screamed, cutting me off.