Twisted Magic (7 page)

Audrey hurried over. “I love his voice. Don’t you?”

I ignored her and looked away
to
the small crowd walking the shore in front of us. The bonfire blazing
,
the ocean spilling its foam on the shore, it had all been perfect until she showed up.

Erica and Audrey made themselves comfortable on either side of our blanket. It didn’t take long to realize Erica and Audrey were friends.
Their easy banter and giggles proved how alike they could be.

“Watch this,” Audrey said, she point
ed
at the group of guys heading in our direc
tion. Two of them had dark hair. T
he other
guy
was more a dirty dish water
blonde
with a slight curl. They seemed to be carrying on a conversation as
they
walked the beach
oblivious to everything around them
.

Erica laughed
,
watching Audrey
scheme
. I watched carefully as a large piece of wood tumbled out of the bonfire
, spilling flecks of orange fire and ash as it tumbled to the ground
and headed for those guys. I
tensed; Slade
gripped my arm as if he was trying to stop me
from reacting altogether
.

All three of the guys jumped, hardly missing the flaming log rolling at them.

“What is wrong with you?” I hissed.

Audrey and Erica gave me a
mystified
look
, completely engrossed in their prank
.

“No
,
it’s more like this,” Slade told Audrey sending the log back the way it came and the guys jumping again as it headed for them. The blonde
one’s expression was a bit baffled. H
e studied the log as it came to a stop back at the fire.

I jumped up. “Someone needs to apologize to them.”
It wasn’t
funny. It
was a serious thing.

Erica and Audrey laughed, finding my demand amusing. Slade ignored my glare refusing to give in either.
The two of them giggled
causing Slade to
laugh
.

“It’s a joke. Nobody was hurt, lighten up, Hope,” Erica said.

“I don’t think it’s funny,” I told the three of them. What
got into
Slade? Since when was he so cruel, and hadn’t he just lectured me about using magic because it came from
somewhere
dark?

The way the three of them were acting was dark.

Audrey jumped up and placed a hand on my arm. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have been so stupid. Why don’t we have Slade sing something again, that seems to work its magic on just about
everyone?"

“What are you trying to say, Audrey?” Slade said.

Audrey pushed her hair from her shoulder and smiled that sweet smile
I hated
. “I’m saying I love
to hear
your voice.”

“I think you have a groupie,” Erica laughed.

Slade bit at his lip ring. I dropped my jaw totally thrown by the flirtation taking place right in front of my face. If I wasn’t mistaken it seemed he was flirting with Audrey. I backed up into Karsen and Kidd. Kidd
placed a hand on
my back to keep me from falling.

“She’s friends with Erica, that’s why she’s here,” Kidd said, a sympathetic smile on his face. It didn’t make me feel any better. “
Don’t get upset, Hope. Slade wouldn’t want that.”

I scoffed. “You think so? Because it seems he doesn’t care about much of anything right now.” Karsen chased after me as I head
ed
across the sand.

“Are you okay? What are you doing?”
s
he asked, tugging me to a stop. She looked worried about
me;
I could see it in her eyes
.

“I’m going to apologize to those guys for my
boyfriend,
and his cling on nearly setting them on fire. And then I am going
somewhere
else
,
because right now I want to be as far away as I can get from this.
You can tell Slade not to bother coming after me.
” I let her hug me and
then
trudged through the sand to the blonde and his two friends.

I was going to apologize for their ridiculous behavior and
then
go home to
brood
. I had enough for the night.

As I got closer, I realized I was entirely unaware of what I would even say to these guys. I didn’t know them. I had no clue if they would accept my
apology
, if they
even thought,
I had anything to apologize
for,
or maybe they would think I was nuts. Normal people didn’t see a rolling log and think anything other
than
it was a rolling log.

It hit
me,
as soon as I was standing in front of them. They stopped chucking stones at the water and zoned i
n on me. I held my hair in place. T
he wind was picking up speed and thrashing my hair in every direction. I couldn’t apologize for the
log. They
would think I was nuts.

“Hello,” the
dark-haired one
said, his gray eyes twinkled against the moonlight.
I was thankful
he was friendly.

“Hi,
” I said, my voice coming out in barely a whisper.

This ignited the three tall guys into big
grins, were
they amused that I was nervous? It seemed that way. They also were tall, all of them. The kind of guys you expected to be surrounded by if you walked on the basketball court.

“Quite the bonfire over there,” the
dark-haired one
said.

I nodded. “Yes, it
is, uh,
I just wanted to come over…and
...Uh
introduce myself and apologize if my friends were rude at all to you.” There
,
that was decent enough I thought to myself.

The blonde one moved
forward, he
was the tallest out of the bunch. And now he was staring me down.

“That’s quite polite of you to apologize for a whole mess of people,” he said, his accent odd. I raised an eyebrow
,
trying to figure it out. British
,
he sounded slightly
British
.

He raised one back, studying my expression, his eyes holding my gaze.
An
impish smirk gracing his lips as we locked eyes.

“It’s the right thing to do,” I told him. “So, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure nobody was offended.” I turned away and cringed. God, I sounded like such a moron. I was apologizing for something they would never understand. I shook my head hurrying over the sand for the boardwalk. I needed to get home and put this day to bed—and myself.

“Leavi
ng so soon,” He called after me.
Suddenly,
he was on my heels, his friends left behind to fend for themselves. I lifted a leg to get over the braided rope that separated the beach from the boardwalk.

“Yeah, time to get
home,”
I told him.

“That’
s not so polite. Y
ou didn’t even tell me your name.”

I looked at the
ground. This
boy made me nervous. I wasn’t sure in what way yet. I pushed my hair behind my ear, and looked him over. He easily slipped over the rope with little effort.

I liked the way his hair curled around his ears. And the silly grin that stayed on his face when he spoke to me. He was amused, maybe by me, but it was still refreshing to see someone smile.

“Hope,
” I said.

He sm
iled bigger.
“Beautiful name.”
H
is fingers grazed
at
his five
o’clock
shadow as he studied me.

“Thanks, do you have one?”

“A beautiful name?”
He raised an eyebrow, oh how he loved toying with me. I felt like a small creature under a giant oak tree. Never did I feel so delicate and petite then at that moment. He had a presence
,
one that was undeniable.

“Or a name,
” I offered, giving a shrug
of
my shoulders.

He extended a
hand. I
accepted his handshake, his large palm pressing firmly into mine, swallowing my hand in his grasp. The moonlight caught the glint of the metal of his ring
on his hand, a
metal band with a black stone.

“Hutch.”

Be
fore I could question
him,
he pressed a single finger against my lips quieting my concern. “I understand
it’s
an odd
name. I
swear
it's
real, and I also assure you it’s mine.”

I nodded, pulling away from his finger. I looked past him at the bonfire.

“That’s your boyfriend and friends over there?”

I shook my head.

“
And yet
you’re
going home?”

I opened my mouth trying to produce some kind of answer, “
It’s
been a long day.”

He nodded. I had the sneaking suspicion no matter my answer at that moment he would have nodded.  “Nice to meet you,
Hope, get
home safely.” He winked.

I turned to leave, but something tugged me back.
“Your new here?”

He spun back around in the sand. “Indeed.”

“And your
accent
,
is that
British
?” I tilted my head to the side
,
trying to figure him out.

“
That it
is, t
hanks
to my father, s
eems a
bit
of his upbringing rubbed off on me.” He waved. I watched him walk away. He was a different kind of guy. Nice clothes,
charming
smile, proper
even, and
with a name I never heard before.
Hutch.

Karsen untied her bathing suit top throwing it to the side and buried her head
in
her hands. She
let out
a glorious sigh happy to be basking in the sun getting a tan.

“Must you always take your top off?”
I asked.
I looked around paranoid we would be thrown off the beach for indecent exposure. She turned her head to shoot me a
useless
glare.

“My
tatas
are hidden, Hope. And you know I do not like tan lines.”

I sighed
fiddling with my own bathing suit to make sure it was still in place.

“Since when are you such a sister Nancy?”

I stared at her confused. What was a sister Nancy?

“A sister
Nancy,”
I smirked.

Karsen lifted her head higher to give it to me now. “It’s the name of a nun.”

I laughed, shaking the bottle of sunscreen. The sunscreen Karsen refused to apply to
her
or me. I did my best to reach every body part on my own. I feared the sun, while Karsen welcomed it and all its deadly beams her way. I knew which one of us was going to be haggard and wrinkled by the time
we were
forty.

I dropped down on t
he towel, shifting uncomfortably
until I got a better position. I threw my arms beh
ind my head and shut my eyes. A day to relax was what I needed after the other night. I hadn’t
spoken
to
Slade
since, sure it had only been one night, but I hoped he understood the depth of my anger.

As if she sensed what was on my mind Karsen put her two cents in. “He was upset that you left.
But,
like the good friend that I am I told him to stay away from you and let you have your space.”

I sighed. Did I really want to hear all the gory details? “He was flirting with Audrey.”

“She’s something else that’s for sure.
Even so,
I promise you when you left he stayed far away from her.
Actually,
he left ten minutes after you did,” Karsen assured me. “I would have decked her if she tried anything with Slade, Hope.”