Page 101 of Hexed Up

He shakes his head. “He died a few years ago.”

“And so how did you end up over here in the UK?”

“My grandma is British,” he explains. “After the divorce, we moved back over here. My mom wanted to be around her family. She met Alan – my stepdad – through friends a year later. They were married when I was sixteen. I guess I didn’t take it very well.”

“I don’t think many teenagers do,” I say sympathetically.

“He’s a difficult man, though,” he explains. “He was always on my back, never happy, always arguing with me.”

“What do you mean?”

He shakes his head. “My grades were never good enough. Room never tidy enough. Chores never completed well enough. I was always being grounded or punished or whatever.”

“Horatio,” I say, my voice trembling, “did he hit you?”

“No, he never did that. But I couldn’t wait to get out of that house. And even though I’m thirty-three now, things have never really changed.”

“What did your mom say?”

“She stays out of it mostly.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t imagine what it must be like not to want to go home, not to want to see your family.”

Okay, my family drives me round the bend, drives me absolutely bonkers, especially my mum. But I love them. I love them dearly. I can’t imagine not wanting to see them and be with them.

His hand is resting on the gear stick between us, and I reach out and cover it with my own. His gaze momentarily flicks from the road ahead to meet mine, and then he allows me to thread my fingers through his.

We stay like that for a long time, our hands linked, and I think to myself that I don’t remember having a conversation like this with any of my previous boyfriends. It was always surface level. We’d talk about music, we’d go out partying, we’d have sex. We never talked about the real things, the intimate things, the important things. I think I’ve learned more about this man in the last week and a half than I have about anybody at all, really. This relationship may be fake, based on potions and bewitching and all sorts of immoral things. But it’s also the most grown-up relationship I’ve ever had.

“When this is all over,” I tell him, my hand still linked with his on the gear stick, my gaze fixed straight ahead, “I hope we can still be friends, Horatio.”

“Friends,” he says coolly.

“Yes. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Yes, Molly,” he says. “We’re friends.”

“I hope we can still be friends,” I say again, “even after I’ve brewed the antidote.”

He’s silent. Then he revs the engine, and, not letting go of my hand, yanks on the gear stick. I peer down at it.

“You still owe me that driving lesson,” I say, suddenly remembering our deal last weekend.

“Ah, shit! I hoped you’d forgotten about that.”

“Sneaky little rascal.”

“Well, I can teach you a bit now.”

We keep our hands linked on that gear stick and he explains to me what he’s doing and how he’s doing it.

And it is the most natural thing in the world.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The Shaws’ house is one of those big old manor places with a grand front door, more windows than I can count, and a large chimney balancing on the apex of the tiled roof. Out the front there’s a recently painted gate, a large gravel drive (neatly raked), and a well-kept garden with lush green grass.

I can feel the tension building in Horatio’s body as the gate swings back; we pull up into the drive and he parks up. It makes me nervous to see him so nervous. But I’m determined to be the perfect fake girlfriend for him. Smiley, bubbly, a walking beacon of light, distracting everyone and ensuring his stepfather leaves him alone.