Page 73 of Hexed Up

“Er, nothing.” He shakes his head, then points towards my newly made ointment. “Does it works on biceps?”

“You’ve hurt your biceps?” I ask.

“They’re a little sore,” he confesses.

“Oh really Mr I-can-lift-400-pounds.”

“It was a long way!” he points out.

I smile at him. “Sure. Aching muscles, bruising, swelling, torn ligaments, and muscles. It works on it all.”

I point down at my ankle. It’s already returned to its normal size and its normal colour. I give my foot a little twist to check it’s fully functioning, and I’m relieved to find no pain at all.

“Impressive,” he says.

“You sound surprised.” I dip a wooden spoon back into the ointment and hold it out to him.

He plunges his fingers in, then smears the ointment first over his left bicep and then over the other. I try my best not to notice just how insanely hot that is.

Honestly, what is wrong with me? Don’t get me wrong, I like muscles. But I’ve liked tattoos, piercings, and leather jackets a hell of a lot more. I never realised I had such a penchant for muscles. However, I have to conclude that I most definitely do.

“I’m not surprised,” he tells me, “but I am impressed.”

“You sound surprised that you are impressed.”

“Your last potion did explode and nearly blow up your kitchen.”

“That’s happened once,” I point out. “One time only. I’ve never exploded the kitchen before. Although…”

“Although…” he says, his hand lingering over his flexed bicep.

“I have let a potion boil over before and nearly flooded the kitchen. And I did tip an anti-aging potion down the drain once without thinking about it, and a week later I had flowers sprouting from the plug hole. Oh, and there was also the time I singed off both my eyebrows.” I shake my head. “I swear they grew back funny.”

“Your eyebrows are wonderful.”

I ignore the compliment. “But most of the time, it works.”

“Because you’re good at this,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “I am.”

“So why don’t you do it legally?”

“No diploma, remember.” I shrug. “Anyway, you don’t need to worry. As soon as we have those fairy toenails, we’ll have you back to normal in no time at all.”

And there’ll be no more inadvertent compliments about random parts of my body!

Chapter Twenty-Two

“It was so romantic,” Prim gushes floating next to me in the hot tub.

I swish my arms back and forth through the hot, bubbly water and examine my older sister. Her dark, short hair is wet and slick against her head, and her usually pale skin has flushed pink. Prim doesn’t usually talk about romance. She’s always considered it codswallop. She’s too much like my mum. Both of them believe in practicalities, realism, and pragmatism.

“It was kind of romantic,” I confess.

“It was hot,” my younger sister says, wading into the hot tub and floating down beside us. She has her dark, curly hair pinned to the top of her head and she’s wearing a scarlet bikini that does not leave much to the imagination. “Really very hot. And I bet he carried you upstairs and you had a lot of hot sex while we were bumbling through the wet countryside having to endure Uncle Harold bemoan the witching authority’s new plans for tax reform.”

“We didn’t have lots of hot sex,” I tell her. “We had a nice cup of tea and some cheese sandwiches.”