Page 87 of Hexed Up

I gulp.

“Very nice,” Horatio answers, his voice much deeper than it was a moment ago.

“Jeez, get a room, you two!” Alex chuckles, causing Damien to frown.

“No,” he says. “No room, you know that–”

My instinct is to slap a hand right across his mouth, because while Horatio might know the dangers of physical intimacy with regard to the antidote and everything, Alex most definitely does not. However, slapping a hand across my best friend’s face in the middle of the bar would look odd, if not violent.

So instead I yank on his sleeve and say, “I need to visit the ladies’ room. Come with me, won’t you, Damien?”

“Ew, no, why?” But I’m already pulling him away.

Once we reach the safety of the corridor, away from where the bar patrons can see us, I turn on him.

“What are you doing?” I say. “We’re surrounded by civilians.”

Damien’s gaze darts around the bar.

“So what?”

“You can’t go talking about the love potion, especially as everyone here thinks that the thing between me and Horatio is real. That we’re really dating.”

“Ugh,” Damien says, his whole body sagging. “So complicated.”

“It’s not complicated. Just don’t talk to anyone but me or Prim or Tiggie.”

“Can’t I talk to the little human in the colourful shirt?” He pouts at me.

“Most definitely not,” I tell him. “Just be good.”

He rolls his eyes. Damien hates being good. He hates it with a vengeance.

“So boring. How about we do some dancing?”

“If by dancing you mean deliberately elbowing people’s ribs or stepping on their toes, then no.”

“It makes things more entertaining for me.” Damien looks at me. “Oooh,” he says. “I do have gossip.”

“What gossip?” I say, wondering if he’s been using his entrancement skills to obtain illicit information from the humans in this bar.

“Your sister.”

“Which one?”

“Prim. She’s broken up with the boring man.”

“Norman?!” I yell so loudly that probably everyone in the bar hears, even above the noise of the music. “Prim’s broken up with Norman? That can’t be right, Damien.”

“She told us when she got here. It’s true.”

I don’t wait around for any more information. I march straight back into the bar and towards my older sister. She’s definitely a little tipsy and is dancing with our younger sister, Tiggie.

“Damien says you’ve broken up with Norman,” I say, without warning.

Instead of breaking down into tears or collapsing into despair, Prim flings her arms up into the air, smiles the beamiest smile I’ve seen her smile in forever, spins 360 degrees on the spot, jumps up into the air, and then says, “Yes! I’ve broken up with him!”

“Hooray!” Tiggie cheers, waving her arms.