Page 88 of Hexed Up

“Are you serious?” I say.

“Oh, come on!” Tiggie grabs my arms and throws them into the air too. She’s obviously had a fair bit to drink as well. “This is the best news we’ve had in ages.”

“But you love Norman,” I say. “The two of you are perfect for each other.”

Prim sees the concern in my eyes, leaves Tiggie and Damien dancing/ torturing humans, and pulls me to one side.

“I didn’t think you really liked Norman,” she says.

“Well, um, I guess he’s a nice enough fellow.”

“Exactly.”

Prim, for once, isn’t wearing her glasses, and I can see the contact lenses floating in her eyes. She’s curled her hair and undone the top buttons of her blouse. Just these simple little differences make her look like a completely different woman. A happier, freer one.

I should be happy for her, but it’s freaking disconcerting.

“Exactly. Nice,” Prim says. “I’m so bored of nice. And actually, most of the time he wasn’t very nice. I mean, would you call ignoring your girlfriend most mornings, most daytimes, most evenings, and most weekends in favour of your stupid mobile phone and never-ending work demands, nice?”

“No,” I say. “I wouldn’t call that nice.”

“Exactly.”

Her eyes dart around the bar, and she pulls me a little closer.

“And do you know, I’ve never once done that whole magical explosion thing when I’ve been in bed with Norman? And I mean, it’s happening all the time for you,” she says, “and I guess that got me thinking as well. I’m only thirty, Molly. I’m not sixty or seventy. I should be having the best sex of my life! Not mediocre, not-so-great, and not-nearly-often-enough sex.”

“Sex isn’t everything,” I point out, feeling like such a hypocrite, because sex has always been important to me.

Prim snorts. “Can you guess what the final straw was?” I shake my head. “He checked his work emails during sex.”

“Oh no, Prim, he didn’t! That is the worst!”

“Exactly. The final nail in the coffin.” She crosses her arms over her chest and nods decisively. “I broke up with right then and there.”

“You’re okay about it? You’re not sad? I mean, everyone was expecting you and Norman to be together for the rest of your lives. To have a wedding, and a house, and babies.”

“That wasn’t me, that was Mum,” Prim says. “And no, I’m not sad about it. In fact, I’ve never felt happier. I might even dosome flirting.” Her eyes scan the bar as if looking for a suitable candidate. “Is that one with the colourful shirt single?”

“I think so, but he’s also gay,” I say.

“Never mind. Plenty more fish in the sea,” she says, striding off to rejoin Tiggie and Damien on the dance floor.

“Hey,” Horatio says, appearing next to me. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine. It’s just… Prim’s broken up with Norman.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? I thought you didn’t like Norman.”

“No, I didn’t. It is a good thing, I guess. I’m just sort of stunned and shocked. We’ve been wanting her to break up with him for ages. Me and Tiggie did anyway. I didn’t think she’d ever do it.”

Horatio peers her way. “She looks happy.”

“She does,” I say. My introverted and usually reserved older sister is throwing some serious shapes on the dance floor. I laugh. “She looks really happy.”

And then, to my utmost astonishment, I watch as one moment she’s dancing with Tiggie and Damien and the next, in the blink of an eye, she’s dancing with a man, her arms wrapped round his neck and his around her waist.

The man is not wearing a suit. His hair is not neatly combed. And he certainly hasn’t polished his shoes. He’s wearing dark jeans slung low on his hips, a dark T-shirt ripped at the neckline, and his muscular arms are crawling with tattoos, his ears littered with piercings.