He rasped an exaggerated sigh and sat up straight as though he were appalled. “I borrowed a broom. What of it?”
“Now, Clive, it was more than just borrowing a broom, good buddy. You stole Joellen Landry’s broom—a very powerful broom—and ended up in the middle of a cornfield in Oklahoma. You know, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains?”
“I was headed to the casino. The blackjack was callin’. Woulda made it, too, if not for that strong wind comin’ in from the north.”
“No beer forever Clive!” she singsonged, smiling in satisfaction at his resounding grunt.
He didn’t always like the suggestions for a healthier lifestyle Calla insisted they follow while at the center, but he always followed her rules.
Now, down to this business of beer for a year…
Calla sat at one of the dining tables in the rec room across from Winnie and tapped the table with a fingernail, freshly polished just for tonight. “Hellooo? Explain the pool. Beer for a year? Someone wanna fill me in?” She looked down at her feet where Twyla Faye had swiftly settled by her sneakers. Calla gave her a nudge. “Twyla Faye?”
“My lips are sealed.”
“What good are you to me if you don’t do your job as my pet, Twyla Faye? Aren’t you supposed to be my faithful, loyal companion?”
Twyla Faye harrumphed. “I think you have me confused with Lassie, Sugarplum. And as I get to recollectin’, you didn’t even want me as your pet.”
Calla rolled her eyes. “Don’t you play the ‘poor, unwanted me’ game, miss. As I get to recollectin’, Sassy Pants, you didn’t exactly give me a choice. You were just there, under the cabinets back in the kitchen. Next thing I know, you were in the middle of my bed, demanding Egyptian cotton sheets and organic kale.”
Twyla Faye was a familiar—a failure of a familiar, as far as her prior witch was concerned. She’d left the poor thing high and dry when she’d skipped town a month before Calla moved in and took over her grandfather’s building.
As one of the rare werewolves in a town full of witches, Calla had no need for a familiar, but Twyla Faye had followed her home that very night and they’d been together—begrudgingly so, if you listened to TF—ever since.
She was crusty, and difficult, and demanded only the best organic produce Calla could get her hands on, but she’d grown to love her saucy, unfiltered lizard.
Twyla Faye tsked her disapproval with the flick of her tongue. “Oops. My bad. Surprise! You adopted an iguana. And speaking of Egyptian cotton, I’m off to take my mid-morning nap. I need to be well rested for my House of Cards binge-watch. That Kevin Spacey can whip whatever majority he wants outta me, honey.”
With that, she scurried along the floor and through the kitchen, which led to the connecting upstairs apartment Calla shared with her grandfather.
Calla’s eyes went to Winnie, narrowed and suspicious. “So, the pool. Explanations, anyone? Bueller?” Her gaze shot around the sunny rec room, where every one of her seniors was suspiciously otherwise engaged.
Winnie avoided Calla’s eyes and mumbled somewhere in the vicinity of the floor. “Okay, so there might be people betting on whether you and Nash are going to make this relationship official tonight. But! It’s all from a good place.”
“The place called free beer?” She wanted to be mad. She should be mad. But when Winnie said it came from a good place, she meant it. The people of Paris truly cared about her and Nash—and apparently, beer.
“Okay, fine. I might as well tell you all of it. There’s chicken wings, too.” Winnie winced, guilt all over her face. “But it’s just a bucket. Not nearly as big as the beer, if you ask me.”
“Well duh. Who in their right mind would pass up a bucket of chicken wings from Skeeter’s?”
Glenda-Jo Ledbetter clucked her tongue from the corner of the room as she peered at her hand of cards. “I passed ’em up.”
Calla beamed a smile at her. “Aw. For me? You’re my favorite witch ever, Glenda-Jo.”
“I didn’t do it for you, Legs. I did it because they give me indigestion. Spent near two hours in the latrine last time I had ’em. Never again,” Glenda Jo said on a grin, to the tune of raucous cackling from the other witches she was playing canasta with.
Winnie redirected Calla’s attention by snapping her fingers. “Forget all that. Get to the part where you tell me why you were at Miss Dottie’s for a wax. It has to be because you’re going to take this relationship to a deeper level.”
Calla raised one eyebrow and grabbed a stack of cloth napkins to fold for the impending lunch hour. “How much ya got riding on it?”
“Twenty bucks,” she confessed, her eyes downcast, but her shoulders shaking with laughter. “Now, the wax. It has meaning. I just know it.”