“You should feel guilty.” Sebastian sat in his usual chair and pinned me with a dirty look over the rim of his glass. “I’ve been worried about you all week. You haven’t returned my calls.”
I frowned. “You only called once.”
“Yes, and it was your job to call me back. I refuse to chase you all over the place begging you to be my friend. You should feel lucky that I want to be your friend and get with the program.”
His tone tipped me off to exactly what he was doing. Before I realized how to respond, my lips tipped into a grin. “You’re right. I don’t know why I even bothered trying to avoid you. It was never going to last.”
“Exactly.”
“I was just ... afraid.” The last word was barely a whisper.
Sebastian’s formerly fierce eyes softened. “I know you’re afraid. That’s why I wanted to offer my services as a sounding board and expert on all things.”
I barked out a hollow laugh. “And exactly what services are you offering?”
“I have two perfectly good shoulders to cry on.”
A lump formed in my throat. “I ... don’t want to cry.” My voice cracked, causing me to viciously swear under my breath.
“Yeah, well, you might not want to cry, but it’s probably necessary,” he prodded. “This is a big deal, Stormy. You’re a witch.”
I jerked up my head and looked around. Nobody was present in the parlor and yet I had to double check, just to be on the safe side. “Do you want to keep it down? I’m not exactly spreading that information around. Besides, I don’t know if I like that word.”
“Oh, no?” He arched an amused eyebrow. “What word do you prefer?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Well, let’s break it down.” He was blasé. “You’re too young to be a crone or hag. I’ve been doing a bit of research and you’re definitely too fresh and hip to be a beldam. I’m pretty sure you need grandchildren for that.
“I’m a big fan of enchantress or sorceress, but we might cause people to talk behind our backs if we start whipping those words out in public,” he continued. “That essentially brings us back to witch, and while it’s not colorful, it does appear to fit the circumstances.”
I stared at him for a few seconds. “Do you need to take a breath?” I asked. “I think you said all of that on a single gulp of oxygen.”
“I have terrific breath control,” he agreed. “That doesn’t change the fact that you’re a witch.”
I cringed. While I knew this conversation would ultimately be necessary, I envisioned it happening over a pitcher of margaritas so we could laugh together, and I could ultimately feel sorry for myself when I later left alone. I felt vulnerable. “I don’t know what I am.”
“Okay.” He used his most reasonable tone. “Why don’t you tell me what you know?”
Because I needed to talk about it — I’d been sitting on the information for a week doing nothing but freaking out — I did just that. In halting terms, I laid out everything that had happened since I returned to Shadow Hills. It felt like a lot when I thought about it alone in bed at night.
“Did you really burn Monica’s eyebrows off at the bonfire?” Sebastian swiped at leaking tears as he laughed. “That is ... just awesome.”
How did I know that was the part he would fixate on? “It was an accident,” I insisted. “I didn’t even know what was happening. I feel horrible, especially given ... well ... you know.”
“The fact that you stole her boyfriend?”
My shoulders slouched. “I would rather not think about it in those terms. I mean ... obviously they weren’t going to work out. My return had nothing to do with the fact that they were inevitably going to break up.”
“I agree.”
“You do?” Hope reared up. “Honestly and truly?”
He mimed crossing his heart. “Honestly and truly. You definitely hastened things along, though. She was a goner from the moment word hit town that you were coming back.”
I felt mildly sick to my stomach. “I never wanted to be one of those women.”
“And who are those women?”
“The type that go after a taken man.”
“Well, those are the worst types of women, but that’s hardly what you did. I’m a firm believer that you and Hunter were always meant to end up together. That means he was yours ... although kind of rented out for a few years, like an Airbnb.”
I pinned him with a dark look. “Yeah, I would prefer not to look at things in those terms either.”
He chuckled and then sobered. “Stormy, you need to take a step back and chill out. This is not the end of the world. Hunter and Monica barely dated. He’s doing the right thing by giving it a few days before stepping out with you. Don’t worry about that at all.”
How could I not worry about it? Before I could press things further, he barreled forward.
“As for the witch stuff, that’s cool and awesome,” he continued. “We’re going to have so much fun with it ... just as soon as we figure out what it all means.”
“And how are we going to do that?”
“I’m working on it.”
“You’re working on it?”
“That’s what I said.” He offered up an impatient hand wave. “I don’t have all the details figured out, but I have a plan ... kind of. Before we get to that, I want to know what the hoopla was at the restaurant today. I saw the ambulance and wanted to stop in — you know how I love my gossip — but I was still angry with you and didn’t think it was a good idea.”
Unfortunately, I had more than one reason for stopping in at the funeral parlor. He’d just reminded me of the second. “Martha Madison died.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I don’t joke about the deaths of others.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just ... that’s horrible. I absolutely loved her. She was mean to all the other old biddies in town and always made me laugh.”
“Yeah, well, she’s not making anybody laugh now.” I thought about the last quiver that trembled through her body. “Dave Bates thinks she might’ve been poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Sebastian was flummoxed. “But ... how?”
I told him what I knew, which was precious little. “I don’t know what to make of any of it,” I admitted. “I’m trying to figure out who could have poisoned her. She was a sweet old woman who never upset anyone.”
“Or she was a euchre shark who upset everyone at the senior center and someone there believed she had it coming,” Sebastian countered, catching me off guard.
“What?”
His eyes twinkled and he reached over to grab my hand. “Come on. I know just where to take you to get information. On the way, we can have a discussion about Hunter and how you’re going to approach your first date once you get the all-clear. I’ve got ideas for that, too.”
“It sounds like you have ideas about everything.”
He winked. “You’re finally catching on.”