The Boy Band Curse: Chapter Three

“I don’t wanna do it,” I said ten minutes later, staring forlornly at the bra on my bed. “I don’t wanna put it on.”

“Then don’t.” Simone stretched next to the bra and then lay down on top of it. “You’ve been braless in front of them this whole time. They don’t care. Trust me, they really don’t care.”

Her little cat eyebrows wiggled, and I ripped the bra out from under her. “It’s not about them. It’s… What if Galen’s there? He’ll see I’m a mess—”

“Oh my goddd, Nini, get a grip. First of all, you can rock the braless look without being a mess. Second, he would think you’ve moved on because you’ll be there with two guys—and third, that shouldn’t even matter because you shouldn’t give a fuck about what Galen thinks.”

“Yeah, well, who taught me to ignore other people’s should’s?” I gave her an accusatory look before pulling off my dirty night gown and changing my underwear. Now would’ve been a great time to shower for the first time this week, but I didn’t want to keep the boy band waiting. They might start rehearsing choreography in my living room, or something equally profane.

Once my bra was secured, feeling looser than it had last time I deigned to put it on, I slipped into my favorite stained-glass-patterned skirt. Then I rummaged through the mess on the floor for a suitable top.

“Whoa, this is sick.”

I whirled around as Cam parted the tasseled curtains to enter my attic room. That definitely wasn’t supposed to open for unwanted visitors, but I didn’t have time to contemplate why none of my wards worked on these douchebags before Blaze entered, his amber eyes instantly locked on me.

“What is wrong with you guys?” I demanded, slapping the nearest article of clothing over my chest—a lacy thong. Great. “Why didn’t you knock?”

“There’s no door.” Blaze side-eyed me even as he pretended to admire the paintings on the wall. Both their heads nearly touched the ceiling, making my space feel even smaller than usual.

“Then knock on the wall.”

“I don’t really have any reason to knock on wood right now, y’know?” Cam also peeked at me as he brushed a hand through my collection of necklaces, though in both of their cases, the looks were more taunting than lecherous. Their sole ambition was to piss me off.

Blaze tapped his fingers along one of my paintings before turning to his friend. “Ooh, how about: next time we walk in on her, she won’t even be wearing a bra.”

Cam met my eyes before slowly knocking on a wood wall panel, and I hastily resumed my shirt search before a smirk could form.

“You guys are actually thirteen year old boys, I swear,” I mumbled loud enough for them to hear.

“Which is exactly what you deserve because it’s been ten minutes and you’re not ready,” Cam singsonged, and now that I knew what they were, I feared he might actually break out in song if I didn’t hurry up.

“I am ready,” I declared as I finally found my rust orange crop top. “Well, actually…” Pulling on the shirt, I crossed my room to an open jar of white aventurine crystal dust and sprinkled a pinch on my head. Magic breezed over my whole body, dealing with my basic hygienic needs as well as painting generic makeup on my face. “Now I’m ready.”

“What the hell?” Cam gaped at me for a few seconds before rushing toward the jar. “Give me some of that.”

I poked a finger against his transparent chest, narrowly missing his wound, and he hissed in a breath, halting his strides. “No one’s going to see you as you are, remember?”

“Yeah, but I know I’m covered in blood.”

“Then you can stay here and shower while I go to the store.”

I raised my eyebrows, awaiting a response, but when his pout dissipated, he didn’t answer. Instead, he took my finger off his chest and dragged it along his face, the residue of crystal dust magically fixing his makeup. Black tear stains receded and blood speckles disappeared like time moving backwards, leaving behind warm blue eyes shrouded in darkness and only faint freckles smattered on his cheeks.

Mesmerized, I didn’t realize he’d pulled my finger toward his mouth until his tongue touched the tip.

I yanked my hand away, heat swarming through my body. “You can’t—I mean, you can, technically, but…there’s no crystal dust left anyway.”

“Had to try,” he murmured as he backed away, his hooded eyes on me—until he tripped over one of my bras. Blaze burst out laughing, and Cam joined in as he stood with the bra in hand, waving it toward me. “I’m keeping this.”

“Don’t—”

But he dashed past the curtain and down the stairs with it anyway.

“Whatever,” I grumbled to myself as I pulled my pearl white hair into a ponytail. The crystal dust hadn’t cleared the knots, and more than a few strands fought against me.

As I grabbed a crochet purse hanging near the exit, Blaze snared his finger in the end of my hair, pulling my ear toward his lips.

“Don’t fuck with us unless you actually want to fuck with us.”

The heat of his breath crawled along my neck at that insinuation—and then with embarrassment over his accusation. “I…I don’t—you’re the ones who barged in here while I was getting dressed!”

Blaze ignored me, voice calm but firm. “Cam won’t take it well if you lead him on and then turn him down, so don’t. We clear?”

Anger replaced all other emotions, and I tore my hair from his grasp. “I won’t take it well if you step into this room uninvited again. We clear?”

My imitation of his voice didn’t insult him in the slightest. He smirked. “Sure.”

Then he waltzed down the stairs as if I’d actually agreed to his abrasive demands.

Not that I wouldn’t have agreed, because I had no intention of bedding these fuckboys, nor would I delude myself into thinking they found me attractive. I was a lonely witch festering in my creepy bog shack, and they were the most sought after men on this continent. Why would they sleep with me when they could sleep with anyone?

Well…perhaps because they couldn’t sleep with anyone, not when the whole world thought they were murderers.

I was their only option now.

Shit. That was even worse. If I wanted to maintain a shred of dignity, I couldn’t under any circumstances succumb to them.

“Fucking men.” I slipped on a pair of flip flops and stomped toward the stairs. “I want to be a cat. Curse, take me now.”

“We can trade places if you want?” Simone offered sweetly, trailing after me. “They look even more delectably middle-aged today.”

“Well, good for you,” I snapped, shoving aside the curtains. “I won’t be pleased until they’re fully invisible and untouchable.”

Waiting with the front door open, Blaze heard that comment and scowled without forfeiting his smirk. His gaze dipped to Simone, but he didn’t voice his opinions about my conversations with my cat before Cam emerged from the first floor bedroom.

“Can we share the attic room with you?” he asked me as we converged at the front door. “The angled ceilings speak to me.”

“No, you cannot share my room,” I said as I brushed past Blaze, avoiding his eyes. No doubt he would blame me for magically implanting this idea in his friend’s brain. “The spare room is the only space that’s yours. Everything else is mine, and you’ll need explicit permission to even touch anything outside your room.”

“Oh—oh shit.” Cam jumped over the front porch’s two steps, landing in a crouch on the grass next to me. “I think I just touched your floor. Was I allowed to touch the floor? Will I burn alive now?”

I rolled my eyes and then seriously considered cursing them out of existence when Blaze jumped after his friend.

“Ah, close one,” he said as he rose, standing too close to me. “I almost thought about closing the door, but that would’ve gotten me in troubbies.”

Slamming my shoulder into him, I stalked back up the stairs and shut the door. “I actually hate both of you. And you too,” I added to my sister, whose eyes were full of laughter. She pranced after me toward our car rusty gray car, happily hopping in when I opened the driver’s door.

“Stop being so hangry,” she whispered to me as she assumed the passenger’s seat. “We’re going to get food!”

“Are we allowed to touch your sacred automobile with our grubby hands?” Cam asked from outside the car as I plopped into the driver’s seat.

“Get in, or I’m throwing you both in the trunk.” I pressed my finger to the ignition keyhole, magically sparking the ancient engine, and its roar canceled out any cheeky remarks from the guys. Upon sliding into the back from either side, Blaze buckled himself while Cam peered over Simone’s seat.

“You bring your cat to the grocery store?”

“She’s very particular about the food she wants,” I said, and Simone preened.

“Isn’t it dangerous for her to sit in the front like that?” Blaze asked as Cam resumed his seat and buckled in as well. I was a little surprised I didn’t have to remind them like children—and that they cared about safety at all.

“Cats have nine lives or whatever.” I shifted the car into drive through mental will alone, and the guys’ eyebrows shot up in my rearview mirror. “And the car’s spelled to react to my thoughts—it can even fly if it needs to—so none of us are in any danger.”

That didn’t reassure either of them, though, their shoulders taut and Blaze’s jaw especially tight as he glared out the window.

“Seems useful…y’know, magic,” Cam said as conversationally as possible. “We never learned how to drive.”

“Never?” The car jolted a little along the dirt path leading through the woods, and they both braced against the doors like we were under attack. “I guess you wouldn’t need to know how when you’re rich and famous and everyone does everything for you. Sorry for the downgrade with this old beater.”

Neither reacted to my biting sarcasm, remaining blessedly silent until we reached a paved road. Then Cam said, “We weren’t rich and famous enough to have a driver until we were nineteen.”

Blaze backhanded his shoulder. “Don’t try with her, dude. She’s a fucking bog witch. She won’t get it. She’ll probably just worsen our curse or something.”

I eyed them suspiciously in the mirror but refused to ask questions if they weren’t willingly giving up the information. At most, they were my housemates, and I didn’t need to know the whole story of their ascension to stardom.

“Don’t act like she’s a different species, man,” Cam hissed back, like I couldn’t hear. “She still has empathy. Probably. Wait, do you think she has all the same brain cortexes and shit, or is it just a bunch of magic swirling up there? Hey, Annie, how are witches made?”

“The…same way humans are made.”

“Oh, so your parents fucked, nice. Ooh, but then your dad dipped afterward—same.”

Not quite focused on the road, I had to jerk the car to a halt at a stop sign. “It’s… It was just a one night stand for my parents, and it’s easier raising witches alone than with a human parent, anyway. The power dynamic is…unpleasant. Young witches don’t have control of their magic. They haven’t learned to channel it into spells and rituals yet. Humans can’t easily defend themselves if the kid lashes out.”

“Sounds like an excuse to me,” Blaze commented. “Raising a kid’s hard no matter what. Anyone who ditches their kid is a piece of shit.”

“Thanks,” Cam said, genuinely touched, and Blaze nodded in support.

My lips parted, and I wanted to ask Cam about his dad, wanted to understand him better—but why? What was the point? I could never fully dig to the core of another person. I’d tried with Galen, and look where that’d landed me.

“Are we at the store?” Blaze glanced sardonically at the trees bordering either side of the road, and I hastily pushed the car past the stop sign.

“Almost. It’s near the gas station.”

Embittered by the memory, Cam slouched lower in his seat. “Let’s not go there again.”

“We won’t have to. My car’s fueled by a magic potion.”

Blaze’s eyes slivered. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“Not. I brew the potion, pour it in the tank, and then the car magically responds to me. It wouldn’t run on regular gas at this point. The engine’s fried.”

“So…we can’t drive it?” Cam asked.

“I thought you couldn’t drive, period?”

“Well, I can’t, but Blaze knows how to drive motorcycles.” Blaze glared at his friend like this knowledge was a grave secret, and Cam plowed on with, “I’m just asking ‘cuz, like, what if you’re unconscious and we need to take you to the hospital or something?”

My lips pursed as we turned onto the main street of the small town closest to my house, where less than ten shops lined the road. “If I’m unconscious, you will not take me to the hospital. You’ll call my friend Maya—she’s a witch, and she’ll fix me. But…I guess we should have several emergency protocols in place. And…next time I brew the fuel potion, you two can participate in the process, which would give you power over the car.”

Cam’s eyes lit up as we pulled into the parking lot. “Noice.”

Blaze showed no sign of excitement, aggressively unbuckling and storming out of the car as soon as it was parked.

“He doesn’t like cars,” Cam said quietly before we got out.

“Gathered that,” I muttered and didn’t ask why. If Blaze hadn’t grown out of his aversion to cars by now, nothing I said or did would help him.

The September afternoon sun turned the pavement into lava, so I had to carry Simone from the car to the supermarket’s doors, where she promptly leaped from my arms and sashayed in like she owned the place. Cam and Blaze lingered outside, ogling the flickering sign like it was the entrance to a holy temple.

“It’s like the pre-fame days,” Cam said wistfully. A middle-aged woman’s brow furrowed at them as she exited with a shopping cart, but she didn’t scream and accuse them of murder. I wondered what she saw them as. To me, they still looked like ghosts.

“Remember when we did that midnight shopping cart race with Axel and Decker?” Blaze reminisced, his good humor returned.

“Ohhh, we whooped their asses! Wish we got it on video so I could send it to them now and tell them to go fuck themselves.”

I crossed my arms and glared at them until they finally remembered I was there. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be here long. Someone might…recognize you, since you’re fresh in the collective mind.”

Cam flicked my ponytail as he strolled past. “We’re always fresh in the collective mind.”

“Yeah, that’s not really a good thing right now—ow,” I grunted as Blaze grabbed my arm and twirled me around to walk between them.

“So stop drawing attention and stay close to us.”

“Yeah, no one will think we’re us if we’re seen with you.” Cam wove his fingers through mine as we approached the fresh produce.

“Why?” I blinked at the display of strawberries, a little stunned. “Why not?”

“You’re not really our type.” Blaze gripped my forearm instead of my hand, but before I could shake either of them off, a store manager walked by, giving us a friendly nod.

“Is that guy your type?” Cam mockingly asked before the man was even out of earshot.

“What—no,” I hissed, ducking my head and praying the man wasn’t staring at us from behind. “He’s gotta be at least fifty.”

Blaze cocked his head. “Wait, how old are you?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Damn, I was thinking thirty-nine,” Cam said through a chuckle as he juggled an orange with one hand.

“Oh shut up, fuckheads.” I pried my limbs away from them, and reality washed over me, reminding me why we were here. “I—I forgot a cart. Don’t move.”

I pointed at them like it might magically freeze them, and they defied me by inching toward the melon display. Blaze stared at me as he ran a sensual finger along the stripes of a watermelon, and Cam caressed a cantaloupe before leaning down to lick it.

“Don’t—do that.” I chucked a lime that thankfully hit Cam in the nose before he could lick the fruit. “There’s probably bacteria on there. You’ll get fucking Salmonella poisoning, and I cannot deal with that right now.”

“Sorry…Mom.” Cam fake-pouted, and Blaze snickered at my annoyance. Flipping them off, I retreated to the front of the store for a cart.

As I struggled to pull one from the line, Simone appeared at my feet, and I nearly ran her over when the cart finally budged.

“Pssst…meow. You haven’t gathered me cookies yet.”

“Your digestive system can’t handle cookies. I’ll have to bake you some special cat cookies again.”

“Eugh, those were so gross,” she whined, hopping onto the lower tray of the cart. “I want Oreos. Not even magic can recreate their goodness.”

“If you think they’re worth dying for…” I muttered, though the conversation tapered off as we returned to the produce section, where the guys were tossing blueberries to each other and trying to catch them in their mouths.

“Hey!” the store manager barked, clumsily jogging toward the guys, sweat beading down his forehead after just ten meters. Or maybe that was residue from his excessive hair gel. Against all odds, he intervened before I could, snatching the half-empty blueberry carton from Cam. “You can’t do that. You’re making a mess, and you don’t own these blueberries yet—and you haven’t even washed them!”

“Says they’re washed on the label.” Cam took a tiny bite into the blueberry, somehow looking innocent and rebellious at the same time.

“Are you admitting you practice false advertising?” Blaze prodded, stealing a blueberry from the carton.

The manager shifted it away a moment too late. “Just because they’re pre-washed doesn’t mean they’re fully sanitary. Didn’t your mother teach you this? Ma’am!” His frazzled eyes found me, and I paused in my path toward them. “Your children are starting a ruckus. Control them, please.”

“Yeah, Mommy, control us,” Blaze jeered, snagging another blueberry.

“Mommy, I’m so unruly. Spank me,” Cam begged as he spun to bend his ass toward me. I considered steam-rolling him with the cart, but with my luck he would dramatically knock over the apple display in the process.

“Stop being a dick. Let’s go,” I grumbled, snagging his velvet sleeve. Cam resisted as much as a bratty ten-year-old would, and I struggled to drag him and maneuver the cart in this tight space. “I’ll…pay for those.” I tried to take the blueberries from the manager, but he stepped back, a sympathetic gleam to his eyes when he noticed my ringless fingers.

“Don’t worry about. These things happen. If you’re, uh, ever looking for a father figure…for the kids…” He fumbled through his pocket and pulled out a bent business card that was unpleasantly warm when he shoved it between my fingers. “Here ya go.”

“Um, thanks.”

I rammed Blaze with the cart in my attempt to flee, and he wailed, “Ow, Mommy!” but I didn’t pretend to give a shit, plowing onward to the next aisle. At least Cam was laughing too hard now to resist being dragged.

Once we were safely within the hygienic products aisle, Cam collapsed against a shelf of toothpaste and Blaze doubled over laughing, barely managing to get out, “I thought we were about to become the step-kids in a shitty rom-com.”

“I knew he was your type,” Cam wheezed.

“He’s not,” I said through my teeth, checking over my shoulder for signs of the manager. The last thing I needed was him overhearing us and more boldly asking me on a date.

“You really do have mom energy,” Blaze said once he’d wrangled his amusement. “Everyone can tell.”

Cam moved behind me, and I froze when his chin rested on my shoulder. “If you are a mom, though, you’re kinda a MILF.”

All the mirth left Blaze’s expression, like he could see the flush of heat climbing up my neck.

“You’re—you’re my son in this situation.” I shrugged Cam off, refusing to look anywhere near him as he sidled next to his friend. “You guys are the worst. Now it’s gonna be freaking awkward every time I have to come here. And we didn’t even get any vegetables—”

“I’ll go get your vegetables.” Cam ran a hand through his hair, replacing his juvenile delinquent persona with that of a supermodel rockstar. To me, he still looked like a mostly invisible douchebag. “I’ll just act really macho and chill so the manager sees me as, like, a bodybuilder or something. What do you need?”

Reluctantly, I fished through my purse for the list and ripped off the top half. “For the record, I don’t actually trust you with this task.”

“Then I’ll prove how well I can do things.” He plucked the paper with two fingers and winked before swaggering away, moving his shoulders more than his legs.

As soon as his friend was gone, Blaze took a few menacing steps closer to me. “I think you should call the manager.”

“You think Cam’s gonna cause that much trouble?”

“No, I mean call him romantically.” He tapped the business card still in my hand. “He might be your only chance.”

My other hand gripped the cart handle in alarm, a million questions running through my mind. Did he know about the curse? Had he overheard Simone and I talking in her room earlier? Or—oh God—had my mom hired these guys in a last ditch effort before the curse took effect? What if she sent them to my house with a whole story about needing my help—what if they weren’t really The Blazin’ Cameras at all? I hadn’t seen pictures of the band since I was in high school—they could have easily been impersonators. And I hadn’t bothered to check if there was actually any news about a boy band duo murdering someone.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

Blaze cocked his head. “I mean you’ve barely left your house in three years. You wanna be alone forever?”

“I have my cat,” I insisted, still unsure if any of my wild assumptions were correct. From the lower tray of the cart, Simone gave me her most judgmental cat eyes. “I don’t need a romantic partner. And who are you to talk about lonely? It’s not like you’re dating someone.”

His eyebrow ring lifted. “No, but I very easily could if I wanted to.”

“Not anymore. You’re probably doomed to look like a pre-pubescent boy to any woman who gazes upon you, given your behavior.”

“That was only for your benefit.” He flicked the business card, which I unintentionally let flutter to the ground and then intentionally did not pick up. “I know how to act around a woman I’m actually interested in.”

“Oh yeah? Show me.” I nodded down the aisle toward its only other occupant, a woman at least a few years younger than me intently comparing shampoos. Her long blond hair shielded most of her face, but her ripped jean shorts seemed like they would be his type.

His ensuing smirk confirmed that hunch. “All right. Watch and weep, Mally.”

Walking backwards a few steps, he grabbed an item off the shelf at random, and I forced my game face not to falter until he turned around.

“Did he just grab tampons?” Simone asked, hopping off the lower tray to nab the business card with her teeth.

“Yup.” I inched the cart forward, pretending to peruse the opposite side of the aisle. Through his translucent form, her pretty and puzzled face was visible when he leaned on the shampoo shelf to present her the tampon box.

“You dropped this,” he said, voice lower and rougher than usual. That kind of vocal power should have been illegal, honestly, since she looked a little flattered rather than freaked the fuck out.

“I…didn’t…” She peered around him, his shoulders considerably broader in her view than in reality, and I quickly picked up a deodorant stick to read the label. “Is this a prank?”

“No, but if you didn’t drop these, then I have something else you can put in your—”

A disbelieving laugh escaped me at the exact moment he shut up—the exact moment the background music changed. I was shocked about the audacity of his pick-up-line, but he seemed shocked about the poppy beat pulsing through the grocery store’s speakers.

“Are you okay?” the blond woman asked, genuinely concerned about his sudden malfunction.

“Yooo!” Cam came sprinting into the aisle with his arms full of fruits and veggies, happier than a gardener after his first harvest. “They’re playing it! This is the song, Annie! ‘The Bottom of The Bucket.’”

“You like The Blazin’ Cameras?” The woman glanced between the guys with more horror than the pick-up-line had induced. “Don’t you know they murdered Thane Calloway last night?”

Blaze’s hand crushed the tampon box. “They didn’t murder him. You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the tabloids.”

“I don’t read the tabloids—it’s in the fucking news.” With an affronted glare, she grabbed a shampoo bottle and stalked from the aisle, knocking broccoli out of Cam’s grasp as she brushed past him.

“Yeah, well, don’t read that shit either!” Blaze shouted, throwing the tampon box after her. His voice singing through the speakers reflected that same anger for one line, though the music wasn’t loud enough for me to pick up on the exact lyric.

“Real smooth.” I pushed the cart with my elbows so I could sarcastically clap. “Almost as smooth as offering to use your dick as a tampon.”

“That’s a pretty reasonable offer,” Cam said, one hundred percent serious, as he dumped the produce into the cart.

“And it worked,” Blaze added, picking up the tampons and broccoli.

“How did it work?” I demanded.

“Got you to laugh.” He dropped the tampons and broccoli into the cart, eyes locked on me, intense but unreadable. Was he flirting with me or mocking me?

Either way, the moment didn’t last, because their song abruptly shut off, casting a moment of silence on the store.

“What the hell?” Cam threw his hands up at the ceiling. “That was the best verse I’ve ever written.”

“That bitch told them to change it.” Blaze scowled at where the woman had disappeared until a new song came on. Then his face went completely feral.

This one was even more upbeat, and I almost gagged when the singing started. Galen used to listen to this generic trash—behind my back, obviously. Even a sociopath like him had the emotional bandwidth to feel a deserved amount of shame for enjoying this uncreative noise.

“Is this…is this Thane Calloway?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Blaze said, voice taut as his eyes flickered down to his bloody shirt.

“It’s garbage.” Cam flipped off the nearest security camera, and I lowered his hand—then grabbed the other one when he lifted it.

“Stop drawing attention. People are going to start seeing you as yourselves.”

Assuming they really were Cameron Nuxley and Blaze Zamoro. I couldn’t eradicate the theory that my mother had some involvement in this whole situation. She would do something that crazy.

At least Blaze’s unfortunate pick-up-line victim had confirmed that The Blazin’ Cameras were known to have “murdered” Thane last night. And no, I couldn’t claim anything about Thane Calloway’s death was bad when his music was destroying my eardrums.

Avoiding my eyes, Cam pulled one hand away from me and scraped it through his hair, seeming oddly shaken. “Yeah, okay, fine.” He kept his other hand in mine, though, weaving our fingers together again. I should have wiggled away, but strangely, I didn’t want to.

Even stranger: Blaze didn’t comment on it, giving our hands an emotionless look before walking down the aisle ahead of us.

Pushing the cart would’ve been less difficult with two hands, but I managed with one. Cam even unsolicitedly helped turn it into the next aisle, his absent eyes on the endless boxes of cereal.

“Grab whatever you guys want,” I said, though neither of them moved to heed the command. “I’m not coming back here for at least a week. Or ever again, to avoid Howard or whatever the hell his name is.”

“Fuck this place.” Cam kicked some granola bar boxes off the lowest shelf, and I reached down for one but left the rest. “You shouldn’t give it a dime of your money.”

Blaze spun to walk backwards, expertly dodging some of the boxes his friend had kicked. “How do you make money?”

I busied myself knocking a few cereal boxes into the cart, resisting an answer. No one ever really cared what I poured my energy into, just wanted to rank me on their status hierarchy, usually below them.

These two were top of the food chain, though; nothing I said would alter their lowly view of me, so that took away the stress of wondering if I could.

“I sell services online,” I told them as we turned into the next aisle.

Cam leaned his arm against mine. “Like nudes?”

“What, no—”

“She’d be way richer if she did that,” Blaze insisted, dropping a giant tub of peanut butter into the cart.

“Oh true, she’d probably be as famous as we are,” Cam agreed, adding a second tub.

“You guys are such assholes.” I dug my nails into Cam’s hand and elbowed him, but it didn’t wipe the breezy grin off his face.

“We were complimenting you.”

“You were also making fun of me. I can feel it.”

“Compliments and derision always come as one package with us.” With a devious smile, Blaze gripped the front of the cart and steered it back and forth like a wave, and my one hand was helpless to stop him. Simone, holding on for dear life, looked ready to claw my eyes out, but I released the cart and let him guide it all the way down the aisle, where he collected at least five different protein powders.

“What do you actually sell?” Cam asked as we walked slowly hand-in-hand.

“Why, so you can mock that too?”

“No, we just like to keep in touch with what the peasants are up to.”

Suppressing laughter, I shook my head as we finally caught up to the cart. “I sell predictions and psychic stuff. I know most humans think it’s bullshit, and you’ll be delighted to know most witches don’t take it seriously either. It’s a fickle magic. But I have a few people who really believe and appreciate my work.”

Blaze’s brow furrowed as he pulled the cart onward again, this time in a straight line. “Why don’t witches take it seriously?”

“It’s less of a science than spells are. What I…did to you, that’s more like a tried and true formula. Predicting the future is…an art, I guess. It’s based more on emotions and energies that aren’t consistent.”

“Can you read my future?” Cam released my hand to show the lines on his palm, and I let out a cynical laugh.

“You want me to provide you free food, shelter, and psychic services?”

Cam raked a sultry look up and down my body. “I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me.”

My flaming cheeks must have been apparent, because Blaze threw up his hands and abandoned the cart.

“I can’t believe you fall for his cliché-ass pick-up-lines, but when I offer to staunch your bleeding with my dick, that’s no good.”

That actually dredged up another laugh from me. “You’re both equally awful at woman-wooing, don’t worry.”

Cam commandeered the car before I could, pushing it into the baking aisle. “What about our music? What’d you think of our song?”

“You wanna know if I like your grocery store music?” I questioned as I collected cookie ingredients for Simone.

“It’s not—” Cam glanced up toward the speakers, now done with Thane’s song and onto the next overplayed pop tune. “There’s nothing wrong with people wanting to listen to our music while they shop. There’d be fucking world peace if everyone just listened to our songs all the time.”

“Would be pretty boring, though, if everyone just liked the same thing. It would never motivate you guys to create anything innovative. The world would stagnate.”

Blaze watched me deposit the cookie supplies, pensive and remorseful. “Thane pushed us to our creative limits. Our last two albums are what they are because of him.”

Cam’s fingers fidgeted on the handlebar. “Yeah, the album we made right before he came onto the scene was ass, honestly.”

Curiosity clawed at my throat, and even though I’d vowed not to get to know them, this would be the best way to determine if they were really The Blazin’ Cameras. “Why did your rivalry start?”

The guys exchanged a skeptical look as we moved into the pasta aisle.

“You want the whole story?” Blaze asked.

“As if she doesn’t already know the entire Blazin’ Cameras lore,” Cam drawled.

“Sure, pretend I’m not secretly a superfan.” Casting them a sarcastic look, I tossed some rice into the cart.

“Well,” Cam started, “as you know, we formed the band when we were sixteen.”

“I was sixteen,” Blaze corrected. “You were still fifteen.”

“Whatever. We were sophomores in high school, and we started making some demos with ancient computers and Blaze’s parents’ old instruments.”

“Cam was good at the tech stuff, and I was good on drums—”

“And we both have fucking fine vocals.” Cam flipped his hair over his shoulder like a diva, and I snorted as I threw pasta into the cart.

“But we were shit at guitar,” Blaze went on, too accustomed to his friend’s weirdness to even react. “So we got our buddy Decker to join, and then our other friend Axel declared himself our choreographer.”

“Which we thought was pointless at first, but after we uploaded a few videos online of us dancing to our music, the band really popped off.”

“We put out our first album at the end of our junior year, and then by the time we graduated, we were headlining world tours.”

“Because you were hot,” I said as I collected sauces from the shelves. “It had nothing to do with your music. You’re two hot guys dancing—girls go crazy for that.”

Cam leaned his forearms on the cart handle, a crooked smirk consuming his lips. “Told you you thought we were hot.”

Flustered, I dropped the glass jars into the cart with a clank, muttering some incoherent argument that Blaze talked right over.

“There were four of us at the time, and yeah, we were hot, but our music was dope too. We were number one in the world, and all our albums hit the very top of the charts until the sixth one.”

Cam’s triumphant expression descended into bitterness. “Thane released his second album the same fucking day, and he blew ours out of the water.”

“He was twenty, we were twenty-six—he was more attractive to the younger generation.”

“And album six was ass.”

“But we were determined to take our spot back,” Blaze continued. “So we decided to make a joke about it and put out a diss track.”

“Which people loved, but Thane took it like an absolute pussy.”

“He secretly offered Decker and Axel a shit-load of money to join his crew, and being the greedy little dicks they are, they took the bribe and ditched us.” Blaze said it with only a hint of annoyance, but the pain of betrayal shone deep in his eyes.

“Thane didn’t even give them any real recognition or a spot in a band,” Cam added, pushing the cart into the next aisle. “He kept his solo name and they were basically just backup props on stage.”

“Until he started calling their group Thane Calloway and the Long Schlongs last year.”

“Which was obviously meant to demean them, since Thane has zero sense of humor, but they still stick to his side like leeches.”

I tried to envision their old friends or even Thane, but I couldn’t remember seeing pictures of them, so in my mind they morphed into hideous demons with unibrows and ass-sized crotches. Like the real demon Molvaden who I sometimes accidentally summoned when I did a spell wrong. Hated that guy.

“So we’ve been battling for the number one spot the past six years,” Blaze said, “mostly using it as a publicity stunt, but Thane was pretty ruthless about it.”

“Any time either of us dated a girl, he would pull her into his fold after we broke up and try to get dirt on us.” Cam glared at the array of hand soaps as if his exes faces were on the labels.

“One girl stuck with him—Ophelia.” Blaze practically spat her name. “I only dated her for a few months, but she managed to steal some diss tracks we’d written about Thane that were…brutal.”

“If we’d released them ourselves, we could’ve made them funnier, but Thane leaked them right after his grandma died, and it made us look like petty douchebags.”

“Some of his fans sent us death threats,” Blaze recounted with a sigh, “and some of his fans started the meme that we’re old and irrelevant and gonna die soon anyway.”

“Which is, like, so silly,” Cam scoffed. “We’re not old.”

“Well…” I pressed my smirking lips together. “You’re kinda old. You’re in your thirties.”

“Are you… Don’t tell me you’re a secret Thane Calloway stan?” With a theatrical gasp, Cam let the cart slam into a shelf, and Simone yelped as she jumped off.

“What? Ew, no. His music is gross. And my hatred for him has nothing to do with the story you just told, which could definitely be biased. I just…I mean, you heard his song a few minutes ago. Yours was better.”

Blaze shifted a little closer to me, his devilish smirk gradually growing. “You liked our song?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I didn’t like it. It just didn’t induce the urge to vomit.”

“She loved it.” Cam steered the cart forward again with one hand while pressing his other fingertips into my spine, propelling me onward. “I bet we can get Stereona to play it when we get home.”

I jerked away from his touch, ignoring the tingling up my back. “Don’t call my house your home. And you’re not allowed to talk to Stereona. I don’t need you corrupting her.”

Blaze closed in to walk on my other side, wedging me between them once again. “We won’t need to corrupt her if we corrupt you.”

Slipping forward away from them, I realized we’d reached the end of the last aisle. So wrapped up in their story, I’d forgotten to get anything from the bottom quarter of the list.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

They did not say right there. After gathering an armful of items, Simone prancing at my heels, I returned to the spot to find the aisle empty. And then I spent ten minutes searching the whole store until I found them in one of the checkout lines. On their way there, they’d piled a mountain of products into the cart, topping it off with the most expensive shampoos available.

“You can’t—I can’t afford all this—”

“Relax, Annie,” Cam dismissed as he moved items from the cart to the conveyer belt. “I got it.”

“Got—”

“Oh shit,” Blaze said from the other end of the cart, where he was also relocating items. “We need razors.”

Cam’s face scrunched up. “Eugh, the cheap plastic kind?”

“Don’t have much of a choice here,” Blaze said as he wove past us to jog back into the aisles.

“You don’t need razors,” I reasoned, depositing my armful of products onto the conveyer belt. “This is a temporary arrangement, remember? You can go a few days without shaving.”

Cam barked out a fake laugh before his face went stony. “No, we can’t. You haven’t seen us unshaven. It’s ungodly.”

“Here.” Blaze returned, tossing a pack of men’s razors toward the cashier.

The middle-aged woman easily caught them with a smile of triumph. Once she shoved them into a bag, she adjusted her lime green glasses and said, “That’ll be four seventy-five, thirteen.”

My jaw fell open, but Cam didn’t even bat an eye as he pulled out his wallet. “Is that a lot these days? I don’t even know what the financial state of the world is anymore.”

“Wait,” I said as she handed him the card, a horrible thought occurring to me. The feds were probably trying to track down the guys, right? Which meant they’d be monitoring their purchases—they would know Cam and Blaze were somewhere in this town, and it was only a matter of time before they started scouring the woods. If my wards couldn’t keep out these two fools, there was no way I’d muster the power to deter the government.

Before I could think to snatch the card, the cashier swiped it. Then she swiped it again, her chipper expression fading.

“It’s declined… Are you sure this is yours?” She scanned the card, and I peered around to see the cardholder name—The Blazin’ Cameras.

“It’s his fake…play…pretend credit card.” I snagged it from her and forced a smile. “Sorry.”

She nodded sympathetically as I handed her my own card. “I have elderly parents too. They don’t like accepting that they can’t be responsible anymore.”

“Oh, uh, yup, this is my…dad.” I patted Cam awkwardly on the shoulder, and his face contorted in revulsion. “And my…” Glancing back at Blaze, his arms crossed over his chest, his posture tense and aloof, I had no clue how the cashier might have seen him. He probably didn’t look like a child anymore, unless he’d embodied the vibe of a rebellious teenager, but even if he appeared as an adult, I didn’t want to call him my brother…or my boyfriend. “Um…okay, bye!”

Grabbing my card, I plowed the cart forward and speed-walked toward the exit with Simone at my heels.

“Do you want your receipt?” the woman called after me.

“Nope, don’t want any reminders of this trip!” I shouted without looking back.

Simone hopped into the cart’s lower tray before we stepped out onto the scorching pavement, though everything happening outside my head seemed like a blurry dream until we reached the car. I propped a forearm on the hot metal and let myself breathe until Blaze startled me by opening the trunk.

“She saw me as elderly,” Cam said, absently pushing the cart toward the back of the car.

“I think I’m gonna puke,” I said breathlessly. “That was so much money.”

“We thought we would be able to pay,” Blaze grumbled as he transferred bags into the trunk. “We didn’t want you to have to—”

“You two are actually idiots, oh my god.” I buried my eyes in the crook of my elbow, ignoring the heat wafting into my face from the car. “You thought you could use your credit card? Your business credit card? When you’re fucking fugitives?”

“We don’t look like us,” Blaze argued, though not very vehemently. “We thought our stuff might look different too.”

“I made you get naked for a reason.”

Lifting my head, I found a guy in his twenties standing at the car next to ours with the door open, looking mildly disturbed. The only thing I had to throw at him was my debit card, and I wasn’t hysterical enough to do that, so I just scowled at him until he snapped out of staring and hurried into his car.

“Clothes and other items might look different when they’re on you,” I explained, “but once you handed the card over to the cashier, she saw its true form. You’d better hope she doesn’t call someone—or that the government can’t track your failed payments. I don’t want our overlords invading my house.”

“Trust me, we don’t either.” Blaze’s agitated eyes briefly flickered to me before he rolled the empty cart toward the nearest receptacle.

Cam had already assumed his seat in the sweltering car, shell-shocked and numb to the temperature. Wiping sweat from my forehead, I slipped into the driver’s seat and blasted the air conditioning.

I’d never liked going out in public—at least, not since breaking up with Galen—but if every outing with these two yielded this level of anxiety…I needed to find a solution now.

The passenger’s door opened, and Blaze slid a box of cake onto the seat, Simone’s four paws perched in the icing as she chowed down.

“Your cat’s probably gonna die,” was all he said before slamming the door and taking his seat in the back.

“She’ll be fine,” I mumbled, mostly to myself, as pulled out of the parking lot. “We won’t be fine, though. This whole…situation is so much harder than I thought. No one sees you the same way, and I don’t know whether to treat you like my kids or my grandpas or…” I ran a hand over my hair, trying to focus my jittery attention on the road. “You guys need to act consistently.”

“Ooh, that’s gonna be impossible,” Blaze said like it was an unfortunate inevitability.

“I wasn’t acting like an old man,” Cam pouted, slumped low in his seat. “I’m thirty-two. I’m not fucking old.”

I glanced at my sister, hoping to share a moment of sanity with someone, but she was too busy inhaling cake like a ravenous little lion.

Perhaps I should have felt loneliness and despair, but I’d been so entrenched in those emotions for the past three years that the current stress almost soothed me. There was a realness to it, coloring a world that had previously seemed so dull.

With Galen, problems weren’t problems. He effortlessly fixed everything without even consulting me about it. That had led to a sense of comfort and certainty, but also helplessness.

With Cam and Blaze came the thrill of the unknown, the frustration of the unknown, and a messy antidote to the debilitating perfectionism Galen had infused in me.

For the first time in three years—maybe even eight years—maybe even forever—I felt like I was in control.