“Oh, come on, Hollie! Why not?”
Turning to face her, I pointed to the book. “For one, most of those are made-up spells written by two twelve-year-old girls. Second, I’m not a witch. And if my memory serves me, I think we copied that spell from one of Lucy’s books.”
“Then let’s ask Sarah to cast a spell.”
“No! Besides, you cannot alter someone’s free will. I know that much.”
“You’re not. It’s a simple spell to get him to notice you.” She looked down at the spell. “You know what? We did copy some of these out of that black spell book your aunt told you not to ever touch.”
Sighing, I headed into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of wine. “All the more reason I’m not doing it, Kristin.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and asked, “Are you afraid?”
I stopped and slowly turned to face her. “Excuse me?”
She gasped. “You are. You’re totally afraid it will work. You’re afraid that Lucas will notice you.”
Narrowing my eyes at her, I clenched my jaw tightly as I slowly replied, “I am not afraid. I am, however, not going to put a spell on a guy to like me if he can’t like me on his own. I want to know that the feelings between us are true.”
“So, you do believe in witchcraft!”
With a frustrated growl, I started toward the kitchen.
“That’s it, isn’t it? All those years you were teased for your family’s witchcraft history has made you afraid to admit that you just might have the gift.”
Turning to face my best friend, I drew in a slow breath and then lied, “I’m not afraid.”
With one of her perfectly arched brows raised, she said, “Prove it.”
Three hours later
Three bottles of wine and two shots of tequila between the two of us later, I found myself sitting in the middle of my living room, faux spell book in hand with an altar set up on the floor.
Kristin sat down next to me. “Okay, we’ve got his picture. Put it in the middle.”
I placed a picture of Lucas in the middle of the salt circle I’d made on the floor. We had cut the picture out of my yearbook, which I would regret in the morning when I was sober.
“I think we have to use a certain color candle,” I said, impressed that I wasn’t slurring and that I could somewhat remember how all this worked.
Kristin held up two candles. “All you have is red and black.”
Tapping my finger on my chin, I pointed to the black one. “That one.”
Frowning, Kristin said, “I think we should use red.”
“No!” I shouted. “Red is for passion. Love! Desire. I just want him to notice me, not fall in love with me.”
“But you said you can’t alter free will.”
I shrugged and hiccupped before I said, “Better to play it safe.”
We both nodded.
I giggled when I read the title of the spell. “To make a man fall…”
Looking up at her, I frowned. “We never finished writing the name of the spell. How do we know this is the right one?”
“I’m, like, 95 percent sure that is the right spell.”