Spells Trouble, Kristin Cast [books to read in a lifetime .TXT] 📗

“I did, but only because I don’t remember the name of what we’re actually looking for.”

Hunter pulled her phone out of her back pocket and brought up the article she’d read to Jax in the car on the way over and scrolled until she saw the name in bold. “Bacillus thur-ing-ein-sis.” She broke down the last word the same way she did each time they discussed abiogenesis in her biology class. Something about the sis really tripped her up.

Jax’s chuckle was interrupted by a snort as he ran his fingertips along the starlike blooms of a row of daffodils. “I’m positive you’re still not saying it right.”

“Well, at least I don’t snort when I laugh.”

Jax wrapped his arm around Hunter’s shoulders and pulled her into him. “You love my laugh snorts,” he teased and rubbed his knuckles against the top of her head.

Hunter couldn’t help but laugh as she pushed and twisted in an attempt to wriggle free. “You’re like the brother I never wanted.” She grunted and reached around to Jax’s right side.

“Not the Claw! Not the Claw!” He erupted into a cacophony of snorts and giggles as Hunter snapped her fingers open and shut along his ribs.

Jax released her, wrapped his arms around his middle, and stumbled backward into a table of budding hydrangeas.

“Works every time.” Hunter smoothed her hand over the mess of puffy bumps Jax had inflicted on her hair and sighed. “Remember when I was the one who would hold you down and give you noogies?” She pulled her tie from her disheveled ponytail and shook out her hair. “Oh, that was the life…”

Jax lifted the bottom of his shirt and wiped his eyes. Dark hair ran in a furry track down the middle of his flat stomach and disappeared behind the waistband of his shorts. Gone was the little boy who used to stand between the swings at recess, arms stretched as wide as they could go, hands gripping the metal chains in order to save her one, or the little boy who used to climb onto a kitchen chair to help her get her ponytail just right. Her best friend had turned into a man and she hadn’t even noticed.

“That was back when I sounded like Mickey Mouse and Mercy said that I’d be shorter than Kevin Hart.” Jax shoved his hands into his pockets and joined Hunter back on the path that wound through the sun-drenched plants to the small hut labeled CONTROL THOSE PESTS! “You should leave your hair down more often.” He nodded toward the lengths of inky black that brushed Hunter’s shoulder blades. “It’s really pretty.”

She gathered her hair and positioned it back into her signature ponytail. “I was just wondering what a straight guy thought about my hair choices. Tell me, should I also smile more?”

“Ah, yes, you read my mind.” Jax tapped his temple and nodded dramatically. “And while you’re at it, you should go back to the kitchen and make me a sammich, extra mayo, no crusts.”

It felt good to laugh again. To be away from her house and the ghost of her mother. It felt good to be twin-less, free from her sister and the weight of Mercy’s broken pieces that Hunter kept picking up but couldn’t quite fit back together.

“Holy hell!” Jax grabbed Hunter’s shoulders and ducked behind her. “It’s Barbara Ritter!” he said and peered up over her shoulder before hunkering down again.

“Mrs. Ritter, your neighbor?” Hunter cocked her head at the two women who were too busy looking at plants to notice the spectacle that was currently Jax Ashley. She chewed on the tip of her pinky nail and took in the suburbanites in their nearly matching tennis outfits, one pastel yellow with sensible white tennis shoes, the other a much louder neon yellow with bright, sparkling gold shoes. Barbara was the giant, glittery highlighter, which made sense since, although her oldest child wouldn’t be in high school for at least another five years, she demanded to chaperone all school dances while using a bullhorn to mortify horny teens. Maybe Barbara had given the school’s principal her secret to the perfect ponytail. If Mrs. Ritter gave Hunter the recipe for a long, shiny ponytail that curled at the end like an upside-down question mark, Hunter would let her do pretty much anything.

“Yes!” Jax hissed like a stuck balloon and crawled between two large pots of flowering shrubs before he disappeared under a table covered in ivy.

Hunter bent over and parted palm-sized leaves and scarlet blooms that waterfalled like spilled cranberry juice over the lip of the pot to look down at Jax. “Why are you hiding?” She looked back at Mrs. Ritter and her friend who, aside from the neon-ness of one and the spray tanned–ness of them both, were two completely normal women.

Jax pressed his finger against his lips and frantically waved for her to join him. With a groan, Hunter obliged. Ivy stems brushed against her back and her palms smashed fresh earth as she crawled under the table and squatted next to him. “This is ridiculous,” she whispered and wiped the dirt from her hands. “Why are we hiding?”

Jax blew out a puff of air, leaned forward and drew the curtain of ivy closed, and settled back against the ground. “I kind of saw her…” He moved his hands in front of him like he was juggling invisible balls. “Chest?” He winced and shook his head. “Her boobs, okay. I saw Mrs. Ritter’s boobs.”

Hunter clapped her hand over her mouth and nearly toppled onto her butt.

Again, Jax pressed his finger to his lips. “My dad made me fix that rotted spot in the fence. I had a few boards down and she just, you know…”

Hunter’s jaw flopped open. “What? Took off her shirt and said, ‘Here Jax, please gaze upon my heaving bosoms’?”

“No!” Another hiss. “She was tanning, topless, and I saw her and didn’t exactly look away.”

Hunter dropped her head into her hands. “Jesus, Jax!”

“I know!” he said