He took a bite himself. “Mm-mm, can’t tell you. If I tell it won’t come true.”
Phil sighed, wishing that was really the way it worked. Wishing that she didn’t have the added burden of her birthday wish on top of all the crap she was going through at work and home. Too bad she couldn’t just wish the wishes away, but that was another rule that couldn’t be broken. No wishing for more wishes and no wishing for no wishes.
“You look deep in thought—that’s the second time in two days. Better be careful or it’s going to get to be a habit.” Josh licked his fork and Phil was surprised to see that they had nearly finished the cheesecake. She took half of the last bite, leaving half for him.
“Just thinking about tonight,” she murmured. She half expected her friend to say something but Josh seemed to decide to leave their earlier topic of conversation alone.
“Oops.” He looked down at his watch and ran a hand through his thick brown hair. “My lunch is almost over.”
“Mine too, I guess.” Phil was grateful that her boss was going to be in court all afternoon and she wouldn’t have to put up with anything more annoying than Kelli’s chatter. “Thanks again for the cheesecake, Josh.” She got up from the table and started to take the plate to the sink but he stopped her.
“Uh-uh, birthday girl. Allow me.” He put the plate in the sink and ceremoniously poured a huge dollop of green dish liquid on it, making Phil giggle.
“That’s enough to wash a whole sink full of dishes,” she pointed out.
“Well, Supersize Bowman is what they call me. I think you can guess why, sweetheart.” Josh wiggled his eyebrows at her and did a little bump and grind with his hips, imitating her boss.
Phil laughed out loud. “Josh, you are bad. I need to get back to work. ”
He grinned. “I have to get back, too. I have a very special virus to work on, as I recall. Hold on.” He put a hand on her arm to stop her from leaving the break room.
“What?”
“You’re still wearing your war paint.” Josh grabbed a paper towel and wet it. “Hold still,” he directed, leaning down to cup her chin in one hand.
Phil submitted quietly, a little surprised by how much she enjoyed his touch. Then she pushed the thought away—she was engaged and she didn’t think of her friend that way. Of course there was that one time she’d had that really embarrassing dream about him… Okay, better not go there, either. Phil tried to clear her mind of any inappropriate thoughts. Josh was too important to her to mess up their friendship with sexual tension.
“Thanks,” she said when he had wiped the small smudge of dried blood off her cheek.
“Any time—can’t have you going on the war path even if Dickhead Junior deserves it.” Josh smiled, an expression that lit his whole face. Then he shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling under the dark green shirt. “Well, I’d better get back.”
“Wait a minute.” Following an impulse she couldn’t explain, Phil reached up and put her arms around her best friend’s neck, even though he was so tall that it was a stretch.
Josh stood frozen for a second, like a statue in her arms, and then he wrapped his own arms around her carefully, as though he were afraid he might break her. “What’s this for?” he asked, his breath warm against the side of her neck.
“For just being you. And for remembering my birthday. Twice.” When some people can’t even remember once. She planted a kiss on his slightly scratchy cheek. “Thank you, Josh. You have no idea how much it means to me.” She started to withdraw but his arms were still around her waist and Phil found herself noticing how good he smelled. Spicy and warm and masculine. She wondered what kind of cologne he was wearing or if it was just him. She could feel the entire length of his body pressed against hers now, the hard, warm wall of his chest felt good against her and his arms wrapped so tightly around her were strong and sturdy, giving her a sense of security. Suddenly she wished the hug could go on forever.
“Maybe I do know,” he murmured softly in her ear. “Phil, for a long time, I—”
“Well, isn’t this a cozy scene.”
They both looked up to see Alison standing in the doorway, one hip cocked to the side and a sardonic expression on her sharp, fox-like features. “Why don’t you two love birds get a room?” she purred.
Phil disentangled herself and jumped back. “I was giving Josh a hug for remembering my birthday,” she babbled, feeling strangely guilty.
“Oh, it’s your birthday?” Alison gave her a smile as real as a three-dollar bill. “Well happy birthday, hon. How old are you now? Thirty-five?”
“She’s about five years younger than you, I think Alison,” Josh said mildly. “So I guess that makes you forty?” Alison frowned but before she could come up with a reply, he nodded at both of them. “Hasta la vista, ladies. I’ve got to go fight for truth, justice and the American way. Or at least make sure the server doesn’t crash.”
Phil watched as he walked down the hall, whistling carelessly. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been about to say something before Alison walked in. But she still had piles of work at her desk—and a wish to think up before six fifteen that night.
Chapter Six
“We have a crisis of epic proportions on our hands.” Cass’s usually sardonic voice sounded panicked.
“What are you talking about?” Phil spun the steering wheel and stared at her cell phone as though her sister’s face might suddenly appear to clarify the situation.
“It’s Nana—remember, the woman who raised us?” Her younger sister’s voice was sharp and Phil wished she could shout back. Instead she took a deep breath and blew it out.
“Tell me all about it. What happened?” She turned a corner too fast and nearly ran a light.
“I don’t have much time right now. Are you anywhere near the house?”
Phil knew her sister meant the big Victorian mansion at the crest of States Street where all three of them had grown up and where Cass and Rory continued to live with their grandmother. Nana was a sweet, excitable lady with delusions of grandeur where her half-fairy status was concerned. With her modest inheritance, she hadn’t had to work, and had turned toward magic as a full-time hobby. The only problem was, she didn’t have enough fairy blood to do any kind of magic very well and she was constantly getting into trouble. Phil thought she might be the only granddaughter she knew of that had bailed her grandmother out of jail. Twice.
“Rory has my car but she’s on the way. We all need to go together. We need the power of blood behind us.” Cass’s voice on the other end of the cell phone pulled Phil back from her musings.
“Go where?” she asked, with rising apprehension. Though they didn’t have much fairy blood in their veins, having all three sisters together did increase their ability to deal with magical situations. “Is Nana in the lock-up again?”
“No but she will be if we don’t get down there. Just hurry up!” Honestly, for a younger sister, Cass was unbearably bossy and sometimes Phil ached to tell her so. Like right now.
“But I’m supposed to go out with Christian at seven. And I still haven’t even thought of a wish!” she protested. But she was already taking the left that would take her to States Street. Even without her sister’s bossing she knew she would always come to her nana’s rescue. Despite her eccentricities, her grandmother had done the best she could to raise three little girls on her own.
“We’ll think about it on the way.”
“On the way where?” Phil demanded, exasperated.
“The bowling alley,” Cass said and clicked off abruptly.
By the time she got to the big lavender mansion at the top of the hill, Cass and Rory were both waiting out front. Cass was dressed all in black, tapping her foot on the sidewalk. Rory was dressed more conventionally in jeans and a T-shirt, twisting one long lock of her brilliant red hair around her finger nervously. Phil barely had time to pull up to the curb before they were piling into her ancient bug.
“Hurry up,
” Cass directed as she settled into the passenger seat with Rory in the back. “We have to get to Splitsville”
“Splitsville?” Phil raised an eyebrow at her sister.
“It’s that new bowling alley down by USF,” Rory supplied. “You know, the one on Fowler?”
“I think so.” Phil started driving in the general direction of the bowling alley, glancing at her watch nervously. She had left work late and it was five thirty now. In exactly forty-five minutes her fairy godmother would appear and demand to know her wish. If Phil didn’t have it on the tip of her tongue, she’d be saddled with whatever the bad-tempered fairy thought up herself. She might get “fingernails as strong as diamonds” and never be able to file them again. Or something much worse.
“What is Nana doing at a bowling alley, anyway?” she asked, trying to push the worry out of her mind and not succeeding very well. “Has she joined a league?”
Cass snorted. “And risk chipping a nail? I don’t think so. She’s down there trying out her new love potion.”
“Love potion?” Phil nearly ran a stop sign. “Are you serious? Fairies don’t make potions.”
“No, but witches do. Remember we told you she was dabbling in the Craft?” Rory wrinkled her nose. “You should smell the inside of the house—it’s awful! Like dill pickles and cat pee.”
“I told her it wouldn’t work.” Cass drummed her fingernails on the bug’s dashboard. “Can’t you make this thing go any faster?”
“This thing is the same age I am so cut it a break,” Phil said, making the turn onto Fowler.
“See, that’s what I don’t understand,” Cass said. “You and Christian lived hand to mouth all those years and now that he’s got a new job you’d think things would be different.”
“Things are different,” Phil protested. “We’re living in a much nicer apartment now.”
“Yeah, but you’re still driving this hunk of junk and still working that crappy job with the boss that likes to play grab-ass with you. I thought you going to quit and go back to school.”
“I am,” Phil said, grimly hanging on to her temper. Why did her sister always have to make everything sound so hopeless? “I’m going back to school after the wedding.”
“Oh, did you set a date then?” Rory leaned forward.
“Look, can we please for once not talk about my life?” Phil took a deep breath. “Just tell me what’s going on with Nana.”
“She told me she was lonely,” Rory said. “She said that all of us were growing up and when we left home there would be no one to keep her company.”
“So why didn’t she sign up with a dating service?” Phil asked. “We live in Florida—there’s plenty of them that cater to senior citizens.”
“That’s not Nana’s way and you know it.” Cass crossed her arms over her chest, her wild black curls bouncing with the gesture. “She told Rory and me that she wanted to be able to ‘pick and choose’ whatever that means.”
“So she decided to try her potion in a bowling alley?” Phil frowned.
Rory shrugged. “She seemed to think it was a good place to pick up men.”
“You know how she’s always had a thing for blue collar type guys,” Cass put in. “Remember the way she always flirted with repair men? We’re probably lucky she didn’t decide to try it out down at some construction site.”
Phil had a brief mental image of her sweet little nana tottering around in her impractically high heels in a hardhat zone and thanked her stars she hadn’t. “Well how do you know she’s in trouble?” she asked. “Did the bowling alley call and say she was making a disturbance?” It wouldn’t be the first time they had received such a call about their nana. Up ahead she could see a huge neon bowling pin and the word Splitsville in red cursive script across the top.
“No, Nana called herself,” Cass said. “She was a little hysterical—but that’s normal for her. What worried me was she kept saying that she thought she’d gotten the potion wrong somehow.”
“She called me too,” Rory said darkly. “And I heard all these guys in the background. It sounded like a football game or something the way they were cheering and chanting. I just hope she’s all right.”
“Me too.” Phil felt a quick stab of panic as she pulled into the Splitsville parking lot. “Let’s go get her.”
The three of them nearly ran to the entrance of the bowling alley. As soon as she pushed open the front door, Phil caught a whiff of what must be the potion her grandmother had been working on. As Rory had said, it smelled like strong Kosher pickles mixed with ammonia. She wrinkled her nose and pressed forward into the dark interior.
The bowling alley was dimly lit and under the strong odor of the potion, Phil could smell fried food and stale beer. She scanned the identical lanes for her nana’s plump form but they were all empty. Where was everyone? And where was her nana?
“There!” Rory was pointing to the far corner of the building. It was a big bowling alley but as soon as she saw the crowd gathered at the far end, Phil wondered how she could’ve missed it. They ran toward the disturbance, and as they got closer, she could hear the rumble of male voices over the click of the pin machines at the end of each lane. And over all of the confusion she could hear her grandmother speaking.
“Boys, please. Now this isn’t what I had in mind at all!” declared the prim, slightly breathless voice Phil knew so well.
“Nana,” she gasped, wishing she had removed the heels she’d worn to work. They really weren’t meant for running and her arches were already aching. The smell of dill pickles and cat urine was overwhelming at this end of the building and she nearly choked as she called for her grandmother again. “Nana!”
“Oh, girls! I’m so glad you came but there was no need to rush. I have the situation under control now.” Nana was about seventy-five although the fairy blood in her veins acted to make her look and feel at least twenty-five years younger. Phil couldn’t remember a time when her grandmother had looked any different from now. Her long silver-gray hair was piled atop her head in an old-fashioned Gibson girl do and her plump, matronly figure was swathed in a matching lime green pants suit that might have been fashionable in the mid-nineteen-seventies.
Nana was in the middle of a crowd but she looked perfectly in her element as she reached for a bowling ball, surprising Cass, who murmured, “I can’t believe she’s actually bowling.”
“But look who she’s bowling with,” Rory said.
“Look, hold it like this,” one of the men in the crowd surrounding her was instructing their grandmother. But he wasn’t exactly a man—not quite, anyway. In fact, none of the crowd that had gathered around Nana were men. Phil’s eye was caught by a large banner hanging on the wall caught her eye. Welcome Eagle Scouts of Tampa/St. Petersburg Annual Bowlathon. That was when it hit her—not a single one of the guys milling around her grandmother was a day over eighteen and some looked as young as fifteen. The group of admirers Nana had gathered was entirely made up of teenage boys.
“Holy crap!” Cass spoke out of the side of her mouth. “Nana’s having herself a Mrs. Robinson moment.”
“She sure is,” Phil whispered back, relieved that the situation seemed harmless enough.
“I can’t believe we rushed all the way over here for this,” Rory complained, flipping her long red hair over one shoulder. “If Nana wanted to be a den mother she could have just volunteered instead of dragging us all over town saying she got her potion wrong.”
“Look again,” Phil told her youngest sister. “I think those Eagle Scouts think that Nana has a slightly more than uh motherly interest in them.”
“Now, get your hips in line and swing from the shoulder,” they heard the boy teaching Nana to hold the ball saying as he positioned his hands on either side of Nana’s waist.
“Oh my God!” Cass looked scandalized. “Look at him hitting on her! It’s indecent!”
“Chill, Cass, he’s just teaching her how to bowl.” Rory sighed. “Ya know, I haven�
�t been bowling myself in a long time. Think we could rent some shoes?”
Phil turned to tell her that they didn’t have time for an impromptu game when she came face to face with a balding, middle aged man who had a confused look on his face.
“Hello, ladies,” he said politely. “You wouldn’t happen to know who that attractive older woman over there is, would you?”
“As a matter of fact, she’s our grandmother,” Cass answered before Phil could speak up.
“And we’re sorry if she’s caused any trouble,” Phil put in quickly.
“Oh, no trouble, really.” The man tried to smile. “It’s just that we were in the middle of a league championship when she walked in and suddenly all my scouts lost interest in the game.”
“They did?” Rory asked with very little surprise. “What happened?”
The balding man who must be the Scout Master frowned. “Well, they all left their lanes and started milling around her. I thought they’d get tired of talking to her and want to get back to the game eventually. But it’s been almost forty-five minutes and, well…” He shrugged helplessly, indicating the Eagle Scouts who continued to vie for Nana’s attention. Another boy was trying to take over the bowling lesson at this point and the first boy was giving him a hostile stare. From the other side of the lane several more scouts had approached Nana and Phil thought she heard one of them asking for her grandmother’s phone number.
“I’m so sorry,” Phil said. “She, uh, tends to be a little, um, disruptive at times. But she doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“Well, I can understand the attraction,” the Scout Master said. “I mean, for her age, your grandmother is certainly a very attractive woman. Between you and me, I’m a happily married man. But if I wasn’t…” He took in a deep breath and looked at Nana longingly. “I mean, she really is a knock out. And her perfume is amazing. In fact, the more I smell it, the better she looks.” He took another deep breath and looked confused. “Does that make sense?” He wandered away without waiting for an answer, drifting towards Nana like an iron filing drawn by a magnet.
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