In her mind, she was remembering the words and inflection needed for her banana spell.
“We’re so close to the water,” he explained, as if that made any sense.
“I mean, it is a duck pond,” she said. “It isn’t like it is gonna jump up and bite me.”
His face got that ah-ha look, as if she’d just explained exactly what he’d been wondering about.
Then, without any warning, he shoved her into the water.
Chapter 2
Bobsy came up sputtering and annoyed, but the water wasn’t deeper than her waist. Sure, the sucking mud at the bottom of the pond gripped at her jeans and feet, but other than being wet, muddy, and fully dressed, it wasn’t like he’d hurt her when he nudged her into the water unceremoniously.
Shoving her wet hair out of her face, she cleared her eyes of water before looking to where he’d just been standing. If she’d hoped to tell him off, she was shit out of luck because Ambrose the Shover had vanished from sight. There was no way he’d run off in that short of a period of time, so she wondered how he’d managed to escape her many questions and complaints quite so easily.
Plus, as if her day needed to get a little worse, she noticed a guy now stood by the park bench where she’d left her bag and he gaped at her with open-mouthed shock. As he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to come over and help her get out of the duck pond, she began slogging her way back to shore.
A couple ducks, upset by her short and abrupt swim in their territory, waved their wings in distress, but the park was otherwise silent aside from the sound of her slogging out of the water.
Every step made a squashing, wet macaroni and cheese noise as the water in her sneakers squished out. Her pants weighed a ton, and her mood was ruined.
The guy by the park bench looked horrified. “You aren’t supposed to swim in the duck pond,” he explained, waving his hands at her much as the ducks had flapped their wings.
“Yeah, thanks for the tip, buddy.”
“Are you Bobsy?” he asked.
“Well, joy, everyone seems to know my name today. Yes, I am, and would you like to shove me into a duck pond after I share my sandwich with you?” she grumped. She instantly felt bad—it wasn’t this guy’s fault she was having a shit-tastic day, after all—but it wasn’t like she could take the words back, either.
“Um, we had a date… I think?” the guy said, offering his hand. She reached out to take it, then he glanced at her mud-covered palm and retreated quickly.
She shrugged. It literally wasn’t the first time that day that someone looked horrified at the idea of touching her. “Did we?” she asked. Another glance around showed no sign of Ambrose whatsoever.
“I’m Andrew365,” he replied. Then he opened what appeared to be a brown paper sack that held his own lunch and offered her a paper napkin. “Here… I know it won’t help much but—”
“Thanks, Andrew,” Bobsy said, accepting his offer. The paper napkin just about melted in her soggy hand, but it was a nice gesture. Chivalry, it seemed, was not entirely gone.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he began, but she shook her head to interrupt him.
“Look, I’m kind of having a bit of a bad day, and I want to go home and dry off. Care to reschedule our date?”
Andrew glanced at her from head to toe, as if weighing her value vs. her current muddy state. “We don’t have to,” he said quickly. “I mean, I thought you were…”
Her brow quirked. “You thought I was what?”
“Hotter?” he said quickly. “Don’t be offended, but—”
Bobsy smiled at him slowly. “Do you like bananas, Andrew?”
* * *
Three hours, a cup of tea, and shower later, and Bobsy was feeling much more herself again. Her familiar, a gorgeous black cat, slinked against her legs in a soothing manner.
“You didn’t want to rub that shiny black fur against my legs just an hour ago, Peter, so there’s no use sucking up now,” she told the cat.
With a little chirrup of a purr, he leaped onto the couch to knead the blanket she’d wrapped herself in after the shower. “You stunk,” Peter admitted, before giving her arm a delicate sniff. “You smelled of pond muck, of goose shit, and of stagnant water.”
She snorted inelegantly. “You’ll have that when some rando shoves you in a duck pond, m’boy.”
“I don’t get why you didn’t shove a spell up his ass,” the familiar responded before curling against her side. “Didn’t you have one prepped?”
Deciding that petting him would soothe her more than it would him, Bobsy caved and stroked his softball of a head. Right behind his ears was her favorite spot, as it was somehow even softer than the rest of his sleek pelt. “I had a really cool spell prepped—it turns wieners into bananas like that!” She snapped her fingers to demonstrate.
His green eyes narrowed, feline face seeming as dubious as a cat could get. “And yet he walked away without a yellow wanker… why was that, do you think?”
“Look, don’t go into kitty shrink mode or I’ll close you in the bedroom in a cat carrier.”
He let out a little gust of breath through his nose, the cat equivalent of a snort. “I’ll just teleport out,” he replied.
“Okay, fine,” she grumbled, sipping her tea and cradling it in her still chilled fingers. “I probably had plenty of opportunities to turn his man meat into a fruit with a peel…”
The cat didn’t laugh at her bad joke, but she didn’t feel bad for it either. After a few seconds of waiting for his chuckle, she continued, “But he just didn’t seem harmful, so I didn’t.”
“You thought he was hot,” Peter surmised.
Frowning at him, she stretched her legs out to shove him off the couch. “Physical appeal doesn’t sway me into being nice to someone. And I still don’t even know why he threw me in that water. Maybe there was a bug, and he was waving it away or something, bumped me with his arm in the process, and didn’t mean to launch me into mucksville?”
Despite it being an actual possibility—they were outside, after all—Bobsy didn’t believe the explanation even as she uttered the words. For one, she could remember the feel of his hand firmly on her arm as he grasped it to power his shove. For two, if it had been an accidental dunking, why would he have fled the scene in the time that it took her to stand up? It just didn’t make sense.
Then again, nothing about the entire encounter made sense.
“You don’t believe that,” Peter said, reading her expression easily, since he was her familiar, after all.
“Not really,” she admitted, taking another heartening sip of tea. “But even if I assign him full responsibility for throwing me in a pond, it doesn’t make sense to me why he’d do it. I mean, seriously… the water is only a couple feet deep. What was the point, you know?”
Before Peter could answer, a ding sounded from her computer, so Bobsy stood to check it. She shuffled in the blanket to her desk, refusing to give up the comforting warmth of the soft blue cover, like a burrito with legs.
“I have another date offer,” Bobsy said aloud to the cat. “From the car for hire guy. He wants to take me on a hike to Blackwater Falls.”
“You sure you want to risk going near another body of water?” Peter asked. “The last date should’ve scared you away from that prospect.”
Bobsy snorted. “Well, I don’t think two different men are going to shove me into water, and besides, Kevin Martin sounds like such a normal and wholesome name. How bad can it be?”
Chapter 3
It wasn’t like Bobsy didn’t like face tattoos on men, because she’d seen quite a few pictures of sexy guys with face tattoos in the past. Then again, most of the face tattoos she found attractive weren’t of a cartoon sponge in the middle of the sexy guy forehead, but who was she to judge the art on another person’s body? Besides, she reminded herself, she didn’t judge a person based on how they looked.
“So, Kevin, your profile said you drive a car for hire,” she said, resisting the urge t
o stare at Kevin as they hiked through the forest toward the sound of the falls in the distance. Instead, she stared at her feet and just kept moving forward. “Do you like it?”
“It is just a side hustle, only something to pay the bills ‘til my dreams take off,” he explained in a voice that sounded like that of a seventy-year smoker, despite him only appearing to be in his late twenties or so.
“Oh, really?” Bobsy asked. “I’m also chasing my dreams. Might be weird to say, but I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, you ever have that feeling? Like, I’ve had jobs and some of them were really important, but—”
“I’m going to be a famous opera singer one day,” Kevin interrupted as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “I had this dream when I was high one night—”
“I’m not really into drugs, myself. Too much of a control freak I guess,” Bobsy began, thinking of the possibly catastrophic ramifications of a stoned and powerful witch.
“Where I was singing in this opera house. The crowd was on their feet, howling like it was a metal concert or something, and there I was on the stage, singing in this beautiful soprano voice—” Kevin continued.
“Soprano?” Bobsy asked, utterly befuddled. “I mean, not that I don’t think everyone should chase their dreams, but your voice is very low and deep and…”
He still didn’t slow his pace or his words, blasting onward as if he didn’t even hear her. “And so I’ve been working toward my dream for years. But you have to pay the bills, so I got the gig driving for a couple different companies. It doesn’t feed the soul, but the body has to eat, too, you know?”
She nodded, not wanting to have him talk over her again. Of course, since she didn’t say anything, he paused to look back at her. “Want to hear me sing?” he asked.
“Sure, but first could you answer one little question?”
His smile was glowing, as if pleased she was interested. “Absolutely, what’s your question?”
“What have you been doing to work toward that dream for years?” She was honestly curious, because other than taking lots of hits to his more sensitive region, she had no clue how he would work toward becoming a soprano.
“Oh, by dreaming about it when I’m asleep and thinking about it when I’m awake,” he answered as if his logic would make perfect sense.
Bobsy nodded and glanced at her phone. Was it too early to dip out on this date, or should she see the waterfall first?
Probably too early, she decided with a frown.
“Okay, are you ready to hear me sing?” he asked. They came to a platform where there was a large sign explaining a bit about the geography of the area and history of Blackwater Falls. The platform was surrounded by a metal fence to keep children from falling off the vantage point, but the falls were clearly visible for the first time since they’d entered the forest.
Bobsy sighed upon sighting them. Although they were still noisy enough, the weather had been dry and the winter gentle, so the flow was a disappointing low stream off the edge rather than a pouring torrent. It seemed even nature intended for her to be frustrated today.
“Sure,” she replied with a shrug. It wasn’t like his singing could be worse than the disappointing waterfall and his rude ignoring of her words.
“O sold my mioooo, in front of a tableeee, quantiteeee unknown,” he began in what was the farthest thing from a soprano Bobsy had ever heard. Birds screeched in response, fleeing from nearby trees as if terrified by the scratchy bass blasting their otherwise peaceful home near the water.
“Wow,” Bobsy said when he sucked in a breath. “That’s something, for sure.”
He ignored her, bellowing something about wanting a notepad. She didn’t know the lyrics to the song he was trying to sing, but she was pretty sure nothing he sang even came near what the intended song should sound like.
“Kevin,” she said gently.
He continued to caterwaul.
“Kevin!” she tried again, raising her voice.
Still, he sang his heart out, bellowing his scratchy yowl with his head thrown back, eyes closed, and chest puffed out like a preening cockatiel.
“KEVIN!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
He cut off right in the middle of a long and enthusiastic oh sound. “Yes?” he asked.
Well, dandy, he can hear me after all.
“I’ve got a bit of a headache,” she began.
“Bummer,” he interrupted. “I think I have some opiates in the car, if you need them.”
Her eyebrow raised in surprise. “You carry opiates around in your car?”
His eyeroll was spectacular. “Like, duh. Where else am I going to keep them? If my mom knew I had drugs…” He burst out in a scratchy sound she determined to be his version of a laugh.
“Your mom?”
“Yeah, I live with my mom. Don’t you?”
Bobsy shook her head.
“Duuuuuude, can I crash at your house for a while, then? Just until the opera thing takes off, which could literally be any day.” He looked as cheerful at the prospect as a kid when shown a playground.
“Nah,” she said simply.
“Bummer,” he replied. “Okay, well, later.”
With that, he simply walked away.
Bobsy stood there for long moments, watching him retreat down the—now birdless—treelined path. “Bye?” she called after him.
He gave her a halfhearted wave over his shoulder and vanished from sight.
“Well, that date went nearly as spectacularly as the last one,” she said to herself, turning back to gaze at the water. “At least I’m not covered in pond muck.”
Might as well enjoy the view, since she’d already hiked all the way out here and he was no longer causing a cacophony, she decided as she leaned on the railing.
The day was cool, so she’d worn a comfortable sweater which she pulled closer around herself. She’d put on makeup and, damn the bad luck, shaved for this date. It wasn’t like she’d intended to boink him on the first date, but in books, people met the love of their lives and things just happened sometimes.
She didn’t want to face the possibility of true love’s first boink without at least making sure her bits were ready for action. So shave, makeup, blow dry and flat iron the hair…the works.
Instead, she found Kevin the Caterwauler…who ironically had turned out to be a better date than Andrew365. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for online dating.
Maybe she wasn’t meant for dating at all.
She’d saved the world, after all, and fulfilled her purpose in life. Some were meant for happy ever afters, but perhaps her lot in life was to be satisfied with the lives she’d saved and nothing more?
It sounded like a terribly lonely fate, and she’d been lonely for so long already.
Morose thoughts heavy on her mind and heart—she was the savior, meant to protect the world from ending… shouldn’t she be knee deep in her happy ever after by now? Didn’t she earn it a few hundred thousand times over?—she didn’t even hear him approach her on the little platform.
“Hey,” he said, and she spun to face the guy who’d pushed her in the duck pond.
“You have a lot of balls, just meandering up to me to chat,” she said, then she wondered if he could’ve guessed she was the same woman he’d dunked from behind.
“I followed you here,” the guy said with a shrug. “Seemed rude to follow you all the way here and not even say hello.”
He was hot but weird, so she decided to return to marinating in her unhappiness. She did keep an eye on him, though. And her legs braced evenly apart, so that if he tried to shove her into the falls, she had a better chance of staying on her feet.
The weird thing was, just as the first time she’d met the stranger, she felt drawn to him. Like she knew him, or should know him, or something else vague. Her magic didn’t lean toward prognostication, though, so she didn’t give her gut reaction to him much credence.
“Who are you, anyway?” Bob
sy asked. “I seem to recall you knew my name, so it seems you’re at an unfair advantage, because I can’t remember yours.”
He had been looking at her when she began speaking, but his head dropped as soon as she asked for his name. Perhaps he was shy? She’d guessed some sort of anxiety disorder the last time they’d spoken, but she hadn’t really thought about it too deeply since he’d plunged her in to swim with the fishes… or at least the duck poo.
“Do I?” he asked.
“Do you what?” she replied, confused because it wasn’t an answer to her question about his name.
“Do I have you at an advantage? Because I’m starting to think I don’t.”
Bobsy sighed, in no mood for mysterious hot men who had a history of dunking her. “Look, I’m trying to enjoy the serene view after what might have been the worst date in history—”
“Date?” Duckboy asked.
“Yes, date. You probably passed him on your way along the path to the falls.” She answered before she thought better of it, then realized he hadn’t answered any of her questions, and therefore didn’t deserve her responses to his.
She pinched her lips closed, determined not to say another peep to Duckboy, not even to cast a spell on him.
“The guy with the cartoon character tattooed in the middle of his forehead?” Duckboy responded, looking just appalled enough to earn back a half… no, a quarter of a point toward her good graces.
“His name was Kevin,” she answered, despite her plan to remain silent.
Duckboy glanced down the path then back at her. For long moments, his gaze wandered over her body in a way that was less creepy than it was considering. “He doesn’t strike me as your type, if you don’t mind me saying that.”
“What if I did?” she replied, giving up on silence since she seemed utterly incapable of not responding to this strange man for whatever reason.
“Did what?” he asked, brow furrowing.
“Mind you saying it,” she replied with a smirk of her own. She didn’t know why, but it felt as if she’d scored a point against him.
Love and Other Calamities Page 3