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“Gabriel.”

“You strike me as a woman who owns an unreasonable number of candles, despite the fact that we have perfectly good electricity.”

I gasp. “There is no such thing as an unreasonable number of candles. Especially pretty ones that smell good.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I’m not even going to ask.”

I run and retrieve some candles and a lighter. I find salt and sage in the kitchen. Granted, it’s sage from the spice cabinet, but I’m working with what I can here. I return to find Gabriel already turning gray.

“Oh, dear. Sorry about that.” I race over and drop my supplies on the couch and then cup his face. Instantly, warmth returns to his body. He closes his eyes and leans into my touch.

“You could have called for me,” I say.

“I was hoping you’d be back quickly enough,” he says.

“Okay, let’s see what we need to do.” I try to twist myself to see my laptop screen while maintaining my physical connection with Gabriel. “Any chance you can read me what it says?”

He leans forward to grab the laptop, but with our current angle, he essentially just runs into my boobs. “Apologies,” he mutters.

“You can pick it up,” I tell him.

He follows my instructions and reads from the website. “We sprinkle salt in a circle around the candle, light said candle and burn the sage while repeating some words.”

“What words?”

He stares at the screen. “It does not actually say.” His frown deepens.

“First things first, I can’t do any of this while I’m holding your face. Do you suppose it matters what part of me is touching you?”

He stares into my face, and I swear his pupils widen. He swallows visibly. “I am not sure.”

“Cool, well, we can try something else so I can actually use my hands.” I stop holding his face, put the laptop on the coffee table, and then plop myself onto his lap. “I know I’m heavy, but try to endure it for a bit so I can get this set up.”

His hands go to my hips, and he shifts me subtly. “You are not too heavy at all.”

I go to work making the circle of salt on the plate I grabbed. Then I place the candle into the circle.

“I thought you said the candle needed to be white.”

“Yes, well, I don’t seem to have any white ones. I’m sure this is fine. They probably just specified white because that’s the color candles were back when people were getting cursed.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

“Obviously, but it doesn’t hurt to try. It’s not like I’m going to make your curse worse.”

“Fantastic,” he mutters.

“Here’s where we have to improvise some. I don’t exactly travel with fresh sage, but I found some of the ground kind.” I light the candle and then pour some of the sage into my palm. “Mumbo-jumbo, abra-Cadabra, curse be gone.” Then I drop the sage onto the flame. Which distinguishes it right away.

“April.”

“Did anything happen?”

“No. I’m not sure we gave that one a fair chance considering the wrong candle, the wrong sage, and not having appropriate words.”

“Fine. We’ll find one with better instructions.”

I scroll.