The Vaga Read Free Page A

bloody hell did she come from? ‘Shh! Geez, Phoebs.’ I want to crawl into a hole. She has no shame.
    I sit down quickly and hide my face behind my hand.
    She laughs as she sits down next to me. ‘What? Your uncle should know you’re a hot ticket around here.’
    Uncle Jo moves forward in his seat. His face turning a nice shade of purple. ‘She’s a
what
?’
    Phoebe holds her hands up and laughs again. ‘Settle, Mr. O. I’m only joking. She doesn’t even date, you know that.’ She takes a bite out of my barely eaten sandwich, unaware of the reaction her words have sparked. ‘So what’s going on?’ she mumbles through a mouthful of food.
    Uncle Jo and I share an amused look. Phoebe has no idea how completely charming and bluntly candid she is. I’d find it hard pressed to find anyone who didn’t like her.
    ‘Not much,’ I reply.
    ‘Didn’t look like that from here. Blake asking you out
again
?’ she says, flitting her eyes towards Uncle Jo.
    I swear she riles him up on purpose.
    He pretends to ignore her and picks up the newspaper, and she smiles with satisfaction.
    ‘No, he was just seeing whether we were going to the game, that’s all.’ I shrug.
    Her Diet Coke fizzes open. ‘So he
was
asking you then. When will that boy give it up?’ She takes a sip and puts the lid back on.
    ‘Does he keep bothering you?’ Uncle Jo’s voice sounds out from behind the newspaper.
    Phoebe stifles a smile and I poke my tongue at her.
    ‘No, not really,’ I tell him. ‘Anyway, I thought you said I should date?’
    He folds the edge of the newspaper down so that one eye is peering at me. ‘That was before I knew about Pete.’
    ‘Pete? Who’s Pete?’ Phoebe asks.
    I groan. ‘It’s not Pete, it’s Blake.’
    Phoebe picks up the sandwich again. ‘But your uncle just said Pete.’
    ‘I know, but I said
for the love of Pete
and he thought…’ I rub my temples. ‘Never mind.’
    Uncle Jo’s eyes twinkle with amusement and he lets the newspaper flip back up.
    Magi sends me an image of our house, interrupting the taunting conversation going on. ‘Okay, Mags. See you in a bit.’
    I watch her walk towards the edge of campus before she disappears past the pines and into the brush, where on the other side sits our temporary home—a quaint yellow caretaker’s cottage that looks like it’s been here since the dawn of man.
    When I decided to come to college, a lot of things changed. Not only did
I
have to make some big changes, but my family rallied around and made decisions that affected their lives as well. One of those being that Uncle Jo wasn’t letting me go to college alone. With his long history of working in Special Forces, particularly in intelligence, he is now the college IT support guru. A handy position to have when your niece is a powerful witch, and you can make her name untraceable on the college database.
    It also meant that we had to meet with the college dean, Eric Meyer, and convince him to pull a few strings in the dog department—the policy being that pets are only allowed on campus if there is a medical reason for doing so. It was one of the few times I have ever used a persuasion spell on somebody.
    ‘She’s been disappearing a lot lately,’ Phoebe says.
    Uncle Jo flops the newspaper edge down again. ‘She has?’
    I shrug. ‘She’s allowed to have time to herself.’
    He frowns, folding the paper into a neat rectangle. ‘Is there something wrong with her?’
    ‘No. Not that I know of. Maybe she just needs some space that’s all.’ I look towards the brush. ‘You can’t blame her for that,’ I mumble, thinking that I’m twenty years old, in college, and still living with my uncle. Sometimes I wish I could just take off and have time to myself too.
    My thoughts must be blatantly obvious, because Uncle Jo stares at me for a moment before looking at his watch and standing up. ‘Well, I better get back to it. See you ladies in a bit.’ He begins to walk off and then turns