Angie Barrett - Love Spells and Other Disasters

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright 2021 by Angie Barrett. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

10940 S Parker Rd

Suite 327

Parker, CO 80134

rights@entangledpublishing.com

Entangled Teen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Heather Howland

Cover design by LJ Anderson/Mayhem Cover Creations

Cover photography by goodmoments/Getty Images

tbtb/Deposit Photos

ISBN 978-1-64937-125-6

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition February 2021

Dear Reader,

Thank you for supporting a small publisher! Entangled prides itself on bringing you the highest quality romance youve come to expect, and we couldnt do it without your continued support. We love romance, and we hope this book leaves you with a smile on your face and joy in your heart.

xoxo

Liz Pelletier, Publisher

This book is dedicated to Teagan, Warren, and Yendor.

You are my heart.

Chapter One

Trust me when I say, there is nothing in the world more socially crippling than having a mother who rehabilitates ghosts for a living.

Bye, sweetie, knock em dead today! She winks at me as she hands me a twenty.

I push open the door to her precious 1959 Cadillac, a black, old-fashioned ambulance-slash-hearse that fits her ghost-friendly persona. The students walking by gawk, just like they have the last two and a half years of high school, and the eight years before that. She obviously finds it hilarious to watch her one and only daughter die of embarrassment every single day.

I cant avoid it though because Mom insists on driving me in the morning so that we can have mother-daughter time. Cute, sure, but Mom and I both know that if she didnt have to wake up to drive me, shed sleep through her alarm. Im her morning insurance policy.

Be home by four. Ive got some work for you later.

My mood instantly dampens, weighed down by a wet blanket of daughterly obligation. Some work for me later means that she has a butt-load of fan mail to answer, and she doesnt have time to do it herself. No matter who theyre from, most of the letters are filled with heartbreak and pleading for help to reconnect with deceased loved ones. Others are stories about vampires and psychic encounters.

The ones full of heartbreak and grief are soul crushing, but so are the stories that people think are real-life experiences. I alternate between feeling like Im searching for the right response in a broken Magic Eight Ball and wanting to cry water balloons over just how sad these people are.

But despite all that, I say, Sure, four. See you then.

Hey, Rowan? My mom leans across the passenger seat and kisses my cheek. Youre the only one who can do what you do. You give them peace in your way. You know that, right?

I nod, though I dont actually believe her.

Her smile shatters my angst. Good. I love you.

I lov

Hey, Ro! Get your butt out of that ghost mobile. Were gonna be late! Ethan, my one and only truest friend, says as he forcefully yanks me out of the car. Hi, Dr. Marshall. Nice to see you today. He nearly folds himself in half to lean down and wave at my mom. Sorry about interrupting, but you know our math teacher. Shell whip our butts if we walk in late on a test day.

Nice to see you, too, sweetie. Ethan could barge in at any time of day and Mom would give him a hug for it. I like that shade of lipstick on you.

He grins, showing off his ruby lips. Ethan wears lipstick better than I ever could. Its totally me, dont you think?

My mom laughs. Totally you, Ethan. I might have to borrow it.

Groan. Weve got to go, Mom. Ill be home by four. I close the door before she and Ethan get sidelined by a makeup conversation. You know you can call her Amy, right? I say to Ethan. She doesnt mind.

Oh no, my friend, I dont call adults by their first names. Thats just weird as hell. Besides, your mom is Dr. Marshall, the famous ghost hunter, or whatever. Itll ruin her dark and dangerous image if I call her Amy .

I snort. Right. Ethan and his images. Theres nothing dangerous about my mom but Ill give him the dark part. She does love all her gothic things. Unlike most parapsychologists, she doesnt abide by the phrase ghost hunting. Its rehabbing , and she takes it very seriously. She believes that hauntings are all about unfinished business and that her role is to help the wayward souls who need her.

She doesnt call herself a ghost hunter, I remind him.

I know, but it sounds more thrilling than ghost rehabilitator. Dont you think? He sighs. You know I think its super cool that shes into all that dark stuff. I wish she were my mom.

I laugh. She practically is! In fact, with his honey-colored hair, olive skin, and impossibly high cheek bones, he often does pass as her son. More than I pass as her daughter, anyway, with my dark, shaggy mop and translucently pale skin. I could pass for a short, living dead girl. Maybe I am my mothers daughter after all.

True. He loops his arm through mine. Hey, I read online last night that shes got a show in the works.

I roll my eyes. Theres always a show in the works.

Moms been waiting for the big one. The reality TV show that will make her famous like the medium in Long Island or the ghost hunters whose show she watches religiously, helpfully critiquing all the things theyre doing wrong. She always has this producer or that producer stopping by to talk about turning our life into a national brand, but the discussions always stall out somewhere around the time the producer admits that he or she thinks my mom is full of it, then suggests that they can just fake whatever they need to in order to get ratings. Mom wants none of that. Its the real deal or nothing.

My insides furl into ribbons of anxiety as Ethan and I walk side by side up the stairs of our school, ignoring, as we normally do, all the strange looks we get just for being who we are. Ignoring as much as not ignoring is what I actually mean. Ethan feels it, too. Like were going on stage, expected to do impressive tricks or something, but in actuality usually cant even make it up the steps without one of us tripping.

Did you study? he asks to distract me. And probably himself.

You know I did. I always study. I always do everything Im supposed to do. I have no life and no friends besides Ethan, so theres usually not much going on for me to get distracted by. Side effect of having a mom who lives for the undead? No one really wants me at their parties.

True. He pulls me to the side. We have five minutes. I want to touch up my eyes. He flutters his eyelashes at me. Theyre the prettiest eyelashes of anyone I know, and of course theyre on a guy. Girls have to work twice as hardor wear falsiesto get lashes that great.

We slide into the girls restroom and by some miracle were alone. He arches one of his perfectly sculpted eyebrows to acknowledge our luck, then gets to work touching up his makeup. I dont even bother looking in the mirror. Whats there to look at?