Read Online Hex on the Beach (The Magic & Mixology Mystery Series Book 1) by Gina LaManna - Free Book Online Page B

heaping bite of eggs into his mouth. “Let’s git back to class.”
    “She just started eating, Gus.” Mimsey gestured to my nearly untouched plate.
    “Oh, it’s all right.” I took a few quick bites of toast. “My stomach is still unsettled from all that traveling yesterday, anyway.”
    Gus looked appeased, but when my stomach roared loudly, Mimsey narrowed her eyes at me. “Eat, Lily. Gus can wait five minutes.”
    I picked up a piece of toast, heaped a spoonful of eggs on top, and set a strip of bacon over the eggs. Wrapping the bread into a taco, I raised it in a salute toward Mimsey. “I’ll take this to go. Really, it’s delicious. You shouldn’t have.”
    “Apparently not,” Mimsey said. “Since I’ll be eating alone.”
    Gus clomped back into the store while I gave her an apologetic expression.
    She waved at me as she sat back on the stool and properly cut her bacon with a fork and knife. “I’ll be fine, dear. I like to watch the water in the mornings, anyway.”
    I rushed back into the store. For some reason, I felt the need to impress Gus. The man was rude, bitter, and crass, but I didn’t want to let him down.
    “This is a precious flower,” Gus said, taking up residence at a long table that ran down the center of the room. It appeared to be a measuring, cutting, mixing sort of workshop for raw ingredients. A Mixologist’s Supplies book lay before him, and Gus tapped the cover. “Pay attention. It’s rare, and we only harvest them once per year on The Isle. We have three left at the moment.”
    “What is it?” I stepped to the other side of the table, unable to see a flower anywhere.
    “We press them for safekeeping.” Gus opened the old, weathered book with reverence. “It’s called the fleur-de-lis.”
    The words were written in a language I had never seen before, but it wasn’t the words that impressed me. It was the gorgeous bloom, flattened to perfection between the pages. “What did you call it?”
    “Fleur-de-lis. It’s known for innocence and purity.” Gus lovingly stroked the flower’s surface. The edges of the bloom glowed a dull white, almost as if it had a halo. “We use it for truth serums, among other things.”
    Gus’s tender touch of the petals filled me with curiosity, and the way he handled the flower with love and care surprised me. I imagined this soft side was one he didn’t display for many people. I caught myself staring and quickly looked away. Luckily, he didn’t notice me staring; he remained so engrossed in the sheen of the petals that he didn’t hear me the first three times I said his name.
    “Gus,” I said gently for the fourth time. “We have this flower in our world.”
    He looked up as if surprised I was still around. “I know.”
    “You know what we call it?” I gave a small, tight smile.
    Gus held my gaze as he cleared his throat. “You call it a lily . Calla lily.”
    I bit my lip, uncomfortable with his searching stare. He watched me almost as he had the lily on the table—with interest, as if I were a rare, unique being. I was anything but rare—I was so un- rare, I bordered on boring.
    Feeling a blush redden my cheeks, I turned my attention to the flower. “Will we be working with the fleur-de-lis today?”
    “Are you batty?” Gruff Gus returned in a split second. “You’re a newbie. I’m not trusting my most precious flower in your hands.”
    I sighed, almost relieved to have the mean ol’ man back.
    “You’ll be lucky if I let you touch a Stink Bulb,” he said, his gravelly words at odds with the gentle way he closed the lily inside the Mixologist’s Supplies and placed the book high on a shelf. The top level of each shelf brimmed full of books. Other rare flowers were pressed between their pages, if I had to guess. “Sit down.”
    Gus pulled a chair up to the table and plopped The Magic of Mixology in front of me, the golden letters glinting up at me.
    “Let’s review,” he said. “Start over.”
    “Why