Justin opened his laundry bag and smiled. Pre-sorting my dirty clothes saves a lot of time. Two dividers separated it into three sections: darks, lights, and underwear. Lights first. Let's see... cold water, large load, long cycle....
"Hey, bro." Justin smiled at Alex's voice, but made sure to drop the smile before turning his head, just in case she wasn't alone.
"Hey yourself," he replied, letting the smile come back as he saw that she was indeed alone. His eyes looked his little sister up and down, taking in her outfit. It was a new one, and fit her well. Everything was covered up, but Justin could easily imagine her body under it -- and he did.
She gave him a curious look. "You okay? You're looking at me kind of funny."
"What? I'm... just glad to see you."
"Oh, is that it?" She came down the short stairs, walked over by Justin, looked at his duffel. "Wow... pre-sorted. Is there no end to your geekiness?"
"It saves time. And...." He stopped, smiled, reached and took Alex's hand and squeezed it. "You know what? I love you even when you're teasing me."
Alex pulled her hand back and gave him a look. "That's why I tease you. Yeah -- no. I tease you because you're a dork, Justin."
Still smiling, Justin took a step forward, then put his hands on the washing machine, framing Alex in between his arms. "You don't have to keep up the act -- it's just us."
"What?" Alex looked up at him, startled. "Justin, I don't think --"
"Shh. You don't have to think. Rule two, remember."
"Rule two? Wha --"
And then Justin moved forward again, putting his body against Alex's, wrapping his arms around her, and kissed her deeply, his hand sliding up to cradle the back of her head.
Alex froze a moment, then pulled away from him, bringing her arms up and pushing him away. Startled, Justin let go -- and then yelped as Alex slapped him hard on his left cheek. He put his hand to it. "Oww... what did you --" He stopped, looking at Alex, who was backed against the wall, looking warily at him.
"What the hell was that!" she snapped out. "What do you think you're doing?!"
"I... I...." Justin stopped a moment, trying to think. Something's wrong. And knowing Alex, magic is involved. Okay. She's not going to hold still for me to cast a spell on her right now. So... yeah.
"I'm sorry," he said out loud. "I -- I... don't tell mom and dad, please? I think I must've made a mistake with a spell or something."
"Really?" Alex seemed to relax a little, then took a step closer. "You made a mistake? You realize I'm going to milk this for all the blackmail value I can."
"I know," Justin said, shrugging. "But better that than dad doing his, 'I thought you knew better than this, Justin, you're the good one, I expect these things from Alex' speech."
"I don't know...." Alex tapped her chin and smiled. "I kind of like hearing that speech."
Justin rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you would. Anyway... you will help me, right?"
"Sure -- I mean, you always help me. But expect a ton of teasing. And -- no more kissing, okay?"
"Okay," Justin answered, nodding. Step one done -- make sure she doesn't tell the parents. And if she's trying to 'help' me, that'll let me get a chance to find out what's going on and find the proper spell to fix it. And besides... when I fix whatever spell she did that went wrong, she should be really appreciative.
*
Coming out of the last store, Alex was making an angry frown, bordering on a scowl. "Damn!" she said aloud, then shut her mouth so hard her teeth clicked. All right. Calm down. You're a wizard -- saying curses can be really, really bad. She stopped for a moment, turning away from the foot traffic going by to look in the store window -- more more through it, as she wasn't really looking at anything inside.
A few deep breaths didn't really help, but she started moving again anyway after them. "All right," she muttered to herself. "So you didn't find Harper and the duplicate. Where else would they go?"
Home, she answered herself. Or to get something to eat. She decided to check the latter possibility first, since once she'd gone home, finding another excuse to go back out would be harder.
*
Justin sat in the lair, looking through spellbooks. He knew the last load had probably finished in the dryer, and he should go downstairs and take it out and fold it, before anything had a chance to wrinkle, but he told himself that once he did that, he'd have no reason to be 'killing time' up here. And right now was the ideal time to look, while his dad was watching football.
It's not a simple emotion spell... she doesn't even seem to remember that we were ever together. That's some serious kind of mind-affecting magic. Even Alex would be hard-pressed to do that by accident....
He bit his lip then, frowning. Did that mean someone had done it to her? But why would anyone remove those memories? They'd have to know that she had those memories to remove them... unless it was some sort of memory reset spell. Had she forgotten the whole last... what was it now, six months?
Almost. Wow. I don't think I've ever had a girlfriend for that long before. And I ought to get her something to celebrate it being six months.... Stop. This isn't getting anywhere. He returned to flipping through the index, darting forward in the book to read descriptions, returning to the index after yet another didn't seem to match.
I'll have to ask her about something besides us from the last six months. But wait... she knew I was in college. So she hasn't lost the whole six months. Hmm....
The door opened, and Justin looked up quickly, then sighed a little in relief as it was only Max. "Hey... watcha doin' in here?"
"Just studying up some," Justin replied, flipping the book's pages at random. "Curses and their effects."
"Yeah..." Max nodded sagely, still walking over slowly. "Dad had me reading about those a few weeks ago. What are you looking for?"
"Memory curses -- to make people forget things," Justin replied automatically, then mentally cringed, wondering what Max would come up with out of that.
"Memory curses, memory curses... oh, yeah! I remember now!"
"What?" Justin looked up at Max, startled a little. "What do you remember?"
"This!" Max took three quick strides to the fireplace, lifted a trophy, then picked up something from behind it. "That's where I left my sandwich!"
Of course. I should've known. "You're not going to --" Justin cut off, as his younger brother had already taken a bite and was chewing. "Wow, you're disgusting," he said instead, shaking his head and looking back down at the book, pretending to focus his attention on it in hopes Max would go away.
But pretending was all he was doing -- Justin was much too busy thinking to actually pay attention to the page in front of him. Someone could have used a spell to make her forget about her boyfriend, without knowing it was me. But who would do that? TJ, maybe -- or that kid we foiled at WizTech. What was his name....
"Hey." A hand waved in front of Justin's face, and he snapped his head up, ready to yell at Max -- but it wasn't Max. It was Alex, standing there smiling at him. "Okay, I'm going to have to take this away from you," she said, taking the book from his hands and closing it, then tossing it over onto the couch. "You don't need to spend all day studying at college, then come over here and study more. Have some fun."
"Yeah," Max put in. "We should get the paintball guns out, and have a shootout on the terrace!"
"Yeah, you should totally do that." Alex nodded at Justin, giving him a look -- it seemed to him to be a yes, do what I'm telling you look, or possibly a come on, take my hint one. Although, he thought, it just might be a look at my eyes, aren't they pretty?
"Okay, okay. Come on Max -- let's go find the paintball guns." Closing the book he'd been looking at, Justin stood and started to go around the table to get to the door, then turned to look back at Alex. "Are you coming?"
"Oh, no -- you guys go have your fun. Besides, I don't want to get paint on my new outfit."
Justin frowned at Alex then, realizing that she wasn't in the same clothes he'd last seen her in. Why'd she change clothes? he wondered, but Max was pulling on his arm, saying, "Quit stalling -- it's time for you to get pwned, Justin!"
*
As soon as the boys left the room, Alex was looking at the books Justin had out. Curses and their Removal? One Hundred and One Curses to Try on Your Friends? What the heck?
She shook her head. Justin had the strangest reading tastes, but she didn't have time to worry about that right now. She needed to find something about duplicates, so she headed for the big spellbook. Justin would scoff at that, of course, saying it was much too basic, and the specialized books were better -- but at least it had all kinds of spells, so she wouldn't spend twenty minutes just finding the right book.
Even as she set to trying to find a spell to take care of her wayward duplicate, however, Alex wondered where that duplicate might be....