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Seven
     
     
    Late to the dining room, Tessa carried her tray through the almost empty kitchen, quickly seeing that her dream of a plate filled with bacon and biscuits was far removed from her current reality. The last cup of yogurt was rudely snatched from the counter by a kitchen worker just as Tessa reached for it. What appeared to have been a tray of fresh fruit was now a barren tray with one solitary strawberry top left on it. The pick-your-own-ingredient omelet station was wheeled past her, its work done for the day. All Tessa ended up with was one eighth of a scrambled egg on her plate. When her request for orange juice was denied, her mood soured even further. A tepid cup of tea was all she was given to wash her fraction of an egg down with.
    Welcome to fat camp, she groused as she looked around for her assigned table. She’d been set up, plumped up, and sent to hell to slim down. Flippin’ unbelievable.
    She glanced around the almost empty dining room. There was little to separate the scene from a typical resort spa except for one thing, every guest was well past plump. She didn’t need a full length mirror to tell her that she now fit in perfectly. Her black track suit was a size twenty two. A snug twenty two. The two twos on the tag added up to her normal size four.
    Ignoring Tiffani’s instructions to eat at her assigned table, Tessa chose an empty one near the door and sat down. She pushed her egg around her plate, torturing it the way she felt tortured. She’d like to zap her fairy godfather into the next century. And she had more than a few choice words for the Upper Hallows Witch Council, every last wart covered one of them. But it was Aunt Trudy’s betrayal that stung the most. Tessa knew she wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t even good much of the time. But she was Trudy’s only living family, which apparently didn’t count for much when it came right down to it.
    “You can’t stay here all day, Tessa.” It was the clipboard toting Tiffani. “Sitting lost in thought doesn’t burn calories. Let’s go.”
    Tessa didn’t move. “Where precisely?”
    Tiffani frowned for a nano-second. “The others are waiting outside for your morning hike.”
    A hike. Perfect. Not. And then a thought occurred to her.
    “Liam’s outside?”
    “Liam?”
    “My trainer.”
    “Oh, you mean Coach Kennedy.” Tiffani smiled indulgently. “We prefer that our guests call their trainers Coach. We feel it’s more appropriate.”
    Distance? The only distance Tessa cared about was one that would allow her to wrap her non-magical hands around Liam Kennedy’s throat. She indulged in that fantasy as she followed Tiffani outside.
    ***
    Hike her backside. This must be how they train mountain goats. Tessa stopped walking long enough to drain her water bottle. Finished, she tossed it over her shoulder and started trudging uphill again.
    “Here you are, Tessa.” Jogging up from behind, Liam appeared at her side, water bottle in hand. “You dropped this.”
    She refused to acknowledge his presence. Not fifteen minutes ago, at the bottom of Mt. Miserable, he’d pretended not to recognize her when Tiffani had introduced them. He’d politely welcomed her to Camp Suffer-a-Lot and introduced her to her two team mates as if he hadn’t ever seen her before. As if he hadn’t gotten her into this mess. No, he wasn’t worth wasting her precious breath on, especially not when she was almost out of oxygen.
    But he stayed right next to her throughout the hike. He stayed relatively silent, only calling out encouraging comments to her two team mates, Bethany and Claudia. Wisely he refrained from speaking to Tessa. But once they reached the top of the hill he turned to face her.
    “Great job, Tessa. Are you doing okay?”
    His smile held the same intriguing mix of boyish innocence and bad boy charm that it had in her apartment. Well, this time she wasn’t buying. He’d known then what was in store for her and he hadn’t done anything