“Wha—But—Well, why don’t you make a move?”
Her brow arches like she’s got me on the stand about to confess. “Why don’t you?”
The reasons crash down on my head like a load of bricks.
Because we live together.
Because she’s my landlady.
Because she’s got a frickin’ kid.
Because she’s not playing around.
Because I’d let her down.
Because I Iet everyone down.
Livy’s right. I am as dumb as my box of rocks.
And even though I realize it, my mind keeps reaching for that watermelon-sugar-high.‘Cause she’s attracted to you.
It rings true, and it feels fucking good. Stella is attracted to me.
My breath deepens, and I sink back into the loveseat. A feeling in my chest makes itself known. It’s tucked beside that smug sense of triumph but sore like a bruise. Something I need to shield. And even though it now lives in my chest, it doesn’t belong to me.
It’s Stella’s. Her feelings.
Whatever part of her that pulls her toward me, I want to protect it.
My unspoken reasons for not making a move? I’m sure they’re already on Stella’s list—probably alongside a few more.
“Damn,” Livy mutters, jerking me from my thoughts. “I never seen somebody look so elated and crushed at the same time.”
I open my mouth to respond but a door bangs open upstairs. “Hey!” Pen shouts from the top of the house. “Any y’all home?”
Livy and I both shout back.
“Who wants to help me carry some witchy wares down these stairs?”
An hour later,Stella and Maisy get home to find that we’ve turned the near-empty dining room into a fall craft sweatshop.
I saywe,but, in reality, Livy, Tyler, and I have just been press ganged into Pen’s coven.
By the look on Stella’s face, Pen didn’t quite convey the scope of herSamhaindecorating plans. And, yes, I stand corrected—or hexed, not sure which—but every time I’ve saidHalloween, Pen has thrown a ball of brown twine at my head.
So it’sSamhainnow. I probably can’t ever return to New Iberia—or church—again.
“What’s going on, guys?” With an uncertain smile, Stella’s taking in the abundance of black paper, bundles of red, orange, black, and yellow tulle, and more sticks, twigs and floral wire than I’ve ever seen in one place.
“I’ve erected three stations: the black crows—” Pen jabs a finger at the office supply dowel of black paper and the foam board cut-out of a menacing looking bird propped up in the corner. “Those are for the windows. The pentagram wreaths for the front door, our bedrooms, and the mailbox—” She points to the pile of fall-colored craft supplies, glue guns, and scissors on the formal dining table. “And, finally, the Weird sisters.”
She points to the bales of twigs and the fabric that takes up a scary amount of the floor space.
Stella blinks. “Did those sticks come from the back yard?”
Pen lifts a knobby shoulder. “Some of them.”
Stella stares.
