Page 8 of Meet Cute Magic

I feel bad about his castle. Really, I do. Okay, and the window and the street fair and whatever other crimes he thinks I committed, but it’s not like I lit his building on fire! Even though I should play nice—I need to play nice, if I ever want him to give me Phillip’s flask so I can defeat this stupid curse—I can’t resist stoking the fire.

“Honestly, Jack, you sound like a little boy in a tree fort.”

“Fine! Then this is my tree fort and you’re not allowed in it!” he shouts, arm pointing to the door. “Now get out!”

“Look, I get it, you’re mad—”

“I was working on that for two weeks!” Jack says, cutting me off. “And it was nearly finished last week when your sister came in and did nearly the same exact thing.”

I roll my lips into my mouth, trying to fight the urge to laugh, imagining this being the second time he’s had this conversation with a Mayfield in a month. “Which one?” I ask, unable to resist as I bend down to try and help gather up the cards.

“What?” He’s standing, looking down at me, and I move to my knees, scooping the cards in my hands and making tidy little stacks. It has to be a thousand cards at least, and a small part of me pangs knowing he’s had to do this twice. But also, what does he expect? It’s a gaming store, not a museum. If it wasn’t me who knocked it over, it would have been someone else. Would he scream at a child if they did it? Or is his fury reserved just for Mayfields?

“Which sister came in? Blonde or brunette?”

“Oh. A blonde.”

“Poppy,” I say with a nod, my mind running through the image of Poppy, my sweet, docile youngest sister who talks to flowers more than humans, knocking over this guy’s tower. If he looked at her with this much venom, she probably went home and cried over it. “She’s delicate. Probably felt terrible about it. Please tell me you didn’t yell at her.” He sighs deeply before moving to his knees, helping me grab the cards, shuffling and sorting them.

“I didn’t, but before I even said anything, she yelled a ‘sorry!’ at me and ran out the door. The next day, there was a box of scones on my step with an apology.”

“That sounds like Poppy,” I say, grabbing the last card and handing it to him as we stand.

“Tell her I’m sorry,” he says low, and my eyes widen. “It wasn’t her fault.” His hand goes to the back of his head, and he sighs. “I should have taped them. People come in here and I can’t yell at them the way I did you, or her.”

I smile and shrug. “Probably, but being annoyed is valid. It’s pretty impressive, doing all that without any glue or tape. I couldn’t do it.”

“It’s not as hard as it looks, just takes some patience.”

“Which I don’t have,” I say with a laugh, bubbling with excitement over what might be our very first positive conversation. I stand as he gathers the last card, then hand him my stack, our fingers brushing as they do.

“Why did you come over here? Did you need help with something?” he asks, with a half-smile.

I smile with relief and start to begin my rehearsed speech when my ass, well fed by Vi’s baked goods, shifts, knocking into the wizard cutout I saw in the window yesterday. As it falls, I realize the cutout isn’t some mass-produced piece of merchandise, but a cutout someone—Jack, I assume—hand-painted intricately. It falls backward, and Jack and I both reach for it, but instead, we stumble, falling into each other. Jack catches me in arms that are much stronger than any nerd’s should be, but I don’t have much time to think about that. Not when panic is written all over his face. I quickly look over at the cardboard wizard precariously hanging over the ledge of the display—but thankfully unharmed, not even a dent to him.

I let out a sigh of relief.

It’s a goddamned miracle.

For once in my life, the worst-case scenario didn’t come to fruition.

Maybe my luck is already changing.

My body is loose when I look up at Jack, our eyes meeting, his arms wrapped around me, and for a moment—a split, fleeting second—I think I see something. A flash of… I don’t know. Something warm that makes my belly a bit fluttery.

But it’s gone as soon as I hear a too-familiar meow, Percy trotting into the store through the door I stupidly left open, like he wants to protect me or come to my aid.

“Percy,” I whisper, watching him and somehow knowing how this is going to end.

In absolute misery.

“Is that your cat?” Jack asks, confused, watching the black-and-white cat move toward us. Percy’s eyes move from me to Jack, to the ledge before us, and the wizard hanging there.

“Yes,” I answer quickly, my eyes still locked on my stupid fucking cat. “Percy, no!”

“What the—” Jack starts, still holding me, and then it happens.

Percy jumps, landing on the head of the wizard. The cardboard bends and then rips along the metal edge of the display, making for a quick, clean decapitation.