Page 73 of With All My Haunted Heart

A strand of her red hair falls into her face, and my fingers itch with the desire to tuck it behind her ear. Instead, I remain planted in place, half the room separating us. “I figured you two would bond over spreadsheets.”

Beside me, Xander groans. “They’re unbearable together. They spent ages nerding out over the way computers have changed the accounting landscape.”

I force my sluggish brain to remember my first meeting with Keith, a broad-shouldered Black man who had played college football before becoming an accountant. “He died in 1989, right?”

“Around there, I think.” Elle comes further into the room. “Alex, Olli needs you to update your picks for the menu tomorrow. Apparently, there’s some issue with the produce order.”

“On it.” Xander rushes out of the room, and then it’s just Elle and me.

She shuts the door, leaning against the solid wood as she closes us in alone. A thrill of excitement prickles along my skin.

“Was there something else?” I tease, crossing the room to her. Hope dances through my veins, but when I reach Elle, she’s using the door to hold her up. I find tears spilling down her face. “Ellie? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I…” Elle wipes her sleeves across her cheeks. “I was so worried about you, Pip. You were gone. You weren’t responding to either of us, and I kept thinking you were dead in a ditch somewhere. And when I wasn’t convinced that you were in a car wreck, I couldn’t stop worrying that you’d simply run away with no intention of ever coming back.”

“I would never do that to you.” I hold out my hands, and when Elle slides her fingers between mine, I squeeze tight. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I should have texted you updates. But I promise, I would never abandon you.”

“That’s what Alex said,” she murmurs, releasing my hands to wrap her arms around me. She nestles her head against my shoulder. “Part of me believed him,” she whispers, “but Alex also said my dad would come back after the divorce…”

Guilt claws at my throat. “I’m sorry, Ellie.” I press a kiss against her temple and ignore all the questions fighting to push their way into the air between us. I want to ask her what this means. Does she want this thing between us to continue after tomorrow? Or is she only upset because the way I left triggered old wounds.

Is her concern about me or about what would happen to the B&B if I didn’t come back? About what would happen to Willa if I disappeared and failed to uphold my promises?

“You don’t have to apologize. I know you’re not him,” she says at last, pulling away to meet my eye. “And I overheard some of what Alex said. About your parents treating you like a fuckup.” She brushes a loose strand of wet hair out of my face. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shrug, but those aventurine-green eyes watch me with such open curiosity and compassion that I find myself nodding. I want to tell her. I want her to know every bit of my past.

And though I shouldn’t, I desperately want her to be part of my future.

“You already know some of it.” I lead her to the bed, where we sit facing each other, cross-legged on top of the covers. Her knees press into mine, and I trace little swirls along the seam of her jeans. “My inability to use healing magic was only the beginning of our issues. Nothing I did was ever good enough. Anything short of perfection was inexcusable, and perfection was impossible since my magic would always be defective in their eyes.”

Elle places her hand over mine and squeezes tight. “You are not defective.”

Pippa? I don’t feel right.

The fear in Harry’s voice before the ghosts blinked out of existence echoes through me. I don’t argue with Elle’s assertion, but I can’t ignore that my mismanaged magic threw four spirits over the veil mere days ago.

“Being away for college helped some. I got a break from their constant scrutiny, and I met Xander.” I smile at the memory, both of us first-years living in the same residence hall. He found me working magic in the common room in the middle of the night so I wouldn’t wake up my mundane roommate. “He was the first person who encouraged my magical experiments. He helped make magic fun again. For four years, I had free rein to experiment and explore without my parents breathing down my neck.”

“When I graduated, my mother had already lined up a job for me. My parents expected me to move back home and take my place at NACOW. I didn’t know how to say no, so I did what I was told. Except I wasn’t good at my job. It required a passion for boring details that I simply don’t have.” I offer Elle a half smile. “You would have been good at it. There were lots of spreadsheets involved.”

Elle rolls her eyes even as she rubs her thumb across my knuckles in a soothing gesture. “I assume the high standards only got higher?”

“Astronomically so. Especially since I was failing in front of Very Important People all the time. People who knew that I was the daughter of Nanette Erikson, NACOW’s president.” I sigh, filtering through dozens and dozens of examples of fuckups and subsequent threats that if I didn’t get my shit together, I’d be kicked out of the family.

Belonging to this family is a privilege. Not a right.

“My mother is obsessed with preserving the traditional uses of magic. Among her crowd, the experimenting I do is considered distasteful at best and outright shameful or dangerous at worst. When Nanette found out about my disturbing interests, she blamed all my slipups at work on my unorthodox magic. She had my father burn my grimoire and told me if I was anything short of perfect going forward, I’d be gone. Not just from NACOW, but the family, too.”

“But you didn’t stop experimenting, did you?” Elle asks, and though there’s no judgment in her tone, reflexive shame makes me cringe.

“I tried to, but this is who I am. It’s the way magic wants to work through me.”

“And your mom found out?”

“Honestly, if that’s all that had happened, things might have turned out differently.” My back starts to ache from sitting in the middle of the bed. I shift until I can lean against the pillows along the headboard. “There was also a long-term relationship that blew up alongside all of this. My girlfriend at the time cared more about staying in Nanette’s good graces than being with me. She broke up with me after my parents destroyed my grimoire, and I was in a bad place after that.”

“Understandably.” Elle slides up the bed to sit next to me. “Your girlfriend should care more about you than the family that continually hurts you.” She leans her head against my shoulder and falls quiet, giving me space to decide when I’m ready to continue.