Page 44 of Enchanted to Meet You

“I’m on Quebec Street, by that candle shop that always smells really good?” My voice went up like a question at the end, because as I was saying it, I realized that I had no idea whether Rhys Montgomery would know the candle shop. In the background, I heard a heavy door slam shut, followed by the beep-beep of a car alarm being unlocked.

“Stay there,” Rhys cut in, the sound of his turn signal clicking loudly through the phone. “Don’t move. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Wait, Rhys, you don’t have to⁠—“

“Ten minutes, Ainsley,” he repeated, and then the line went dead.

I lowered the phone slowly, staring at the screen. Ten minutes? His house was at least twenty minutes away from the shop if you drove like a normal human being—not that he did, but still cutting the time in half seemed optimistic. I turned back to Clementine, who was vibrating on the spot, her hands still clamped firmly over her mouth, her eyes bulging with unasked questions.

“Remember,” I warned her, pointing a finger straight at her face. “Not a word. You are a vault. A silent, lock-jawed vault.”

She gave a muffled, desperate hum behind her palms. Just over ten minutes later, a slick, black SUV rounded the corner of Quebec Street at a speed that definitely violated municipal transit codes. The tires sprayed a dramatic wave of rainwater onto the curb as it pulled up directly in front of the candle shop, hazard lights flashing.

The driver’s side door flew open before the car had even fully settled into park.

Rhys leaped out into the pouring rain, ignoring the storm completely. He wasn’t wearing a jacket—just a dark grey hoodie, jeans, and sneakers that were instantly soaked. His dark hair was flattened against his forehead in seconds as he sprinted across the sidewalk toward us, his expression tight with pure, unadulterated panic.

“Ainsley!” he called out, his eyes sweeping over me from head to toe, checking for broken bones or visible blood. “What’s wrong? What happened? Did someone⁠—”

“Rhys, calm down!” I cut in quickly, putting both hands up to stop his momentum before he tackled me into the candle shop window. “Chill! Nothing is wrong! I literally just needed a ride home!”

Rhys stopped dead in his tracks, two feet away from us. Water was streaming down his nose, dipping over his upper lip, but he just stood there, blinking at me as if trying to translate a foreign language.

“You...” He wiped a hand over his face, pushing his wet hair back, his chest heaving slightly under his hoodie. “You needed a ride?”

“Yes,” I said smoothly, stepping out from under the awning. “Like I said on the phone! It started pouring, and we were stuck.” I gestured to the trembling girl beside me. “Rhys, this is Clementine. Clementine, this is Rhys.”

Clementine looked between Rhys—who was dripping wet, built like a division-one athlete, and currently staring at me like he’d just run a marathon—and me. Her face instantly flushed a shade of bright, unnatural crimson. Her mouth formed a tight, strained line, her nostrils flaring as she visibly fought the overwhelming, primal urge to scream a thousand questions into the rainy air. She looked like she was holding her breath to prevent herself from exploding on the sidewalk.

“Hi, Clementine.” His tone went back into its familiar, dry cadence as he realized there was no emergency. He looked at her strained, beet-red face with mild concern. “Are you... hyperventilating?”

“She’s fine,” I interjected loudly, grabbing Clementine by the elbow and marching her toward the idling car. “She’s just exercising self-control. It’s a new program she’s on. Get in the back, Clem.”

I yanked open the back door, shoved Clementine into the leather interior, and shut it before she could leak a single sound. I rounded the hood, hopped into the front passenger seat, and pulled my seatbelt across my chest.

Rhys climbed back into the driver’s seat, bringing the cold, rain-scented air in with him. He shook his head like a dog, spraying water droplets across the dashboard, before pulling out onto the street while I put Clementine’s address into his GPS.

The silence inside the car was deafening.

Not asking questions wasn’t Clementine’s greatest strength. In the rearview mirror, I could see her sitting stiff as a board in the middle of the back seat. Her eyes were darting back and forth between the back of Rhys’s head and my profile. Her hands were clenched into fists on her knees, her face still dangerously red. Every few seconds, a tiny, squeaky gasp escaped her throat, like a teakettle just starting to come to a boil.

She is going to burst, I thought, staring rigidly out the windshield as Rhys navigated the rain-slicked streets. She is literally going to combust in the back of his car.

Rhys glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, his hands steady on the steering wheel, but he didn’t ask any questions. Five agonizingly quiet minutes later, we pulled up to Clementine’s house. The moment the car came to a stop, Clementine reached for the door handle with the speed of a woman escaping a sinking ship.

“Wait,” I said, turning around in my seat.

Clementine froze, her hand on the lever, looking at me with wide, desperate eyes.

“Remember,” I said, pointing a finger at her. “Not. A. Word. To anyone. Not even Nora—in fact, especially not her because she will tell my brother. You saw nothing. You know nothing.”

Clementine placed a hand over her heart, raised her other hand in a solemn, trembling vow, and nodded furiously.

“I swear,” she squeaked out, her voice cracking from disuse. “My lips are sealed! Ironclad! Locked in a box and thrown into the sea!”

“Good,” I said.

She practically threw herself out of the car and skipped up her driveway with an unnatural, manic energy, clearly rushing inside so she could scream into a pillow.