Page 81 of The Soulmate Bakery

I looked away, staring at my fingertips instead. My nail polish was chipped on one nail, and it suddenly looked so deeply interesting.

‘What if,’ I began, my mind tracing the route to the thing that was making me anxious, ‘there was a time that I didn’t like Silas. A time when my feelings for him went on a little … hiatus.’

‘A hiatus?’ Rani echoed. ‘I’m going to need more context.’

‘Let’s say I liked someone else, for a moment,’ I replied, cautiously. ‘Or an entire summer.’

Rani nodded encouragingly. ‘And you’re worried that your feelings for Silas aren’t there any more?’

‘I’m worried that I like two people at the same time, but I don’t know which one I have stronger feelings for,’ I said, finally voicing the worry that had taken root in me from the moment Orion Hawthorne had crashed back into my life.

Once the words were said out loud, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. For the past year, I’d been working hard to tamp down every emotion I felt for Orion; to make it seem like it had all been one act of stupidity, a mistake. Like those feelings weren’t real.

But they were.

And I couldn’t just make those feelings go away. He was back, and so were they – but what did that mean?

Were my feelings for Orion nothing more than the infatuation of a seventeen-year-old who’d fallen for her best friend’s older brother? Were my feelings for Silas more real because they’d lasted longer? If one of them was my soulmate, who was it?

On the rugby field, I’d felt so sure that I could confess my feelings to Silas tomorrow, but what if I couldn’t? What if I kept the town in a rogue love curse until the next autumn moon – what would happen then? What would the Coven do to me? What if being magic bound wasn’t the only punishment they’d serve to me?

The unanswered questions were making my heart race faster and my mind spiral harder. Beside me, Rani was quiet for a moment, and I could feel her sifting through the issues, trying to find answers for me. I was eager for her reply: a fix that would give me the clarity I needed.

‘I think,’ Rani said, carefully, like she was holding a porcelain bowl in her hands, ‘that you’re capable of liking two people, but you can only love one of them. The question is about who you want to be with more. Who do you feel happiest with? Who could you see yourself with in the long term? Who makes you feel seen, like they truly know you?’

I stared at her, and then flopped deeper into the pillows, groaning.

‘What?’ Rani complained. ‘That was good advice.’

‘It was, but it also wasn’t what I wanted to hear,’ I replied. ‘I’m confused up here, and your advice isn’t helping.’

Rani shrugged and then settled back against me. ‘You’ll work it out eventually – you always do.’

She was right, and I needed to leave to sit in my room and figure out what I was actually feeling.

Then Rani pulled out her laptop. ‘But until then, want to watch romcoms to make everything hurt a little less?’ Her voice was hopeful; my older sister was too tough, too strong, too used to doing things on her own, to just ask me to stay.

But that was OK, because I knew her. The same way she knew me.

‘Yeah,’ I said, dropping my cheek to her shoulder. ‘Let’s make everything hurt a little less.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

For my last shift at the Treasure Trove, it was just me and Melodie in the kitchen. Orion had texted earlier in the day that he had something to sort out and would meet me after closing so we could go over the soulmate spell one last time before the festival.

I was happy for the distance. Disappointed, yes, but also happy. Because I didn’t know how to tell Orion that I was going with Silas to the festival.

Because I had made my decision.

I’d spent all night thinking about it, but I knew choosing Orion would be too risky. And I’d already spent so much of my life making the more daring decision – it was time to choose the stable guy. The good guy.

And telling Orion that I was choosing to go with Silas to the festival would be me finally closing the door on the feelings I had for him. It’s like he said on the roof, I was making a choice, and if it was the wrong one, I had no one else to blame but myself.

‘Did someone do something to you?’

I looked up from the stretchy dough I was kneading over and over again to Melodie, who was standing at the counter beside me. She had one headphone in with her audiobook trilling on, and a smile on her lips.

‘Kneading dough is the best way to get your frustrations out of the way,’ I joked, half-heartedly.