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GRACE
In the daysafter the Met wedding, I volunteer to do inventory for Skye and Jen. I obsessively clean my apartment. I job search, sending applications for two postings that make me feel skeptical at best.
Basically, I do everything I can to distract me from the confusing facts:
I kissed Charlie Fox. I brazenly, out-of-nowhere kissed him.
He extremely, take-me-now kissed me back.
And faced with that sizzling chemistry, he recoiled as if he’d been burned. Oh, and…
He hasn’t said a word to me since he shoved me in a cab and sprinted away.
Maybe that’s a blessing, giving me time to chill out before the next wedding. But it’s also a curse. I’m on edge, leaping up every time I hear my phone buzz, hoping it’s him.
Which is crazy. Charlie Fox is not about to call me up and pledge his undying devotion. That toxic bachelor wouldn’t know undying anything if it slapped him in the extremely handsome face.
Besides, I don’t even want him to, I decide stubbornly. That kiss was… Instinct. Hormones. The natural result of too many bad dates, a sex drought, and dancing way too close to a handsome man. Plus, the alcohol.
Anyonewould have kissed him under those circumstances. It would have almost been unusual if Ihadn’tthrown myself at him with that potent cocktail of deprivation and temptation throbbing in my veins.
So, I should be able to forget about it.Easy.
But even now, minding the register, the man is occupying an annoyingly large portion of my waking thoughts.
I’ve relived the kiss for daydream purposes, of course, but I’ve also replayed it like a sports commentator with a slow-motion video, scribbling arrows and circling movements, with scoring from the judges for every move. I’ve basically obsessed over every detail, and each time I come up with the same conclusion.
I should not, under any circumstances, be drinking around that man.
“What do you think?” Skye asks, holding up a new tarot set. “Too dark?”
I peer closer. All the images are full of writhing monsters and ominous demons. “I mean, maybe? I’d be scared of conjuring some ancient darkness, and I don’t even believe in that stuff.”
A customer gives me a glare. “I mean, I only believe in good magic!” I correct quickly, then mouth‘Sorry’at Skye.
The chimes above the door sound again, and I open my mouth, intending to toss a cursory “hello” to the next customer.
At first, my brain can’t place who I’m looking at, even though I was just thinking about him.
Seeing Charlie Fox in my aunts’ shop is like seeing my kindergarten teacher at the grocery store or my bikini waxer at a bodega. That is simply not where my brain has organized this person to exist.
Plus, he looks ridiculous beneath the shop’s doorframe, tall and broad and out of place. The shop and most of its customers are full of details—tattoos and rings, vintage T-shirt logos and interesting hair. And Charlie Fox is standing there in dark blue jeans and a pale blue oxford with a box in his arms, looking like a Times Square billboard for a show about rich people living in a coastal town.
The crush feeling—like a tossed handful of glitter—sparkles all down my body.
Dammit.
“Hello and welcome,” Skye says breezily.
“Uh, hey,” I manage, lifting one hand.
“Wedding supplies,” Charlie says by way of greeting. “These are important wedding supplies.”
I blink. “Okay.”
Skye elbows me, and I turn.
“Charlie, this is my Aunt Skye. Skye, Charlie.”
