32. Chapter 32 #2
For someone who’s been known to see the future, I sure spend an awful lot of time wishing I could go back.
Back to before Wes made me question the benevolence of this magic.
Back to Jamie’s bed before I decided to come to this stupid bakery.
But no matter how much I wish, I can’t find a way.
There’s been a lot of magic in our lives, me and Jamie, more than most people get, but time travel isn’t our particular brand.
It was no more than five minutes before he came looking for me, but it was long enough for more to be said between them. More confusion cleared up for him and stirred up for me. I didn’t ask. I couldn’t .
Now, he trails a few steps behind me, hands in his pockets, eyes on the cobblestones while we head down the street back to his place.
Questions fire at me from all sides in the silence: Would he still have left her if he had all these details?
Would he have gone all in on the rest of it if he’d known there were holes in this?
When we get to the landing, I wait, arms wrapped around myself while Jamie opens the door, holding it for me.
The heat of his apartment feels less cozy today, more oppressive.
He still hasn’t spoken. I don’t know if he’s giving me the space I demanded when I ran out of there or rethinking every interaction we’ve ever had, but wondering is killing me. “Jamie, I—”
“I just need a minute, Noe.”
I freeze, the blood draining from my face. The latter, I guess .
He rounds the kitchen island, putting it between us like a shield, gripping the edge with white knuckles. “What were the other differences?”
“What?”
“You said a few things were different from what you saw, right? But you never told me what.”
My jaw tightens with panic. I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want to think about it. But the chickens have come home to roost. They always do. “Your tattoo,” I whisper.
“My…” he lifts his arm, looking at the hops wreath wrapping his bicep.
“Not that one. The one on your back.”
His forehead creases. “Okay. How?”
“It wasn’t a wave. It was words. I don’t know what it said.”
“So you know it was different but you don’t know what it was before?”
“It was a little… blurry? And it was partly covered by the sheet.”
“The sheet?”
“I saw it when I saw us. We were in bed. At the hotel.” I don’t know why I’m blushing after everything we’ve done, but I burn from my cheekbones to my ears.
“Okay,” he says. “Is that it?”
“The scar on your hand,” I say miserably. “It wasn’t there.”
He glances at it, then shoves his hand in his hair. “These are tiny things, Noe.”
“Yeah. They were. Until now.”
I try to pull that night back into my head, search for any other signs that I was wrong, but the memory seems to come at me from another angle. Something that’s been hidden in the bushes, stepping into the light.
All I can see looking back at it now is how badly I wanted him.
The minute I saw him. After everything that’s happened, I can be honest with myself about that.
I’d felt it, a quick pulse of desire that flipped my heart and shot heat between my legs.
The kind of whole-body impulse that I never give in to.
Whenever I’ve felt that kind of want, I’ve shoved it down with both hands. But not that night. I let myself look. Think about it. Imagine it.
What if that’s all it took to manifest this thing? What if that’s all it was that put those pictures in my head? A selfish disregard for anything but my own wants.
I knew I should walk away, but I didn’t. Just like when I found him on my porch and decided to bring him to the ER myself.
Wait .
My eyes snap to him. “You told me it was true. That’s what you said at the hospital. Didn’t you even ask her?”
Guilt flashes in his wince. “She said there was someone else. That was enough. I left and I blocked her number.”
“After six years? Why wouldn’t you at least hear her side, Jamie?”
“The rest of it came true. What was I supposed to think?”
“Oh my God.” That’s what he said at the hospital. I couldn’t ignore that one when the rest was so spot on . The back of my neck is damp with sweat, and I strip his hoodie off and find my jacket on the back of the couch. “I should go. You have to get ready for the launch.”
It was last season’s launch when I agreed to see him again. I’m not sure what kind of sign that is. I can’t read them anymore. Or maybe I never could.
“It’s nine-thirty in the morning, Noel. We have hours. Stay.” He looks nervous, pulling his hands from his pockets to grip his hair.
“I have to feed Pixie.”
“I’ll go with you then,” he says. “Hang out at your place until I have to be here.” He’s on my heels as I buzz around gathering my things. His fingers grab for my hip, but I twirl out of reach.
“Noel, please . Look, let’s just… forget it happened. It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters,” I cry. I didn’t think it was possible, but he’s just made this infinitely worse. Tell me it was all a dream, tell me she’s just angry and lashing out, but don’t tell me I messed with his entire life, and it doesn’t matter.
“And stop doing that, Jamie. Stop pretending everything’s going to be fine because you want it to be. We’ve made a lot of big decisions based on that night, and I was wrong. And you’re hoping to use the same flawed magic to help you with the next one.”
He links his fingers behind his head, pacing. “Okay, well, what if we just tried it again? Maybe we haven’t been trying hard enough to make it happen. Just one more time to clear it all up.”
His words echo in my brain like the ringing after an explosion. He cannot think that is a good idea. “ That’s your solution? Dive deeper into this?”
“It’s better than you running away.”
God, I’m so tired of that accusation. Maybe that’s what you do with something like this. When some force you don’t understand hijacks your life. Maybe running away was always the right call. Hasn’t anyone considered that ?
“Come on, Noel.” He reaches for my wrist, and I let him take it.
“I can’t force it. That’s the one thing—the only thing—we know about this.”
“I know, baby, but we could try, right?”
“Jamie.” I huff his name on a sigh. What is it about him that ruins my logic and instinct? “You don’t even own a candle.”
“You said the candle didn’t matter.” He draws me against his chest, circling me with his arms. “Just stand here with me. We’ll focus. Try.”
I nod, but I don’t curl into him the way I would have before. Instead, his body pressed to mine makes my heart race in a different way. A bad way. A warning way. It suddenly feels really dangerous, playing with this force that I don’t understand and has the power to wreak havoc.
What if I see exactly what he wants me to and he makes another huge financial decision because of it, only to find some hole later?
And what if I get some confirmation that other things I saw that night aren’t true, that the thing I have my heart set on isn’t as sure as I thought it was?
What if I see Jamie and me again, and like his tattoo, it’s changed?
The blood seeps from my face. Jamie’s not the only one who’s been making huge decisions because one domino fell that night on the roof.
My condo is about to have a For Sale sign in front of it.
I turned down guaranteed income with Vi for a dream.
All because I thought it was tied up in the same vision that gave me him.
You don’t make major life decisions on a freaking candle . Isn’t that exactly what I told him?
I press a hand to my chest, and it’s covered in sweat. The tattoo, the scar—those were little holes in the magic, hints that this could all change and I ignored them because I wanted to. I wanted him. But this isn’t a little hole. This one is a gaping wound. I can’t chance it.
“I don’t want to do this,” I say, pulling out of his grip. “Jamie, this is too important to play around with. Even if I see something, it could be wrong.”
“Noel…”
“No. We don’t know what we’re doing. It was foolish to make decisions this way. What if this whole thing was bullshit from the start?”
Jamie’s face falls, and I hear what I’ve said. My stomach plummets.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Shit.” He takes a step back, knocking into the counter. “I just realized you’re talking about us.”
“No.” I say. “No, I’m not.”
“That’s what you said: Big decisions, flawed magic. All of it’s bullshit.”
“I just meant it’s all tied up, Jamie.”
His jaw works like he’s trying out words before speaking them. “I don’t understand why it matters, Noel. Sure, some details were off, but it still happened. Me and you, we still happened. That’s what you wanted to see, right? When you were testing me all that time?”
The spiral I’m in halts on a dime and I blink up at him. “You think I was testing you?”
He licks his lips and looks away. “Weren’t you? Isn’t that why you didn’t tell me what you saw?”
“ No .” An ache pulses through my chest, and I press my hands to my temples.
“You said you wanted to see if it would happen on its own.”
“It wasn’t a test. Or maybe it was, but not of you. Of the visions.”
“It’s the same thing, Noe.”
“It’s not.”
“That night at the beach,” he says. “That’s when you saw my tattoo. You freaked out. That’s why, right?”
My jaw clamps shut. I can’t lie to him, and the truth to that question won’t help here. Besides, I can see him working out on his own. His brow is drawn, eyes bouncing around my face.
He tips his head. “But why did you change your mind?”
“Jamie.”
“Why did you agree to see me again that night at the bar? Why did you put your condo up for sale? Decide to stay here with me?”
“It doesn’t matt—” I bite off the end of that sentence. I’m a hypocrite. How can one piece matter and not the rest?
“ Why , Noel?”
“Because I saw us! There at the cottage. In the summer. I thought I was supposed to stay.”
His eyes are desperate. I can practically see his heart banging around in his chest. “Would you have stayed without it?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
His whole body sags, and it’s like a knife twisting in my gut to see all that buoyant hope that fuels him deflate before my eyes.
I’m torn between wanting to fix it, to patch him back up, and taking it as the sign that it probably is.
He’s supposed to be the believer here and he doesn’t have any left either.
“Everything between us,” he says. “It’s just been a calculated risk for you.”
“I didn’t say that, Jamie. I’m just confused.”
“I’m in love with you. Not the idea that I’m somehow supposed to be with you— You . There’s nothing confusing about that for me. You can’t say the same. I’m sorry, but that hurts no matter how you put it.”
“That’s… you’re making it seem simple, and it’s not.” I press my palms into my eyes, frustrated at the way this is spinning out of my grip. “God, I wish I’d never looked into that stupid candle. Why couldn’t we have just met like normal people? Out at some bar somewhere.”
“Come on,” he says, and the coldness of it snaps my head up. “You think we’d be standing here if you didn’t look into that candle? I’m not exactly your type, Noel.”
“That is not true.”
“Maybe I passed your test, but I wouldn’t have even had the opportunity to take it without that vision, so I’m sorry you wish you never had it, but I can’t say the same.”
“Jamie. That’s not… I’m not…” The hurt on his face makes me desperate.
I step to him, curl my fingers in his shirt.
“You said yourself you wouldn’t have taken the risk on your business if you hadn’t seen the future.
If you thought you might lose. You just asked me to do it again so you can decide what to do next!
You did the exact same thing. You’re doing it now. ”
“That’s not even remotely the same, Noel.”
“Of course it is! We were both scared. Of holding onto something that could be taken away. Of loving—” my voice cracks and I clear my throat. “Of loving something that would hurt if we lost it. You made me feel a lot of things really quickly. You have to understand how overwhelming that was.”
“It was overwhelming for me too! Believe it or not, you’re the first woman I’ve been with who could see my future, let alone tell me we were destined to end up together.
But you know what that looked like to me, Noel?
It looked rare, and special. Something you don’t let pass you by even if it leaves you with more questions than answers. Even if you’re scared.”
His name is a hoarse whisper from my throat, but he’s already turned away from me. He walks to the door and grabs a hat and his keys from the hook on the wall. “I’m going downstairs. Stay or don’t. Whatever you think you’re supposed to do.”