Chapter 18 AN ENCHANTING STROLL #2
‘This is a whole new side of you I’m seeing,’ I said, giving Noah a nudge.
Noah shrugged. ‘I like to stay busy. There’s only so much time I can spend swimming or tasting Mom’s baking before I start to go stir-crazy. Besides, Keiko deserves the help. She was the one who got me into painting in the first place.’
‘Really? I thought it was that time our moms did that folkart course together. Remember, they were découpaging everything and painting those swirly birds?’
Noah chuckled. ‘Yes, in spite of that, I somehow found a passion for painting.’
‘Don’t tell Rosie, but I accidentally-on-purpose lost the trinket box she made me.’
‘Your secret’s safe with me.’ Noah’s dark-eyed gaze sparkled with mirth. I felt effervescent inside, and I knew that my own stare mirrored his. On my finger, Josephine’s ring crackled, its magic sparking off my skin.
‘Um, is it all right if I take Ernie?’ Keiko was holding the little boy’s hand.
I flushed. I’d been so caught up in chatting with Noah, I seemed to have forgotten that a whole class of kids was staring, bug-eyed, at me.
The ice cream I was holding shivered in my hand as a whisperwind kicked up. But I was too distracted by Noah’s proximity to properly hear what the wind was saying.
Keiko perked up. ‘Did you catch that one?’ she asked. ‘I think it was something about toast. I’m so terrible at catching them. But I think partly it’s the location. They’re much stronger down by the beach.’
‘They were stronger earlier,’ I agreed, not meeting Noah’s eyes.
I shrugged Ernie’s yellow backpack off my shoulder and passed it over. Keiko looped it over her wrist – between holding her hand and squeezing Sealy, Ernie was occupied.
‘By the way, you make a lovely couple,’ Keiko said approvingly. ‘Very pleasing to the eye. Noah, you should draw her.’
Noah flushed, and I was transported back to the bonfire. Though I hadn’t seen it first hand, I could imagine his soft charcoal sketch in my mind’s eye. The delicacy with which he’d traced my features. The way he’d gently smudged the colour into my likeness’ cheeks with his thumb.
‘We’re not …’ I started, but then paused.
We weren’t a couple, but we could be, couldn’t we? Noah wasn’t as overt in his interest as Finn, but there was clearly something between us.
If he allowed it. Because it hadn’t been that long since he’d broken up with Meryl. Perhaps he wasn’t interested in a relationship with me. Because that’s what it would be – a relationship. Noah didn’t do flings or casual dating. He went all in.
Keiko looked amused at my response, but didn’t press the issue further. ‘See you next week, Noah! And you’re welcome to join us as well, Molly. We’re going to be painting sunflowers.’
I brightened. ‘Ooh, I love sunflowers.’
We waved as the buzzing group of kids raced back to the main camp building, Keiko hot on their heels. I broke out in a grin at their combined shrieks of laughter.
‘Quite the group of kids,’ I observed, as they all tried to press in through the door together.
‘They’re pretty great,’ said Noah. ‘I actually thought about art teaching for a while there.’
‘But the law won in the end, hmm?’ Noah was in his second year of law school. Unlike Finn, who’d quit even his part-time job after Charlie had died, Noah hadn’t taken so much as a week off. Apparently, reading lengthy papers about contract law was a decent coping mechanism.
‘Mostly because lawyers don’t need help tying their shoelaces.’
‘Are shoelaces still a thing?’ I asked thoughtfully. ‘I can’t remember the last time I had a pair of shoes with shoelaces.’
‘They’re mostly for close-toed shoes,’ he offered. ‘And I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything other than Birkenstocks or flip-flops.’
‘Lies!’ I said. ‘I wore heels to my graduation party. Did I trip? Yes. But I wore them.’
‘And these heels, they had laces?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘The market for heels with laces is pretty niche. And mostly back in the eighties.’
Noah shook his head, amused. ‘You’re something else, Molly.’
I grinned. ‘I do my best.’ After a moment, I blurted, ‘I’m sorry about Meryl, by the way.’
A touch of surprise registered in Noah’s eyes, but he kept his cool. ‘It was a long time coming. She was ready to take the next step, and I wasn’t.’
‘You weren’t?’ It was my turn to be surprised. Noah absolutely struck me as a next-step kind of guy.
‘I was,’ he said, his tone measured. ‘Just not with her.’
With who, then? I wondered. But I didn’t voice it aloud, just in case the answer wasn’t what I hoped it might be. Or worse, was, and raised further questions I wasn’t equipped to answer.
We took a slightly different way back, choosing our route based on the gardens that drew our interest or the cute cats warming their bellies out in the sun.
It was a much quieter, more languid journey than we’d had with Ernie chatting beside us, and it felt strangely intimate, even with the windows of the different houses thrown open and the bustling cove sparkling beneath us.
Tiny crackles of magic spilled out from doorways, and the enormous pompom-growths of dahlias and hydrangeas glimmered with spells.
Rosie wasn’t the only one with a magical green thumb around here.
I gasped as a tiny red-throated hummingbird buzzed in front of me before racing off to drink from a feeder.
‘My favourites,’ I whispered, as it hovered at the feeder, dipping its long beak into the nectar.
‘I know,’ said Noah quietly. He touched where he’d painted the hummingbird during the Summerween Festival, so gently that I wasn’t sure if his fingertips had actually met my skin. Unthinkingly, I reached up to curl my fingers around his wrist, trying to draw him even closer.
Josephine’s ring grew warm, and a magic-tinged breeze twirled around us. It felt as though the whole world had disappeared, and it was just the two of us standing here, eyes locked on one another, our lips inches away.
It would be so easy to kiss him. It was so tempting to kiss him.
He leaned in to me, his hair falling forward as he apparently contemplated the same thing.
He was so close that I could see the tiny scar on his lip from the time we’d collided chasing a frisbee on the beach.
So close that I could see that his breathing was just slightly faster, more shallow than usual.
I angled my chin up, willing him to make the first move. So that I wouldn’t be the one responsible for shifting a friendship over into the category of something more.
But then he stepped back.
‘We should get going before …’ he began, then trailed off.
‘Before the ice cream melts,’ I finished. Even though, if Soraya’s spell was working as it should, no amount of time out in the sun would affect it.
‘Right,’ he said.
I was disappointed, but relieved. I knew I had to make my choice, but the moment I did, I’d ruin my friendship with the other brother.
And I wasn’t ready to do that just yet.