Chapter 33
BLAIRE
Iwake up in a recliner built for a man twice my size, wearing his hoodie. There’s a box of Junior Mints and loose gummy worms stuck to my thigh. For some reason, I have popcorn in my pocket.
The screen across the room is frozen on a menu that says, Continue Watching?
I think we made it forty minutes into the scariest movie he could find before I ended up inside his sweatshirt with him because I was cold.
After that, the movie stopped being the focus.
We ended up naked, and now I’m wearing his clothes, sitting on his lap.
There are a dozen theater seats in this ridiculous room, and we used one that’s directly in the center.
Jamie is still asleep under me, breathing slow. I watch him and do the math of how long we’ve been doing this.
Thirty days. It feels like I’ve known him for years. A lifetime even.
Which makes today a record.
Somewhere in the past, there’s a version of him that never had a fling with anyone longer than a month. As of this morning, that man no longer exists.
His hand is partially open. The line across his palm is now a thin pink scar, straight down the love line, just like mine.
His breathing changes under my ear before his eyes open. One arm tightens around me like he’s scared I might leave.
“Morning, sweetheart,” he says, voice low and raw.
“Do you know what today is?”
He thinks about it longer than the question deserves. “Thursday.”
“You’re right. It is.”
He makes breakfast shirtless and cracks eggs with one hand.
“You’re a show-off.”
“Babe, so are you. Sitting over there, looking like a dream.”
After we eat breakfast and before the sun rises, Jamie drops me two streets over from the manor. Our fingers brush at the door because that’s as far as we can push it. I take a shower, then walk to work, pretending that the cameras following me don’t exist.
Today, there are nearly a hundred people waiting.
The Love Loaves have been selling out within the first hour, no matter how many Josie makes. No one is surprised. When Autumn used to work at the coffee shop, she’d bake mini versions, and they’d be gone just as fast.
Over the past week, I made Winter and Josie aware of my and Jamie’s situationship. They stopped asking questions about it. My best friends and roommates know this ends on Halloween. They all think what I’m saying is utter bullshit, but Jamie is also repeating it to Zane and Nick.
According to Jamie, Zane laughed so hard that he hung up on him.
Last night, we cooked dinner at his place in the glass house on the ridge, wanting to be alone and away from Pine Haven.
He reminded me of how many days we had left.
Lately, one of us says the number out loud randomly, and the other repeats it.
We treat it like a joke, but neither of us is laughing about it anymore.
Our time together is really coming to an end, and it’s impossible to pretend it’s not.
It’s been eleven days since I’ve heard from Teddy. I let myself believe it’s over.
At a quarter past one, Ivy’s phone dings on the counter. Then Martha’s goes off in her apron pocket. Then phones ping around the store like a mass message was sent.
Ivy looks at her screen, and her smile fades.
Winter comes out of the back. “Blaire, you need to see this right now.”
The headline is in the middle of the screen.
Jameson Cross Is Under A Witch’s Spell!
Beneath it is a photograph of our hands up close on different days on the street.
I scroll, and they’ve posted lunar records to confirm.
There’s another website where there’s an exclusive interview with Teddy. My nostrils flare.
“She cast a love spell on me. I lost ten years because of her recklessness.”
Everything fades away for a few seconds because I see red. He promised me he’d never speak about our relationship. Instead, he put everything on a worldwide stage.
“She never cut into me, but she’s desperate to be loved. Look up what witches do to men.”
There’s an entire paragraph about Jameson Cross joining a cult in Pine Haven. The fifty-thousand-dollar payment is confirmed by an anonymous source. The last line of the article is about my shop and how I fool desperate people into giving away their money. I’m written like I’m some sort of scammer.
The strange part is that my hands don’t shake. I keep waiting for it to happen.
When I look up, every customer in the shop is staring at me.
“Okay. Everybody, out,” Winter announces, using her very direct doctor’s voice. “We’re closing early today.”
Two customers already have their phones up, taking pictures of me.
Martha steps directly into their line of sight with her arms crossed. Her eleven years of retail in a boutique in town has given her zero fear. “Ma’am, my boss said we’re closing, so we need everyone out of the building.”
Ivy herds the rest toward the door with her arms out wide, like she’s moving geese. Once the last customer is gone, Winter turns the dead bolt and flips the sign.
I move to the back, where no one can see me through the windows, and wait to fall apart, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, I get angry. My fists clench, and I’m ready to combust.
“Blaire,” Winter says, keeping her voice soft.
“That motherfucker,” I whisper.
“Breathe. In through your nose and out through your mouth. Slow.”
I do.
“Yep, just like that,” she says.
I growl, “Exes get hexes.”
She chuckles. “Want to talk about it?”
“I’m going to put his name in a jar and—”
“You’d regret it. Plus, you believe in karma,” she says. “That’s not who you are. No matter what the tabloids say. Harm no one. I’ve heard you say it to customers.”
I sigh. “Never brew what you wouldn’t drink.”
A moment later, the main door opens and then closes. Ivy and Martha are talking to someone who has a deep voice.
Winter and I give each other a look as she goes to survey what’s going on. A tall guy with a beanie, aviators, and a thick mustache is inside the store. The hoodie is over his head.
I make a face, and Jamie rips the mustache from above his lip and grins.
“I asked Ruthie for a disguise.”
Winter bursts into laughter and pats my shoulder. “Gonna let you two have privacy.”
When we’re alone, I look up at him. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard about the shitstorm. I had to see you,” he confesses.
His hand rests on my cheek, and his mouth presses against mine. His lips are cold and taste like cinnamon and sugar.
The kiss steadies me more than the breathing did. When he pulls back, I’m holding a fistful of his hoodie.
“Is everything okay with you? I’m sorry I—”
“Don’t apologize. Please. This is nothing I can’t handle, Blaire.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“I don’t know what will happen yet. I’ve spoken to my PR manager and agent. My brother. Official statements are being written right now. The foundation isn’t happy about the cult thing. But none of that matters.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“In the grand scheme of my life and everything I’ve already been through? This is nothing. I’m more concerned about you.”
“You could lose everything,” I whisper.
“Your well-being is the only thing that matters to me right now,” he says, like he means it.
“That’s a dangerous thing to say.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m feeling kinda reckless these days.”
I laugh, and it comes out shaky, but he pretends not to notice.
I grab his hand, opening his palm.
“There are pictures of our hands.” My throat tightens. “The rumors. The things they’ve said about me.”
He links our fingers together. “I read it all. That’s why I came to see you.”
“Thank you,” I tell him. My emotions get the best of me, and tears start to fall.
“Aw, babe,” he says as I fall into his arms.
He holds me against him, letting me cry. He doesn’t ask me to stop. Instead, he rubs my back, letting me empty my emotions on his shoulder. It’s what I need.
“I miss my aunt, and she’s the only person who would know what to do in this situation,” I say against his chest.
His hoodie is wet where my face is. I pull away, and he wipes the tears away with his thumbs.
“So, what would she do?” he asks.
It’s such a simple question, and I roll the thought around in my mind a few times.
“If she were here right now, she’d be confirming guests for her party,” I tell him. “It’s in a little over a week.”
So is our deadline. Neither of us mentions it.
“She’d spin it to her advantage. Get as much exposure as she could. Flora loved the spotlight. Loved rumors. She’d very much feed the beast. She’d do wards on her name.” My eyes widen. “That’s it.”
Before I can say anything else, my cell phone rings. I look at it and see it’s Doris Jean. I let out a sigh and answer on speaker.
“Honey! Oh, good. I’m so glad you answered. I was just talking to some of the ladies and wanted to confirm the Halloween party is still on.”
“Of course it is,” I tell her.
“Great. Wanted to make sure you weren’t going to cancel it with all these ridiculous things being said about you. We’ve got your back, just like we had Flora’s. We’ll handle it,” she says and hangs up on me.
Jamie’s brows are raised. “You have the grandma mafia on your side.”
“Uh, sounds like it.” I stare at the phone. “That felt like a sign.”
“Maybe it was,” Jamie says.
I look up at him. “You don’t believe in that.”
“I didn’t. But unexplainable things happen when we’re together.” He shrugs. “At some point, a man has to stop calling some things a coincidence.”
I grab his hand. “Come on. We’re leaving.”
“Where are we going?”
“To do a protection spell in the study.”
“Hold on,” he says, pressing the mustache back onto his face and putting his sunglasses on. His hood is on his head.
We move into the front, where Ivy, Martha, Josie, and Winter are resetting the store.
“Everyone has off today. Put a sign on the front.”
“Where are you going?” Josie asks.
“Home,” I say.
“Are we staying closed?” Ivy asks.
Martha stands beside her.
“What do you want to do?” I ask, meeting each of their eyes.
“We want to stay,” Josie says. “We can’t let them run us off.”
Winter agrees, and so do Ivy and Martha.