Chapter 22 Rosie
Rosie
“I think this might be the most difficult one we’ve done,” I say with a sigh as I stare at one of the last ingredients we need on our list. I should have prioritized getting this one, since now that we’re faced with it, I’m not sure how we’re going to manage getting it in time.
Hair from the most powerful man in town.
Now, how the fuck am I supposed to get that without getting arrested?
“Who do we think would qualify?” Jack asks, looking it over as he sits next to me on my couch.
With just over two weeks until the full moon, I’m feeling the increased need to finish collecting the items we require.
I twist my mouth left and right, trying to think, but the answer seems obvious regardless.
“Probably Mayor Greenwell. I can’t think of anyone who has more power than him, except for maybe Mrs. Hanna, but it says man, so…
” My words trail off. It would be so much easier if this potion weren’t misogynistic, as well.
Mrs. Hanna is definitely the most powerful woman in Heartwood Hollow.
She’s on every board in town, headlining almost every fundraiser, knocking it out of the park, and leading the business committee.
People would be much more likely to listen to her than the mayor if push came to shove.
But alas, this potion recipe was probably written by some arrogant warlock years and years ago, by the likes of the man who got us into this predicament in the first place.
Men.
They’re always making things so much more complicated than they need to be.
It would be as simple as could be to just go into Mrs. Hanna’s shop and get a hair from her, but instead, I have to get a hair from the mayor.
“That makes sense. So… we need one of his hairs?” Jack asks. I nod and sigh. “Can you use your magic? Send your magic into his house to grab one off his pillow?” I shake my head.
“I don’t know the layout of his house, so I couldn’t confidently tell it where to go.
There’s too high a chance it would either get the wrong hair or nothing at all.
” Percy moves past us as we sit on the couch in my apartment, rubbing along Jack’s legs.
He bends a bit to pet my cat absentmindedly, nods as if he understands, and I think, in his own way, he genuinely is starting to understand how things work.
For someone who was sidelined by the existence of magic recently, he’s been a fast learner.
“So what are you thinking?” Phillip asks, floating in a loopy circle.
I roll my eyes as the pesky phantom. Jack and I have made a habit of coming to my place for dinner recently, for Jack to spend time with his grandfather before he passes along to the other side.
I tell them both it’s for Jack’s benefit, but the truth is, my ghostly roommate has kind of grown on me, despite being annoying and meddling, and I think I’ll actually miss him once he’s gone.
“I think he goes to Clips and Snips for his hair,” I say, telling him the idea I’d been brewing on for a few days.
“The problem is, I don’t know what days he goes in.
If we did, I could absolutely get a clipping, even if it’s by stopping by on the day and time of his haircut and dropping something nearby.
I could pretend I’m dropping off treats or flowers from my sisters.
They do that to local businesses often, and I’ve done drop-offs for them on slow days. ”
“We’d need to know his schedule?” Jack asks, and I nod.
“I could ask Sienna, his personal assistant, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to make that sound… natural, you know? If I could get into the book of the barbershop and just… see, it would be easy peasy.”
“Why can’t you just go in and ask?” Phillip asks. I roll my eyes again.
“Because it would be incredibly suspicious if a random citizen in town wandered into a barber she does not frequent personally and asked when the town’s mayor was getting his next trim,” I say, deadpan.
“It would probably get me on some kind of a list, and some of us are still going to have to live in Heartwood Hollow after you drink that potion.”
Phillip opens his mouth to add something, then closes it, like he decided it wasn’t a wise choice. I stare at him for a long moment, skeptically, before I realize Jack is quiet beside me as I bicker with his grandfather, and I turn to look at him.
“Jack?” I ask, confused. He looks at me for a moment, which makes me pause before speaking.
“I can do it.”
“You can… do it?”
He nods. “I mean, I can try.” I tip my head in confusion, not understanding.
“You can?”
He nods again, and my brow furrows. Jack, who was too shy to talk to members of the business committee to help his own business, can go into Clips and Snips and make small talk?
“I have… an in. I can make an appointment and scan over the datebook when I do.” Phillip lets out an amused sound, but I ignore it, turning fully to Jack.
“An in?” That all too familiar blush burns across his cheeks before he nods and explains.
“I used to date Jeanette.” My body stills, a mix of confusion and another emotion I won’t look at too closely taking over.
“The receptionist?” He nods. “Jeanette Smith?” I clarify further.
He smiles and nods. I don’t… I don’t know how to handle that.
Jeanette is an absolute bombshell, all tits and ass and a fuckton of hair anyone would be jealous of, and she knows how to work all of it.
The idea that Jack dated someone, someone as gorgeous and sexy and outgoing as Jeanette, just… doesn’t fit.
“When?”
He reaches behind his head and scratches the back of his neck before shrugging, but answers all the same. “I don’t know. We stopped seeing each other maybe… six months ago?”
“How long were you together?”
“Is that jealousy I’m sensing, Rosemary?” Phillip asks, and I fight the sudden urge for my jaw to go tight, instead giving the ghost the middle finger.
“No. I just…” I want to know because about eight months ago, Jeanette came into my store looking for a book. She told me she was really into some new guy she was dating and wanted to keep the happy feeling going.
There was no reason not to, but for some reason, I didn’t think she was ready for a love pick.
So I pointed her in the right direction of the rom-coms and let her shop on her own, not giving her a love match.
It’s haunted me since, especially when Violet told me that a month later, Jeanette came into her shop upset and looking for a pick-me-up.
She’d been dumped.
By Jack, it seems.
And I can’t help but think part of that was my fault, that if I’d given her a love book, she would have found her magical happily ever after.
Despite the guilt eating at me even now, I can’t help but feel that tiny spark of satisfaction burning in my chest. The idea that Jack is single might have something to do with me.
Not that it matters.
I’m cursed.
I can’t fall in love.
We’re just fuck buddies, as he put it.
And once this curse is broken, I’ll go off on my merry way and find the true love of my life once and for all.
“I’m not jealous. I’m just… surprised. I hear all the Heartwood Hollow gossip. And you don’t… people.”
“I’ve been with women, Rosie,” Jack says with a smug smile.
It takes everything in my being not to react to those words, to the idea of him having been with other women.
“I just don’t date them, not really. I don’t go to dinner with them or spend nights playing video games or going on adventures with them.
” His words are pointed, his face assessing, and my stomach starts to turn in on itself.
His words are so intentional, but I don’t have the guts to actually ask him, so I don’t.
Instead, I smile and widen my eyes, raising my eyebrows repeatedly.
He rolls his eyes and continues on. “Anyway, I think she thought it was more than it was, so I broke it off before things got too… complicated.”
I wonder if that happens a lot, Jack making people feel special and different, only for it to be a miscommunication.
A sense of relief washes through me that we won’t have that problem, not with everything coming to an end when the full moon hits, of course.
I wouldn’t want a miscommunication to ruin the friendship I’m learning to value.
I give him a tight smile before turning back to the task at hand.
“I’m surprised because… well, you know,” I say without meaning it.
“I don’t,” he says with a teasing smile that tells me he very much does know. “I think you should tell me explicitly what you were surprised about.” Phillip chuckles, entertained by the back-and-forth, and I roll my eyes, trying to ignore the burning blush that is creeping down to my chest now.
“That you dated someone in town? That you’re suave enough to land a hottie like Jeanette?”
“I landed you, didn’t I?” My pulse rockets again, and in that moment, I think he’s spending way too much time with me because he’s getting way too good at the comebacks. Who is this man across from me, and what has he done with my shy, grumpy neighbor?
I clear my throat, but I’m unable to clear my mind as well. Still, I take a deep breath and grin. “Point made.”
“We weren’t dating, per se. Well, I didn’t think we were. It was just a… benefits thing,” Jack explains.
“Friends with benefits?”
He shrugs. “I guess you could call it that.” It settles heavy and uncomfortable in my stomach, a foreign feeling taking root. Jealousy? Hurt?
I’m not sure, but the fact that this isn’t Jack’s first foray into friends with benefits settles over me. Is this not… special to him?
“Less friends, though,” he clarifies, as if he can see the thoughts running through my mind and wants to mollify me.