Chapter 28 Rosie
Rosie
R: Dinner at my place? I’m absolutely swamped with this restock and could use some big, strong muscles. I’ll cook if you move boxes?
It’s only half true, because I used my magic to unpack and sort the vast majority of the boxes that came in today and checked them all into the system.
Now I just need to get all of my new stock into their homes or put away into overstock.
But Phillip has been bugging me all day about having Jack over, and I’m starting to feel a bit guilty about keeping Jack to myself lately as the days tick down to the full moon.
Not to mention, Percy is being extra needy.
I’ve attempted to bring him over to Jack’s place a few times, but each time he whined and scratched at the door until one of us took him back to the bookstore to snuggle between the shelves.
I wonder if he’s just comfy here, if he doesn’t like Jack’s, or maybe, like I’m starting to worry, if he’s become a bit attached to Phillip.
That will have to be a problem for future me in a week’s time when the ghostly man crosses over.
That thought churns in my stomach, along with the knowledge that whatever is going on with me and Jack will be over too.
And, of course, my curse will be broken.
That. I need to focus on that part, not the rest.
Funny that six weeks ago, I would have ignored everything and everyone, sacrificed just about anything in order to have this curse broken, to get my shot at true love, and now, a small part of me, which I refuse to admit exists, is scared for it to happen.
Not because I’m afraid I’ll find my person, but because of what—or, rather, who—I might lose in the process.
Thankfully, I don’t have to think about it much longer because soon I’m smiling wide at my phone with his response, and all concerns are flying out of my mind.
J: I’ll bring dinner. Want to go to Thailand?
The reminder of our night together—not a date, I keep reminding myself—sends a sweet warmth rushing through my veins, pulsing along the bond that ties us together.
I ignore that, too, just smiling and saying it sounds great before he confirms he’ll head over soon with the plan to order delivery later.
And it’s not until long after we’ve put my inventory away together, as we eat our dinner on the couch together, laughing and teasing all along, that I realize I willingly asked Jack for help, and he didn’t blink an eye.
He didn’t think I was weaker or mooching off of him or anything.
He just said yes, dropped anything he might have been doing, and helped me.
A partnership.
A friendship.
A… relationship?
This is what I’m thinking about as I wash my face and get into comfier clothes, as Jack cleans up dinner so we can watch a movie on the couch.
I guess in any other circumstance, what Jack and I have is a relationship.
Two people who have intimate knowledge of one another, spending nights and days together, helping each other, talking into the night about hopes and dreams, and goals and regrets.
I look at myself in the mirror, face damp with water, golden threads dancing around me, leading out the door to where Jack is in my kitchen, and for a moment, I picture him standing there before me.
I wonder what it would be like to tell him what is going through my mind, to confess those three little words to him.
“I love you, Jack Haggerty,” I whisper to my reflection.
Strangely enough, the panic that typically comes alongside that revelation, anticipating the impending curse even if I don’t say it aloud, doesn’t swell.
There’s some kind of safety in knowing that it won’t matter in a few weeks, in knowing that it is probably just the effects of the kiss bond, something I’ve never done with anyone else, so I have no frame of reference.
Instead, all I feel is bliss and desire and an adoration I let settle in my chest temporarily.
Maybe it’s the understanding that all of this, the feelings and emotions, are just a convenience factor, with the kiss bond back in place.
It’s making everything feel so much more intense, making it feel like losing him would tear me in two, like having to choose him over my true love would make something inside of me unhealable.
Mix that with the fact that I’ve spent nearly every day of the past six weeks with him, and some temporary and exaggerated feelings are bound to arise.
Fortunately for me, my thoughts are cut off when I hear Percy in the kitchen, meowing and hissing as if he’s trying to get my attention. I quickly pat my face dry, then make a mad dash to the kitchen to see what the little shit is doing.
“Percy, what the fuck?” I ask, walking into the room to find him hissing like mad at Jack.
I’m ready to put him in a time-out, locking him in the bathroom until he can get his shit together, but when I take in the full scene, I freeze.
There’s a buzzing in my ears, muting the sound of Percy still angrily yelling at Jack, who is frozen in place, eyes locked on mine.
Guilt is written all over him as his fingers are on the moonflowers in water, the ones we picked together weeks ago under the gibbous moon, just like the recipe calls for, the ones that are still perfectly perky due to my magic.
In his other hand is a small bundle of moonflowers with a familiar ribbon tied around them.
The ribbon from Poppy’s store.
Suddenly, I remember the call I got from my sister this morning, telling me Jack had come in for flowers for his aunt’s birthday.
I thought it was strange, considering Jack’s parents are both only children like him, but when he came in with the peonies, I figured my sister didn’t want to spoil some kind of surprise.
She wanted to share that he came into the store, but not why, which is so very Poppy.
And now I’m realizing I was right: she didn’t want to spoil the surprise of my flowers, but I was also wrong: she didn’t tell me about the second bouquet.
The bouquet of moonflowers. Basic moonflowers that, I can almost guarantee, were not picked in a field at three a.m. under the gibbous moon.
Ones that, decidedly, would not work for a potion to help Phillip cross to the other side.
Or, in turn, break my family curse.
For a moment, I think I must be imagining it.
He surely isn’t in the middle of swapping out the flowers we got with these basic ones from Poppy’s shop.
Not after we’ve spent so long together working toward this, not when his grandfather’s afterlife is in the swing, not when he knows how damn important this is to me.
But the look on his face is one of pure, unadulterated guilt, and I know in my heart of hearts what is happening here.
“What are you doing?” I finally ask, the words coming in a pained croak as tears already well in my throat. A beat passes, and he doesn’t move, doesn’t shift his hands or put anything down before he speaks.
“Rosie, you have to—”
“What are you doing, Jack?” I ask, the words, now unsteady, shaking as they leave my lips.
“Rosie—”
“What the fuck are you doing, Jack?” I ask a third time, this time finding strength I don’t feel, the words booming out.
I feel my magic spark then, the anger making it volatile, the only time I don’t have complete control over it.
Percy meows then moves to brush against my legs, sending a wave of calm over me.
But it doesn’t touch the disappointment and betrayal in my gut.
“Because it looks like you’re about to swap out the moonflowers we picked to help your grandfather pass on and break my family curse with some other ones.
” My voice cracks in my raw, painful throat, but I don’t stop.
“Ones that surely wouldn’t work in the potion.
” The beat of silence that passes is more than enough confirmation.
“Rosie, it’s not what it looks like,” he says, guilt written all over his face. I give him a tight smile and shake my head, blinking back tears and trying to tap into anger instead of hurt. Anger, I can handle. Hurt is much harder to wrap my fingers around and tamp down.
“Then explain. I would love to be wrong.” That lump in my throat aches and aches and only becomes worse with his silence, with his inability—or maybe his unwillingness—to explain.
When that silence looms between us with no attempt to explain why he’s doing this, to explain that it was a misunderstanding and he’s not actually doing what I think he is, what, in my gut, I know he’s doing, I become desperate.
“Please tell me what this is,” I whisper, my words sounding broken and hurt even to my own ears before I speak my fears aloud.
“Please, Jack. Tell me you weren’t swapping those flowers to sabotage this potion.
” That painful silence lingers again before, finally, he lets out a bone-deep sigh, laying the bundle on the countertop and groaning, running a hand over his face.
“I was.” The two words are so small, infinitesimal in the grandness of this moment, but with them, something in me cracks, painful breaks that go to places I know no form of magic will heal before the first tear falls.
The moment feels so similar to the dozens of heartbreaks I’ve experienced over the years, yet it is different.
Worse.
It’s not only heartbreak, it’s betrayal of a friend.
“Why?” I ask in a whisper, and he watches the tear move down my cheek, his hand lifting as if to try and wipe it, but I shift away, taking a step back.
He does not have that right. He lost it when he lied to me.