Chapter 32 Jack #2
Rosie stares in silence before asking, “Results?”
“You two! You both are finally together and happy. Kissing! In love!”
“We broke up because he sabotaged my potion because he thought your spell would make me forget him. We spent the last week apart in absolute misery because of your lies.” He waves his hand in the air like it doesn’t matter, and Rosie looks like she might throw something.
“Ehh, love is messy sometimes. You should know that by now.”
“You’re—” Rosie starts, but I cut her off deciding I need to get her away from my grandfather before she actually curses him.
“Are you going anywhere?” I ask my grandfather, trying to stop this cycle from repeating.
“No,” he says, doing another flip. “I like staying earthside. Only thing I missed was food, which your little witch fixed for me.” Rosie glares and opens her mouth but despite the chaos, I want to get her alone.
I want time with Rosie. It’s been too long since I’ve held her, since I’ve pressed my lips to hers, and I need to know that we’re okay.
We can deal with this mess tomorrow.
Or the next day.
“So you’ll be here tomorrow for Rosie to yell at you?”
“I can be, I suppose. What time were you thinking?”
“You’re stuck here, what does it matter?” Rosie asks, exasperated.
My grandfather lifts an eyebrow and smiles. “No. I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
He shakes his head and lets out a laugh. “No, girl. I can go all around Heartwood Hollow.” He pauses, then looks at us skeptically. “Is that why you always escape to Jack’s? Because you thought I was stuck here?”
“Yes!” Rosie shouts, once again getting more frustrated. I can’t blame her, though.
My grandfather was always a trickster when he was alive, so I honestly should have seen this coming. Still, I need to step in before things get worse.
“Okay, so you’re stuck in Heartwood Hollow, you’re not going to disappear.
We’ll be here tomorrow for you to continue explaining to Rosie exactly what happened.
But it’s late, so we’re going back to my place for the night.
” I look down at Rosie waiting for her agreement, realizing that it isn’t a forgone conclusion.
We have so much to talk about, I have apologies to make, and she still hasn’t formally forgiven me.
She smiles softly, though, and nods before relief rushes through me.
“Works for me. Mind if I eat the rest of these?” Phillip asks Rosie, gesturing toward the treats on the counter. She glares at him.
“Go,” I say, squeezing her hand. “Go get a bag and we’ll head out.” A beat passes before she nods with a sigh and makes her way to her room, shooting another glare at my grandfather. When she’s out of sight, I turn to him.
“There was never a curse?” I ask low.
He shakes his head. “Spirits can see magic even if it’s not visible to other magic holders.
We can see spells and curses, and Rosemary never had a curse.
Neither do her sisters. I didn’t see it when I was alive, and I don’t see it now.
I have a theory, but she’ll have to summon her mother to talk to her about it.
Not my story to tell.” I sigh and nod, then decide to grab the pot on the stove and the now empty flask to clean them out.
Might as well make myself useful while I wait.
“You knew this would happen all along,” I say, a statement instead of a question. Again, he nods.
“I mean, no one can know for sure, since human nature is unpredictable, but again, ghosts can… see things. Tiny threads tying people, potential mates from the fates.” I blink at him, shocked at this assessment.
I look to where Rosie disappeared, wondering if she knows about that and he shakes his head.
“Most witches don’t know and very, very few can even sense those ties.
Rosie’s magic works in tandem with those ties when she gives people their books to find their true love.
She can sense them sometimes, but can’t see them.
” He shrugs then motions to me. “I knew there was something between you two, so I sent her to your place for the flask. It was confirmed when I saw you two together and saw the tie.”
“So you took fate into your own hands?”
“Is it so wrong to want happiness for my only grandson?” I know he wants me to buy his guilt trip, but I don’t, giving him a deadpan look instead.
He rolls his eyes. “I had good intentions.” I know that to be true, which is the only reason I’m going to try and convince Rosie not to really send him to the afterlife if he doesn’t want it.
Though, if she did, I wouldn’t blame her.
“Just… don’t mess with her stuff too much. And try to think of something to tell her tomorrow to get her to forgive you for good.”
My grandfather smiles then. “You’re a good kid, Jack. You always were.” I open my mouth to say something in response, but then Rosie is walking back into the kitchen with a bag, glaring at my grandfather, and I follow her as she walks down the stairs and out the front door.
“I can’t believe…” Rosie says low as we cross the familiar cobblestone road between our businesses. “I can’t believe the curse wasn’t real.” I do feel for her, since everything she thought she knew seems to be imploding before her eyes. “It felt real.”
I hold in my own thoughts, knowing she really doesn’t want to hear them, not as she’s trying to come to terms with things.
But as my mind moves across everything she tells me, it makes sense to me.
There’s a good chance it was some tall tale her mother told her as a kid, like the boogeyman, not expecting her to take it seriously.
But Rosie, of true love and romance, who kept getting her heart broken and not finding the love she so desperately wanted, would have started to piece together connections.
But maybe the relationships were just doomed to fail all along. Maybe it wasn’t that her magic didn’t work on her, just that it worked slowly.
Or we were both far too stubborn to acknowledge it.
“I have to tell my sisters tomorrow,” she says as I unlock the door and hold it open for her.
“Probably,” I agree, then lead her into the store, her hand still in mind.
I’m afraid to let go, like if I do this moment will be over and it will all have been some chaotic dream.
When I wake up, the curse will have been broken and Rosie will have forgotten me, moving on to some other soulmate she’s been patiently waiting for.
Once the door closes behind her, I can’t hold out any longer—I reach out and pull her into my arms, taking in the uniquely lavender sugar scent of her and letting it move through me. “Do you forgive me?” I ask gently instead of answering her request.
“What?”
“Do you forgive me? I lied to you, I tried to mess with your recipe. Whether the curse really existed or not, you’re within your rights to be angry with me. You deserved a conversation with me about what I was thinking instead of my just acting on it.”
“Jack,” she whispers.
“I know I fucked up. I know that. I don’t have a good excuse for as to why other than I was scared to hell and—”
“It was the kiss bond, honey,” she whispers but I shake my head. I need her to know where I stand on this, too, so I correct her.
“No,” I say, shaking my head again before pressing my lips to her forehead, unable to resist that small contact.
Needing it, even. “No, Rosie. No matter what happens, my actions are always my own. Your magic, whatever bond… that won’t be an excuse.
I’m an adult who can make decisions. You told me yourself magic can’t make someone do something they wouldn’t normally do.
It just makes them feel comfortable or willing.
I made the decision to swap those flowers because I let my fear win, not because your magic was ruling me.
And if we’re going to make it far, which, I’m telling you right now, we are, come hell or high water, we need to come to that understanding now.
My actions are my own. I will never blame something I do on your magic.
” Silence fills the shop, and my heart pounds, suddenly nervous for how she’ll react.
It’s not that I don’t love her magic. It’s not that it’s not heady stuff, intoxicating and beautiful.
It’s that I never want her to find a single reason not to pin my own actions on me. That’s the recipe for a failed relationship and not what I’m aiming for.
Finally, she breaks that silence, her lips tipping into an awestruck smile. “God, you’re perfect for me, aren’t you?” she whispers.
“Your magic seems to think so,” I whisper, and she smiles. “But I’m more worried about what you think. Do you think you can forgive me? Trust me again? I’ll do whatever it takes to prove it to you.”
“Anything?”
My heart beats faster, and the smile she gives me moves through me with heat.
“Anything,” I whisper. I can’t help it: a smile of my own stretches wide across my face. I move then, stepping and moving her until her back is against a familiar bookshelf where this all began. “I could get on my knees. Beg for your forgiveness.”
Her lips part, a light breath leaving them.
“I think that would be a good start,” she says, tongue coming out to lick her lips before her eyes go soft, her hand moving to cup my cheek again. “But can you kiss me first?”
I let out a laugh, then drop my lips to hers, feeling like I’m coming home as I kiss her, her lips softly moving along mine, the greeting I needed, the confirmation that even though we have a lot to figure out before us, we’ll be just fine.
We kiss like that for long, long minutes, each one getting a bit more heated, a bit more needy, before I start kissing down her neck, her fingers twining in my hair.
And then I get to my knees before the bookshelf she once knocked down while breaking into my place and show Rosie just how sorry I am.