18. Chapter 18 #3
“She’s three. Nana adopted her when she was already sick. It was kind of a given that Pixie would outlive her, so she’s always been a little bit mine. Sometimes I think she knew I would need her.”
The vulnerability I’ve let slip has his eyes back on me, and my cheeks warm again.
“Um, do you want a beer? I actually have some of yours.”
A grin explodes across his face. “No. Thank you. You go ahead, though. Please. Make my fantasies come true.”
I smile at his joke, but it’s wobbly. I don’t know what to do with flirty Jamie after how we left things. After not speaking to him for three days.
A little liquid courage will be a start.
I pull out his fall ale and pop the cap, taking a big gulp.
There’s a tension here, an awkwardness that’s all me, and unless I want to explain to him that I thought we were destined for each other, and now, because of his choice in body ink, I’m not so sure, I need to start acting normal.
If there is a normal in a situation like this.
“Listen, Jamie—”
“Can we sit down?” He sets Pix on the floor and looks toward my couch.
“Yeah, of course.” He follows me into the living room, where I notice too late the burning candle on the coffee table that I swear wasn’t an intentional ode to this thing between us.
He seems to notice this too, and he gives me a shy, well, this is awkward smile before taking the seat beside me.
“I want to say something.”
“Okay.” Inside my chest, my heart can’t decide what to do, sink like a stone at his serious expression, or do more of that berserk thing from the fire escape. I really wish I could tell the future right now. My God, the irony .
“This is really important to me,” he says, then clears his throat. “This deal we made, asking you to try to see some cosmic tip. I wouldn’t have asked you if it wasn’t.”
“I know.”
“But I realized something the other night on the beach. Before that really, if I would have let myself admit it. I realized that if it were a choice between never getting another glimpse of the future, or getting one and having that be the end of this, of my excuse to see you all the time. Well, I wouldn’t…
I wouldn’t want that.” He pulls in a shaky breath.
“I missed you so much the last few days, Noe. More than I—”
“More than makes sense,” I say, finishing his confession with my own.
“Yeah.”
“Me too.” My heart firmly chooses the berserk thing, pounding against my breastbone.
But I know you can’t always trust your heart with these things.
Missing. Wanting. These are things that get you in trouble.
Missing him doesn’t change the fact that holes in this magic make the two of us as end game so much less likely.
He doesn’t know that part. He doesn’t know most of it, the most important parts.
And he’s here anyway.
Everything that’s happened so far flips through my brain like a photo album.
I saw us in bed together somewhere I can’t name, with his body different than it is now by a fraction.
I saw us on the porch just on the other side of this wall, touching in a way I’m sure I’ve never touched anyone else.
Absorbing his kiss like it was my birthright.
I didn’t see us three stories up on a fire escape, me following him like I was possessed by the spirit of someone braver than me. I didn’t see us running into the ocean in October in my underwear, touching him with that same bravery. And then freaking out.
How does this thing, whatever it is, decide which movie to play in my brain? And how does this fit? Him sitting here now, confessing that I’m not imagining what’s brewing between us, even if what I saw was flawed.
I wish, not for the first time, that I’d asked Nana about this when I had the chance instead of pretending that night on the roof never happened.
Looking back, she must have been some kind of professional.
She seemed to be able to control it, wield it.
We’d ask silly questions, and she’d give us silly answers that maybe weren’t that silly after all.
But it didn’t come out of nowhere and shock the hell out of her.
Or maybe she just didn’t tell me that part.
It’s entirely possible she saw more than what she shared with two pre-teen girls.
By the time I was old enough that she might have trusted me with the details, we’d stopped asking.
I didn’t believe in it. Which leaves me shit out of luck now when I need to know more.
“You really believe all of this, don’t you? Like with your whole heart.”
He doesn’t hesitate. “I do.”
My skin bursts with goosebumps at that firm conviction, and with it something reckless and new stirs inside of me.
Kate’s right. I am disappointed. I wanted this thing to be my safety net like Colin said.
I wanted to feel safe to reach for something without the constant fear that I’d miss it and fall on my face.
And I’m tired of this spin in my head, trying to decipher signs and tiny glimpses.
I’m tired of feeling more lost than found when I think of how Jamie and I got here.
If the universe wants to tell me something, it needs to spit it out.
And maybe it will if I ask.
I don’t think everyone who looks into a candle and asks a question will get an answer, but I do know, one time I did.
“We should try it again,” I say. “The candle.”
Confusion passes over his face, then his eyes go wide. “Noel, no. That’s not why I said—”
“I know it’s not.” So far these visions have seemed to come at random times, but I don’t know if I can make it happen, if I can ask my own questions the way I did with Nana. Being friends and seeing what happens hasn’t been working, so now all I have left is to experiment for both of us.
No matter what’s up ahead , Kate said. You’re going to have to move to find it.
Jamie’s still looking at me carefully. “I want to,” I tell him. “Really.”
He shifts so we’re knee to knee. His arm is wrapped around his ribcage, and he looks nervous. It takes me a moment to realize I’m not. I feel safe here, just the two of us, figuring it out together.
“Do you need the cup of water?” he asks.
“Um, I don’t think so,” I say, figuring it out as I go. “The candle actually didn’t seem to play a part the last few times. Let’s just… here.” Taking a deep breath through my nose, I square his body to mine, sliding my palms to the gentle curve of his pectoral muscles beneath his sweatshirt.
Jamie stiffens at my touch, and I try to ignore it, focus my attention on the hollow of his throat. There’s a small freckle there that looks like it jumped the constellation that I know is just beneath his collar bones. I feel unsteady and woozy alright, but it’s not the least bit supernatural.
“This is so weird,” he breathes. It’s half a laugh but his face isn’t smiling.
“Totally weird.”
With that, I let my eyes close and try to pick up some vibration from the universe, some message in the ether, but I realize quickly I have no idea what I’m looking for.
If I can make it happen, will it be stronger than when it surprises me?
Will it be a picture again? Or will I feel some sort of burst of emotion the way I felt it when I saw Becca and some other man breaking Jamie’s heart?
Am I going to pass out? Throw up? Cry? Anxiety spreads like cotton in my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
What if I can’t do it ? What if I can? What if he doesn’t like what I see ?
“Hey.” Jamie must sense my spiral because I feel his fingers cup my cheek, and it’s so tender. So sweet. “No pressure,” he whispers.
“No pressure.” Blowing a slow breath toward the ceiling, I force my mind to settle on the feel of his skin on mine, the steady beat of his heart beneath my palm.
The heat of his body. I imagine a string tied around us, cinching tighter.
I let myself imagine it, another glimpse of the future coming to me. I imagine it working but…
Nothing.
My frustration is a wild horse, snorting and pawing at the dirt. There has to be some trick to this I haven’t figured out yet. Something I’m missing.
“It’s okay,” he says, but suddenly it’s not.
“Hold on.” I study him with my lip between my teeth. He’s still bundled up in these layers, damp from the rain. The opposite of his near nakedness on the beach. Maybe I need more contact. “Here,” I say, reaching for the zip on his hoodie, dragging it the rest of the way down. “Take this off.”
He shrugs it off his shoulders, revealing a threadbare T-shirt. It’s heather red, and I notice with affection that it looks truly gorgeous against his fair skin, followed by the odd feeling that I’ve had that thought before.
My skin tingles with awareness that my mind races to place, but then he turns to lay the hoodie on the arm of my couch, his muscles flexing beneath the cotton tee, and it’s like someone has reached inside my skull and flicked my brain. His T-shirt .
I press my fingers to the logo on his chest. Crackled white writing that reads: Peaks Island Summerfest . “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Where did you get this shirt?” I ask, taking a handful in my fist.
He looks down at it and smirks. “I’ll give you one guess.”
I’ve seen Jamie almost daily since I’ve been here, and I’ve only seen this shirt once. In the vision I had at Fortune.
Gripping his shoulders, I gently turn him away from me.
The moment seems to slow, the outside edges curling in like I’m entering a tunnel.
I drag my thumb along the shoulder seam to where the stitching has given way, leaving a small hole.
I knew it would be there, and I clap my hand over my mouth, trying to control my breathing.
“Noe, what’s wrong?”