“Right! Bye, Madeline.” Jenny says as she skirts by us.
Madeline. Not Maddie or Pookie. Madeline. She’s finally accepted who I am now.
Good.
“Bye, Pixie!” The words fly past my ultra-fine, five-layered filter system and into the world, falling in a shocked hush.
What the hell was that?
Three years. Not once have I slipped up and used my nickname for Jenny.
So why did I do that?
The bell perched over the door rings, signaling the Torture Twin’s departure, and I breathe lighter. I can figure out why the old Maddie keeps crawling her flat-belly way to the surface like a worm avoiding a deluge later.
Slowly, Connor’s gaze travels south of my lips. “You’re so sexy. You know that?” He trails a finger along my collarbone, and the shivers and sparks that followed Seth’s touch are absent.
Flannelisa great conductor of static electricity, though.
That would explain it.
“Hey, for real, Connor. Please go check out.”
“Right, I’m just waiting for the checkout lady. I don’t know where she went.”
“Almost there.” Ellie’s shrill voice punctures my earlobes as she claps her hands in a rush from the backroom. “It takes me a few days, of course. I hope that’s okay. I need to plot. All about those beats, you know; no good comes from pantsing these things; that’s how you get chapters that ramble and only happen in one location. Those kinds of chapters need to end! But you got a taste with him, I’m sure. Do you see, girl? Do you see what you could feel?” she asks, scanning Connor’s stack of graphic novels piled on the counter.
A taste of what? That odd sense of vulnerability that washed over me with Seth?
Thinking about his lips far too much?
Is that what she means?
Seriously, what witchcraft and/or drugs does she have back there?
Connor glances around the store before leaning into me. “Who is she talking to?” he whispers.
Me. And I wouldn’t say I like it.
“No idea. But please, can we go? Now,” I whine.
He nods, grabbing a comically—pun intended and regretted—large bag from Ellie, whose eyes are trained, lifeless, beyond both our shoulders. “That’s it. That’s your wound. Of course, it is,” she says in a trance. The faulty lights flicker and cast her face in harsh shadows. Something tightens its grip around my chest, squeezing it far too tight. “And I know just the lesson!” Ellie raises an emphatic finger to the sky. The lighting stabilizes.
I rub a palm over my heart, attempting to release the gathering tension and wipe away the phantom feeling of Seth’s fingers brushing against my heart line.
“Bye?” Connor tilts his head, starting a backward retreat as I race to the door, busting through to the humid Texas air and freedom.
I am never going to a bookstore again.
Chapter three
Elf
Seth
I.Am.Fucked.
Three years ago, I snuffed out that damn flame that ignited the first moment I saw Madeline standing in the kitchen she shared with Jenny, bleary-eyed, tear-stained cheeks, and still somehow a god-damn vision. It took what? Two seconds of forced proximity, a potent dose of her intoxicating rosewater scent, and boom—re-ignition, combustion, death.
