“You two were soulmates, I think.”
“Wow, insult me more, Farrow.”
“I don’t mean now!” She tosses her hands in the air. “I don’t know, everyone has this halo around them, and that first year, yours and Maddie’s matched before hers flickered out.”
“And what happened to mine?” I shield my eyes as the afternoon sun bears down on us. Beads of sweat form on my temple, and I regret the ink on my forearm that’s an ode to my former life, more so than usual. I should have moved to Alaska after everything. It’d be so much easier to keep it covered.
“It’s receded a bit. I mean, it’s still there, but it’s like it’s dormant. I don’t know. Sometimes I see it flare when she’s around, but not peacefully. It’s like it’s screaming in pain.”
“That would explain the terrible stomachache she always elicits.”
“It would, actually,” she says, pinching her lips between her index finger and thumb. “But today, it was like hers was malfunctioning, and there was a moment where you two were in sync again. You didn’t feel it?”
My mind flashes back to the stacks and the sudden relentless tug to crash my lips onto Madeline’s and make her forget her name, even though I know better. Even though, as she said, she’s very taken.
I didn’t care.
For a second, all I could think about was how—I didn’t even want her to be mine. No, I skipped that step, and she just was.
Mine.
My hand to take care of. My person to kiss.
“Nah.” I shake my head. I need to get a grip. Jenny’s bizarre theories are adorable and harmless as long as I don’t buy into them, especially this one. “You had to be seeing stuff again.”
Jenny places her hands on her hips, raising a challenging brow at me. “Okay, now I know you felt something.”
“No way. I was saving your ass. That’s all.” I pick my lean up off the storefront and nudge her. “But seriously, Jenny. Whatever is going on with you and Connor, please quit it. I’d rather not be in close quarters with the Wicked Bitch of the West again.”
And notice me. Please.
Her cheeks flush, and she mutters something under her breath.
“I’m sorry. What was that?”
“But he’s my person. We match.” She scuffs her shoe along the concrete pavement.
My heart sinks. Connor’s everything I used to be, so to hear Jenny say shit like that, well, it fucking hurts. Because Jenny Farrow deserves the type of guy who would worship the ground she walks on.
Like me. Now.
The man who’s been dying to get out of the friend zone for years because I know everything that makes Jenny amazing.
Like her kindness and her drive to help others.
And how she can’t eat a piece of pizza without covering her face in the sauce. Every. Damn. Time.
Or how she’s the grump to my sunshine before coffee, but the minute that caffeine drip hits, she becomes the most radiant star in the solar system.
“No offense, Jenny, because I appreciate how you love all this fantasy stuff, but maybe it’s time to bury that aura thing. People like Madeline and Connor were made for each other, not us.” I open the front door of the toy store, Bailey’s Toy Chest, trying to hide my frown. Respectfully, the friend zone sucks ass sometimes. “Why don’t we get the toys?”
Inside, we’re accosted by upbeat Christmas music, bits of wrapping paper spewed across the store, an Elf on the Shelf creepily watching us, and way too many grumpy adults trying to find something the store doesn’t have.
I glance around, attempting to locate the store owner, Mr. Bailey, in the chaos. His eyes connect with mine, hovering by a display of stuffed animals, and he holds up his finger as if to say, “one minute.”
Suddenly, a dog hand puppet pops into my line of vision. “Believe in the aura, Seth. The aura is real,” it says in a mangled British accent. “Madeline Finch was your soulmate.”
“I thought we were dropping this,” I say, nuzzling the dog away from my face. “And your accent is terrible, by the way.”
