He squinted, pretending to be injured. “Maybe a little. But it’s okay. I know something that’ll heal them. Come on, let me show you my favorite part of the house.”
Ash steered her through the rest of the house, toward the living room. Igor bounded ahead.
Here, the roof had collapsed long ago, and a gaping hole opened over the center of Skeleton Shack like an interior courtyard. Not expecting this, Cassidy walked straight into the vines of ivy dangling from the opening in the roof.
“Help! I’m being eaten by foliage!” she said.
Ash laughed as he untangled her.
When she could see without leaves in her eyes, Cassidy gasped.
The space was like a whimsical autumn scene out of a Miyazaki film. Sunlight dappled in through the missing roof, and green moss grew artfully over the wooden frames of old living room furniture, making them look like garden benches.When Ash was eleven, he’d brought in a dozen small Japanese maples in ceramic pots and lined them up along the edges of the courtyard; now they were tall and reedy in their adolescence, their long, elegant branches laden with feathery crimson leaves. A large puddle from the recent rainstorm formed a pond in the corner, and red-capped mushrooms clustered around the shore like a miniature candy-colored forest.
“Oh, Ash,” Cassidy whispered, awestruck.
The world around him vibrated as if a tuning fork had been pinged, and everything suddenly hit the right key. Hearing her say his name like that, in this place he’d made, was overwhelming and sublime all at once.
“Look!” Cassidy said. “I think there’s a bird’s nest inside that maple tree.” In delight, she wandered deeper into the room.
She didn’t notice the iron cauldron Onny had left in the middle of the courtyard, obscured by some ferns that had taken root in the thick dirt overlaying the former carpet. The cauldron was directly in Cassidy’s path.
“Watch out,” Ash said, lunging after her.
But Cassidy tripped and careened toward the sharp corner of what had formerly been a coffee table.
Ash dove and shoved her out of the way. The mask flew out of her hand. Cassidy ended up on her back on a patch of moss.
And Ash was on top of her.
His gaze met hers. Their breaths ran ragged in time with each other’s.
She looked at his lips and seemed to lean in. Did she want…?
Her mouth was so close. Three inches of bravery, that’s all it would take to kiss her.
Now or never.
He was just about to do it, to close that impossible distance between them…
Then Igor reappeared, stuck his nose right in between Ash’s and Cassidy’s, and started licking her.
She laughed and turned her face away.
Dammit, Igor!Ash thought.That was supposed to bemykiss, not yours.
But the moment was broken. Cassidy shifted beneath Ash. Mortified that he had her pinned, Ash scrambled off and helped pull her up so they were both sitting.
She let out a small laugh—was there a nervous tremble in it?—and said, “I guess the challenge is over.”
“Huh?” Ash wasn’t following. His heart still pounded in his ears from being so close to her.
“The bird’s nest. I found a third beautiful thing.”
“Oh. Um, right.”
“So I guess you owe me a fence now,” she said.
Ash wrung his hands. He’d not only squandered the opportunity to kiss her, but also lost the rest of the afternoon with her. He jammed his hands into his hoodie pocket to hide his fidgeting.
