Her rosebud mouth falls open. “That’s… that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
I grunt. My words weren’t much. She deserves sweeter.
Skye gives me one of her heart-stopping smiles, and I squeeze her fingers…
The window beside us lights up with a million miniature explosions.
I throw up a hand, blinking as a series of floating whitespots obscure my gaze. My tail lashes in irritation. “What was that?”
“Camera flashes.” Her phone chimes, and she picks it up, her finger swiping at the screen repeatedly. She turns pinker the longer she reads, then shares a look with the witches at the nearby tables.
“What is it?”
“Nothing!” she chirps, her voice too high.
A growl rumbles from me. She’s lying.
Mrs. Greely walks past, her cane thumping against the wood floor. She eyes me and gives one last, “Humph,” before leaving the restaurant.
The crowd outside disperses as well.
Skye sags backward in her seat. “We did it.”
“Operation ‘Everything’s Normal’ is a success,” Autumn says, grinning from the next table over.
“What about the… you know?” Hannah waggles her phone.
“It’s nothing,” Skye hurries to say. “Just people reacting to Valentine’s.”
“How can they not?” Kayla stands, tapping at one of the hanging hearts dangling in front of her face. “When it’s being shoved down our throats? These things areeverywhere.”
“I kind of like them,” a short witch with tan skin and honey-brown hair says.
A tall witch with brown skin and dark curls wrapped in bright turquoise silk nods. “Me too.”
A wild pulse of magic blasts through the room, and several of the hearts break from their strings and startflapping around like a bunch of bright-red butterflies.
The pixies pour out of the kitchen, joining in on the fun, darting between the flying hearts as if they’re a moving obstacle course.
The witches all leap to their feet, their eyes tracking the heart-butterflies as they zip back and forth overhead.
“Who did that?” Skye asks. “Kayla, Violetta, Jasmine, it had to be one of you.”
The trio shrugs, sharing confused looks among themselves.
In the chaos, I pick up Skye’s phone, which is still open to the group chat. I scroll upward past text after text to find a photo of the two of us. We’re framed by the window. I’m leaning forward, my arm stretched across the table to hold her hand. She’s smiling at me, her entire being radiating joy.
She looks beautiful, and I look like an ancient grumpy beast, tamed by her youth and sweetness and light.
Every single one of the texts below it declares we’re in love.
This is what made Skye so uncomfortable. This is what she didn’t want me to see. She smiled at me, yes. But she was simply being her usual kind self, and people are misinterpreting it. The little witch doesn’t want me to mistakenly think she cares for me.
The women run past, trying to catch the hearts, the pixies surrounding them with squealing shrieks of joy. It’s a veritable zoo in here, with Skye right in the middle of it all. This is what life with her in it is like. My entire world’s been turned upside down ever since she cast her spell.
I should be happy she hid the texts from me, that shedoesn’t love me. I should look forward to the day this farce finishes so that I can go back to the peace and quiet of having my castle to myself.
So why is there this hollow ache in my chest at the thought?
