“I own an antique shop where the radio has opinions and the music box plays when it’s feeling nostalgic.” He set down his cup. “Magic isn’t the strangest thing I’ve encountered.”
“The radio hasopinions?”
“Strong ones. Mostly about jazz.”
On cue, the radio in the main room crackled to life with a burst of what sounded like Duke Ellington.
“See?” Marcus said.
I stared at him. Then at the doorway to the main room. Then back at him.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So. Magic. My best friend accidentally cursed my phone with some kind of romantic chaos energy, and now every man I’ve ever had any connection to—dated, almost dated, made eye contact with, apparently just existed in the same decade as—is showing up. Physically. In person. From whatever time period we supposedly had ‘potential.’”
“That explains the leisure suit.”
“Greg—I wasn’t evenbornyet. And there’s my prom date who is literally stuck in the 90s. And the greaser who keeps asking about sock hops. And Brad.”
“Who’s Brad?”
“Neon crop top. Short shorts. Really committed to his Rubik’s cube.” I took a sip of tea. “He’s from 1985, I think.”
Marcus processed this. “So the magic isn’t just pulling from your actual past.”
“Apparently it’s pulling from every possible romantic timeline in the multiverse. Lucky me.”
“And when you came in here…?”
“It stopped.” I held up my phone. Still silent, but now the numbers had stopped climbing too. Frozen at 869. “The buzzing stopped when I came through the door, but look—it’s not even adding new matches anymore. For the first time in sixteen hours, it just… stopped.”
He frowned at the phone, then at me, then at the phone again.
“That’s unusual.”
“That’s what I said.”
“I mean—” He stood, moved toward the doorway to the main room. The moment he crossed the threshold, my phone buzzed. Once. Twice. He stepped back into the room. Silence.
We both stared at each other.
“It’s you,” I said. “Whatever’s happening—you’re doing something.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Then something about you is doing something.” I stood up, moved toward the door. The buzzing started—aggressive, insistent, climbing. I stepped back. It stopped. “See? When I’m near you, it stops. When I move away…”
“That’s not possible.”
“None of this is possible, and yet here we are.” I gestured at my phone, at the self-playing music box, at the world in general. “Possible left the building yesterday.”
We stood there, a few feet apart, the phone buzzing angrily every time I shifted away from him. He looked at me. I looked at him. The moment stretched.
Then he sighed—a deep, resigned exhale that seemed to come from somewhere around his shoes.
“What time do you need to leave?”
“What?”
“If you need quiet.” He gestured vaguely at the cluttered shop. “I open at ten. Usually. When I remember to flip the sign. But if someone needed… quiet. I wouldn’t turn them away.”
