“Me neither. I’m all out of ice cream and tissues.”
He chuckles, and I feel it pleasantly against my chest.
“Anything else you want to get out? Old grudges? New complaints? Are you actually going to text me now?”
“Just one thing.”
I look up.
He looks down.
I’ve only known this man for a few days, but there’s just something so comfortable about him, so competent and kind. And his lips are just so kissable. They curl up at the corners. He leans in.
And then—
26.
There’s a knockon the door.
We break apart, though not guiltily. Personally, I’m annoyed and disappointed, and I’d like to give the person on the other side of the door a kick in the shins. Hunter doesn’t look too pleased, either, and it’s nice to see that thunder aimed at someone besidesme.
“Hasn’t this place been closed forever?” I ask.
Hunter looks longingly at my lips. “At least two years.”
“Well, you’d think the massive sheets of plywood and largeClosedsign would set the tone.”
He rubs his stubble, which I almost got to feel rasping against my cheek. “Probably not a shopper. Must be one of the Chamber people.”
“Well, I hate them.”
I head for the door and pull back the newspaper plastered over the glass.
To my even greater annoyance, it’s Joyce Blakely, Hunter’s grandmother.
And she has seen me.
She gives me a tight smile—so like her grandson!—and points at the lock.
I have no choice but to open the door or further cement her hatred of me.
“Hi, Joyce,” I say, grateful at least that I don’t look like I’ve just been kissed into oblivion, because I’m pretty sure that’s where things were headed next, at least if I had anything to do with it. “Can I help you?”
“I just wanted to stop by and see how things are going,” Joyce says. She steps inside, politely shoving past me and looking around. “Poor girl. Left with such a mess. Maggie just sort of let things go, didn’t she?”
Time to show Hunter that unsinkable optimism. “Maybe so, but I have faith I can get things back in order.”
She walks around the antiques market, one hand on her purse, as if she’s shopping—for something specific. “Have you explored the other properties much? The video store’s been open forever, but the hardware store’s been closed almost two decades, and this place has been shut up for two years, and the theater’s been out of commission for, oh, at least ten years. And who knows what’s upstairs.”
I do not tell Joyce about the storage room she failed to mention, including the poltergeist with a passion for percussion.
“One property at a time,” I say. “If you’re going to eat an elephant, might as well start with a little nibble and not go for the whole trunk.”
She beams at me like I’ve surprised her. “I swear, when I look at you, it’s like seeing Miranda again. She was a bright girl, which I know because she and Maggie never did get along. I guess if you’re here, your mama made a life somewhere else?”
I don’t know how I feel about Joyce. She has a right to be mad at my grandmother—more so than most. The spell theft occurred at her farm, and her daughter died trying to fix it. And I know it’s easy to transfer that anger to me, even if I don’t deserve it. But as things stand, I like her grandson. And I’m realizing I want her to like me.
“Yes, ma’am, she did. She met my dad at college, and they were very happy together. I have two sisters back in Alabama. My mama hated Maggie, and she made me promise to never come to Arcadia Falls, but…” I look around. This shop, this downtown, this whole town, is magical. “I figured with both my mama and Maggie gone, it would be okay. So I hope I can make it work.”
