“Right in the center. I’ll come back and replace the candles and rotate him every day.”
“I’ll come with you if I’m home.” Rhys sets Jack down carefully, next to a wobbly shrub.
“I’d really like that.” I exhale, not believing how close we’re getting out of nowhere.
“One more step.” Rhys hands me the bag I brought with the candle and the putty for the base to keep it steady.
“Here we go. Moment of truth.” I lift the pumpkin lid, set up the putty inside, and press the candle into it. With the click of a lighter, I light the wick, and the glow flickers, warm and cozy. The carved face lights up instantly. Jack finally looks happy, almost smug.
‘This works,’Jack’s tiny voice says.
Rhys leans in, something flashing in his eyes. His breath brushes my cheek. “Fal?”
His eyes are darker and fixed on my mouth again. For one impossible heartbeat, the whole world holds still. Even Jack stops talking.
Then Rhys clears his throat, stepping back fast, jaw tight. His voice comes out low. “It’s getting late. Let’s get you home.”
And somehow that feels like the most dangerous, wonderful thing of all.
Chapter 11
Fallon
Bundled against the cold, I finish my morning walk back from the bake shop that makes my favorite muffins and cupcakes. My footsteps are purposeful, dreaming of getting home quickly to eat my tasty lemon and poppy seed muffin, but something makes me stop on the cracked sidewalk yards from the turn to my block.
A cardboard sign is taped to the inside glass door of a shop, written in marker:
Closed. Owner Hospitalized.
The storefront sign overhead says it’s a cannabis shop. The owner is the guy who tried to destroy my garden. My tormentor is hospitalized.
For a second, I can almost hear the way he talked to me. Rude and menacing. Like my tears were a game to win.
“Rhys put that guy in the hospital,” I murmur under my breath, feeling his shadow behind me even when he’s not here. “For me.”
Whoa…
The thought of this guy suffering and possibly on a breathing tube makes a bubble of laughter break from my throat.
“Good,” I say, grinning. “I’m glad he’s in the hospital.”
A purple-haired woman vaping nearby turns to me, her over-tweezed eyebrows raised. “Weirdo. Bill didn’t deserve a skull fracture.”
My smile falters, and I’m about to tell her in detail how vaping will destroy the tissues in her mouth, but her words click. “Bill. His name is Bill?”
“Yeah,” scrapes from her ugly mouth.
“Skull fracture, huh? Is he going to die?”
“I hope not.” She puffs and stalks off.
My eyes follow her until I notice across the street that a pop-up Christmas shop is decked out in gold lights and velvet bows.
“No. No.” I check my phone and choke.
NOVEMBER 21.
The date is a punch to my stomach. My chest locks. My vision tunnels.
