“I keep forgetting that.” A blush tinged her cheeks. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I don’t know everyone well and there are more new people moving in. And it wasn’t always like this. I couldn’t always move so freely through town.”
“You mean before the great revelation?”
He nodded. “If you go to the library, ask Sebastian and Aspen to look up the old legends of Harmony Glen pre-great revelation and you’ll see there’s a lot of lore about Sven and I.”
“Oh? Did you get up to hijinks?” she teased.
He grinned devilishly, winking. “A bit.”
“Where did you live when you had to remain hidden?”
“There’s a cave, close to the cemetery, but actually part of the conservation area. We still go there from time to time. Honestly, it’s kind of depressing being there. It was home. I sort of miss it, but also don’t. It’s weird, I know.”
“No doubt. I’m sure it’s a lot better being out in the open.”
“I wish everyone could live so freely,” he said quietly. “No one should have to hide.”
“I agree with that. My family, however, doesn’t, and that’s why I’m here. I had to get away from all that. Bloodlines and ancestral magic…”
“Exploding things randomly,” he teased.
She laughed. “Right.”
They made their way to Cool Beans and he held the door for her. They ordered their coffees and then found a cozy spot to sit in the corner, where it was quiet and they could talk.
“This place is cute,” Mercedes remarked. “There are so many twee places around Harmony Glen.”
“Twee?”
“My grandmother used to say it. It means cute.”
Magnus glanced around at the counter of baked goods, the booths. “I suppose so, I mean it’s a coffee shop.”
She rolled her eyes, but smiled at him. If his heart were still beating, it would be racing, he was sure of it. He liked when she smiled at him.
It was better than glaring.
And whose fault is that?
He hated how he acted like a fool the first time they met.
Mercedes sighed, her shoulders relaxing as she wrapped her hands around the mug of coffee. “Thanks for this break, boss.”
He winced. “You don’t have to call me boss.”
“You literally said in the laundry room that you were the boss after I mentioned Sven was. You made me say it.”
“That was just teasing you. I mean, yeah, I guess I’m one of your bosses because I’m part owner of the dead-and-breakfast, but maybe…it would be nice to be friends.”
Her eyes widened. “Friends?”
“Is that so implausible?”
“Well, considering how you thought I was out to destroy you a while ago, then you said it would be nice to be colleagues, and now you want to be friends? I’m going to get whiplash.”
What he wanted to tell her was he missed their text conversations, the movies they watched simultaneously while texting. He longed for that. “Sorry. It’s just…I don’t meet many people who have similar interests to me.”
