“Who?”
I gesture vaguely, because it feels like everyone in the entire universe is counting on me to be something I might not becapable of becoming. “The town. The shop. The manor. All these people who are looking at me like I’m their salvation. You three.”
Maceo fixes me with a look, something in his expression intensifying. “Don’t put us in one big pile with everyone else.”
I blink, surprised by the firmness in his voice. “What?”
He reaches across the table then, moving slowly enough that I can see it coming, and he takes my hand like it’s a decision he made without hesitation. The contact sends a little shock through my system, no magic involved, just the pure physical reality of skin on skin.
“You don’t owe me perfection,” he says quietly, his voice carrying a weight that suggests this is important, something he needs me to understand. “You don’t owe Lucien perfection. You don’t owe Ezra perfection. What you owe yourself is patience.”
My throat tightens around a laugh that isn’t remotely amused. “Patience is not exactly my love language.”
Maceo’s thumb strokes once along my knuckles, the gesture absent but intimate, like his hand knows mine well enough to offer comfort without conscious thought. “I know.”
The heat of his touch sinks into me, spreading up my arm and settling somewhere in my chest, and something inside me responds.
It’s subtle at first, barely there, like the faintest stirring of embers that have been buried under ash. Then it grows, just a little, just enough to make itself known, a gentle pulse of warmth that seems to originate somewhere near my heart and radiate outward.
At first, I think I’m imagining it, because hope has been playing cruel tricks on me for two weeks straight, making me think I feel magic when it’s just wishful thinking. Then the overhead lights flicker once, just a brief stutter, fast enough that if you blinked at the wrong moment you might miss it entirely.
Except the whole diner notices. There’s a ripple of sound as conversations pause, people look up from their meals with the kind of mild alarm at the small disruption of their routines. Someone in the corner booth goes, “Did the lights just—?” and another voice answers, “Old wiring, I swear to God, poor Beatrice doesn’t need an electrical fire on top of everything else,” and someone else mutters something about the fuse box being older than half the people in town.
Bea’s voice cuts through the murmur from behind the counter, bright and reassuring. “Everybody relax! If the lights go out completely, I’ve got a generator and a lifetime’s worth of accumulated trauma to power us through. We’ll be fine.”
A few people laugh at her attempt to diffuse the tension, the nervous kind of laughter that comes from being offered permission to not worry about something. The lights flicker once, then hold, returning to their normal fluorescent hum.
I suck in a sharp breath, my hand still clasped in Maceo’s, and my skin feels. . . different. Not warm from his touch alone, there’s warmth from the inside out, like something that’s been dormant has just stirred to life.
Pressing my free hand to my chest, I realize the warmth isn’t external but internal, a slow persistent pulse right under my sternum, faint but undeniable, as if something inside me has just knocked gently on a door.
I stare down at our joined hands, my heart beating faster. “Maceo. . .”
He looks at me, and his smile is slow and certain, like he’s been waiting for me to notice something that’s been obvious to him all along.
“You felt that,” he says, and it’s not a question.
“I—” I swallow hard, my voice coming out barely above a whisper. “Yeah. I felt something.”
The pulse is already fading, slipping away before I can grab hold of it and examine it and demand it stay put long enough for me to understand what it means. The frustration flares in me instinctively at the loss, because of course it disappears the second I actually notice it, the same way everything magical in my life seems to work.
“Did you feel it too? Me, I mean?” I ask, because someone needs to bear witness to this moment for when I inevitably start doubting it happened at all.
Maceo squeezes my hand once, the pressure grounding and reassuring, and the look he gives me is simple and direct. The expression on his face says everything I need to know: yes, he felt it too.
There’s no dramatic, fated-mates revelation, no cosmic lightning bolt of recognition. Thank goodness. Just a quiet, unwavering acknowledgment that passes between us like a shared secret.See? I told you so.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. The tension in my chest loosens in a way that has nothing to do with meditation or breathing exercises and everything to do with proof. Concrete, witnessed proof that I’m not broken, that something is still alive inside me even if it’s buried deeper than I expected.
Of course, Bea appears with our plates at the exact wrong moment for me to keep staring at Maceo like he just handed me the moon and stars wrapped in a neat little package. She sets the food down with a bright, professional smile, then glances up at the lights as if daring them to flicker again and cause more disruption to her carefully managed lunch rush.
“Here we go,” she says, sliding my grilled cheese and curly fries in front of me. “One burger for the Wolf who insists on eating like he’s auditioning for a nature documentary.”
Maceo grins, completely unashamed. “Love you too, Bea.”
Bea points her pen at me with mock seriousness. “I meant what I said earlier, I’m here if you need me. Oh, by the way. Whenever you’re ready to officially open that curiosity shop, I’m planning to show up like the world’s most supportive nosy auntie. I’ve been dying to see what’s actually inside there.”
I smile, and it feels easier than it did this morning, like some internal knot has loosened just enough to let joy back in. “I’m planning to do a grand reopening.”
