Beth clung to Jo, grief and hope tangled together, knowing one terrifying yet wonderful thing for certain.
Whatever happened next, she wouldn’t face it alone.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Kieran had created a clothing app from nothing. Built it from the ground up, often doubting himself, but stubborn enough to keep going. He trusted logic. Cause and effect. Coding, calculations and cold, hard facts. He knew the difference between a minor glitch and a system failure.
So a genie in a pinball machine should have been easy to dismiss, right? Because nothing about Gigi complied with logic. Every ounce of Kieran’s being told him that genies didn’t exist.
And yet…
He sat at the small table in his kitchen, Beth’s words drifting through his head like snow he couldn’t brush away. She hadn’t been dramatic, hadn’t tried to persuade him. Just told him plainly, as if she were discussing the weather.
He lives in the pinball machine. His name is Gigi. He granted me a wish. A few wishes. Sort of. It’s complicated. And he might have … occasionally … interfered in your head.
She’d looked relieved when she said it. Not unhinged or fanciful, just relieved to have shared her fantastical story. And she’d chosen to share it with him.
That was the part he couldn’t shake.
He turned his mug between his hands, watching the tea ripple. If Beth had exaggerated like Lisa used to, he’d have clocked it instantly. But Beth was careful. Measured. Sometimes painfully honest.
And she was frightened. Not of the genie, exactly, but of what came after. Of what the wishes would cost. Of endings.
‘Right,’ he muttered. ‘Magic’s real.’
Prom sat on the windowsill, licking a paw, entirely unconcerned.
The signs lined up, now that he let himself see them. The hesitations, as if Beth were listening to someone else. Her odd reaction to the basement. The strangeness at the pub quiz and the open mic night. Things he’d dismissed because they didn’t fit.
What unsettled him most wasn’t the genie. It was the sense that Beth was standing at the edge of something, and he didn’t know whether he was meant to follow or simply watch.
He cared about her. That was no longer up for debate.
Then his mind returned, unbidden, to the other truth she’d shared with him: the miscarriages, and the heartache that had followed. What that could mean to someone else. Someone like him.
Only now did he understand what she might fear people seeing. Damage, limitation, terms and conditions.
The thought tightened his chest.
Children had always been theoretical to him: a future he hadn’t interrogated too closely. Beth wasn’t theoretical: Beth was here. Real. The idea that her losses might make her less to him felt not just wrong, but ridiculous.
That part of her story wasn’t something to weigh or negotiate. It simply was. And it changed nothing about how he felt.
What mattered was Beth, sitting at his table. Trusting him with the truth. But this wasn’t something he could control.
‘What happens next?’ he asked the empty kitchen.
No answer came. But the question refused to settle.
If wishes were real, then endings were, too.
He went upstairs on autopilot, but sleep didn’t come easily. The house creaked and settled. Prom curled against his legs, solid and warm.
Beth filled his thoughts. Her restraint, her careful distance. Not a fear of being hurt, he realised, but fear of hurting him.
The understanding arrived fully formed and undeniable.
He loved her.
