"Don't need to. Yours was obvious to anyone with functioning eyes." She grabbed Sam Rodriguez’s arm. "Pay me."
Cricket materialized from somewhere—she always materialized from somewhere—apron stained three different colors, hair escaping in six directions, a basket of sample vials clinking against her hip.
"The Enchanted Spoon offers a couples' discount now! Tuesday nights, shared dessert, complimentary mood-enhancing tea." She shoved a vial into Hazel's hand. "Relaxation potion. For the nerves. Being the town's main romance is stressful."
"We're not the town's main?—"
"You absolutely are." Cricket was already walking backward, distributing vials to passersby. "Have been for weeks!"
An elderly werewolf Hazel recognized from the Thursday poetry circle paused his morning constitutional to pat Nate on the shoulder.
"Finally! The whole town was waiting for you two to figure it out."
Nate's hand tightened against Hazel's back. Not with discomfort—with the specific tension of a man recalibrating his understanding of privacy in a small supernatural community.
"Did everyone know before we did?"
"Oh, honey." Delilah's smile was equal parts affection and pity. "Everyone knew before you evenmet."
Hazel looked up at Nate. He looked down at her. His mouth twitched. Hers answered.
They started laughing at the same time—helpless, full-bodied laughter that rang off the shop fronts and made the magical streetlamps flicker with delight. Because of course the town knew. Of course they'd been the main entertainment. Of course this place that had taken them both in and given them purpose would claim their love story as a collective achievement.
Nate pulled her closer, right there on Main Street, in front of everyone.
"I can work with an audience."
"Good." She leaned into his side. "Because I don't think we have a choice."
Nate dipped his head and pressed a quick kiss to her mouth. Soft. Unhurried. The kind of kiss that saidI can do this whenever I want nowwith the quiet satisfaction of a man who'd discovered a new fundamental right.
The streetlamp nearest them hummed a full octave higher.
"BEHOLD!"
The voice erupted from the direction of the bakery like cannon fire wrapped in velvet. Fabio stood in the doorway, flour dusting his left cheekbone and both shoulders of what appeared to be a hand-tailored emerald waistcoat, his arms thrown wide enough to embrace the entire street.
"Star-crossed lovers united at LAST!" He strode toward them, each step a choreographed event. "The brooding investigator! The luminous guardian! Their forbidden passion?—"
"It wasn't forbidden," Hazel said.
"—their FORBIDDEN passion igniting against the backdrop of ancient prophecy and sentient literature!" His green eyes blazed with creative fever. "I can see it now. Act One: the reluctant partnership. Act Two: the portal realm of desire. Act Three—" He seized Nate's hand and kissed it. "—the KISS that shook the foundations of magical destiny!"
Nate stared at his own hand like it had betrayed him.
"Hex Appeal: The Musical." Fabio's whisper carried the weight of religious revelation. "Opening night, six weeks from now."
"Absolutely not," Hazel and Nate said together.
Fabio clutched his heart. "Even your refusals harmonize. MAGNIFICENT."
They escapedto Ivy's shop three blocks south, where the air smelled of rosemary and black cohosh and the quiet certainty of someone who'd rather let plants speak than people.
Ivy Cross looked up from a mortar full of crushed lavender. Her green eyes moved from Hazel's face to Nate's hand on Hazel's waist, and the corner of her mouth lifted a precise quarter-inch.
"Took you long enough."
"Doeseveryonehave commentary?"
