I grinned. ‘I do my best.’ After a moment, I blurted, ‘I’m sorry about Meryl, by the way.’
A touch of surprise registered in Noah’s eyes, but he kept his cool. ‘It was a long time coming. She was ready to take the next step, and I wasn’t.’
‘You weren’t?’ It was my turn to be surprised. Noah absolutely struck me as a next-step kind of guy.
‘I was,’ he said, his tone measured. ‘Just not with her.’
With who, then?I wondered. But I didn’t voice it aloud, just in case the answer wasn’t what I hoped it might be. Or worse,was, and raised further questions I wasn’t equipped to answer.
We took a slightly different way back, choosing our route based on the gardens that drew our interest or the cute cats warming their bellies out in the sun. It was a much quieter, more languid journey than we’d had with Ernie chatting beside us, and it felt strangely intimate, even with the windows of the different houses thrown open and the bustling cove sparkling beneath us. Tiny crackles of magic spilled out from doorways, and the enormous pompom-growths of dahlias and hydrangeas glimmered with spells. Rosie wasn’t the only one with a magical green thumb around here.
I gasped as a tiny red-throated hummingbird buzzed in front of me before racing off to drink from a feeder.
‘My favourites,’ I whispered, as it hovered at the feeder, dipping its long beak into the nectar.
‘I know,’ said Noah quietly. He touched where he’d painted the hummingbird during the Summerween Festival, so gently that I wasn’t sure if his fingertips had actually met my skin. Unthinkingly, I reached up to curl my fingers around his wrist, trying to draw him even closer.
Josephine’s ring grew warm, and a magic-tinged breeze twirled around us. It felt as though the whole world had disappeared, and it was just the two of us standing here, eyes locked on one another, our lips inches away.
It would be so easy to kiss him. It was so tempting to kiss him.
He leaned in to me, his hair falling forward as he apparently contemplated the same thing. He was so close that I could see the tiny scar on his lip from the time we’d collided chasing a frisbee on the beach. So close that I could see that his breathing was just slightly faster, more shallow than usual.
I angled my chin up, willing him to make the first move. So that I wouldn’t be the one responsible for shifting a friendship over into the category of something more.
But then he stepped back.
‘We should get going before …’ he began, then trailed off.
‘Before the ice cream melts,’ I finished. Even though, if Soraya’s spell was working as it should, no amount of time out in the sun would affect it.
‘Right,’ he said.
I was disappointed, but relieved. I knew I had to make my choice, but the moment I did, I’d ruin my friendship with the other brother.
And I wasn’t ready to do that just yet.
Chapter 19
LOVING, MEMORY
The evening rolled in languidly, as the best Summerween evenings did. We’d settled into the idea of being on vacation now, and the high-effort outfits and dinners had given way to comfy attire and cobbled-together smorgasbords. Although, thankfully, between Mom’s obsession with cheese and the leftover dips and flatbreads, we were still eating like royalty. Royalty in stretchy pants.
That night, Mom and Tiff were emailing side by side in the sunroom they’d claimed as their joint offices. Lara had texted me to say she hoped to be by in a few hours, but that there was a gin tasting at the B&B, and it was bad luck to turn down a gin tasting. Probably.
The boys, after a prickly moment where Finn had snapped at Noah over the ice cream we’d brought back from The Scoop, had gone their separate ways: Noah to his studio, and Finn to Charlie’s music room, where he’d pretty much camped out since last night.
We’d all reconvene later – with the possible exception of Lara, who was deep into a flight of gin by now – but at present it was just Rosie and me, which was a dynamic I didn’t mind at all.
Rosie had been arranging dried floral bouquets into animals as part of her entry into the silent auction the town put on this time of year. The auction was part of the pumpkin-carvingcompetition festivities, and helped support the local shelter and library. Rosie, as always, was putting her all into it. She was surrounded by floral lions and giraffes, and the two of us had petals in our hair and leafy fragments stuck to our shirts.
‘The bidders are going to go wild for this,’ she said cheerfully. ‘When has Whisperwind Cove ever seen a zoo made from dried roses?’
I waved a dried red rose. ‘I wasn’t sure how you were going to beat the nesting dolls from last year, but you’ve found a way.’
‘If I can only get my magic to behave,’ said Rosie, examining her hands as though they had something to do with it. ‘It’s been strange this past week – all these spell reversals and weird hiccups. I feel like I’m back in my teenage years trying to figure out the difference between a charm and a hex.’
‘Those days weren’t so long ago for me.’ I chuckled as I chased a chunk of apple around my glass of sangria. The two of us had made a big batch earlier, and we were doing our part in working through it.
