‘It’s challenging,’ countered Noah. ‘The whole point of a jigsaw puzzle is that it requires you to sit and concentrate on a project for an extended period of time.’
‘Like a painting,’ added Rosie, coming over. ‘Ooh, there’s a sky piece.’
She popped it into place, then patted Finn on the shoulder. He looked like he wanted to respond with one of his witty comebacks, but thought better of it. And probably a good thing, too. Poor Rosie had enough on her plate.
‘Another cider?’ offered Noah, seeing that Finn had emptied my glass. He stood to gather them from the fridge, something he always did manually and Finn always did using magic.
‘Cider me up,’ Finn and I said, simultaneously. It was a running joke from years back, and we both dissolved into laughter. Finn giggled so much that he slid under the table, where he remained until Noah passed him his drink.
‘At least he can’t mess up our puzzle from under there.’Noah sipped his cider as he started making a frame from the edge pieces.
‘Couple pieces,’ I added, gathering a few that belonged to the jacket-clad couple at the bottom of the image.
Finn scrolled his phone as Noah and I worked, texting me silly videos of guinea pigs wearing animated party hats every few minutes.
‘Stop it,’ I said, laughing, as my phone vibrated and a guinea pig danced across my screen.
‘I’m going to keep doing it until you agree that it’s movie-watching time.’
‘Once we’re done with this,’ I promised. ‘Or at least once we get some more of the edges done. Or even a chunk, like that crooked tree. How about you pick the music? Unless you’re listening to something, Rosie?’
‘It’s all yours, hon,’ she said. ‘Amelia and I are going to take our party outside. If I can entice her back out of the office, anyway.’
Finn connected his phone to the Bluetooth speaker, grimacing as it somehow picked up an AM talkback station, and then what sounded like a whisperwind. He fiddled with the temperamental speaker while Noah and I worked methodically through our respective sections, passing pieces that seemed like a good fit for the other.
Every time, the skin contact was electric.
And yet, I was painfully aware of Finn watching.
‘Urgh,’ I said, as two pieces I was certain went together refused to combine. ‘It’s so frustrating when that happens. These definitely go, right?’
I set them down on the table to demonstrate. Still unconvinced that I was wrong, I rotated the pieces, frowning as they refused to fit together.
I hissed in frustration.
‘Here,’ said Finn. He snapped his fingers, and his magic gathered the remaining puzzle pieces, sorting them and thensetting them into place. The entire puzzle spread out before us, gleaming under the soft kitchen lights. All stretched out like that, it was so regal and impressive.
And yet I felt cheated. Noah and I had worked so hard, and we’d been making such great progress. All right, so realistically we’d still had days of work ahead of us, but that didn’t sound so bad to me.
‘Come on,’ I said, trying to keep the frustration from my voice. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because he can’t handle it when something’s not about him,’ said Noah. He ran his hand through his hair, although from the violence of the gesture it looked like he’d rather use his hand to smack Finn across the face. ‘You know what, I’m out.’
‘I didn’ttotallysolve it,’ said Finn.
And he was right: a single piece was missing, right where the faces of the couple should’ve been.
Chapter 25
LINGERING MISTAKES
The night spread out in front of me, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Mom and Rosie were outside, animatedly discussing whether pink or blue hydrangeas were superior, and Noah had gone to his studio. Tiff was still out, so it was just Finn and me. I’d fielded a call from Dad, who’d taken up Mom’s complaints about the new client.
‘Oh my goddess,’ I’d groaned. ‘Does it matter if Shauna gets the new client? You guys have plenty of clients. If it were up to me, I’d tell you guys to retire and go boating down the French Riviera or something. You could paint watercolours of nice trees, and Mom could micromanage the lives of expats.’
‘That sounds quite nice, actually,’ said Dad. ‘Well, not for your Mom, but that probably is her dream early retirement.’
‘You guys are so weird,’ I’d said, laughing. ‘I don’t know how you do it.’
