Page 64 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

“And?”

He shrugged again. “It was nothing.”

I swallow slowly, relief running through me. “Right.”

That makes sense. Well, kind of. I take another bite of pastry, because that feels like the only reasonable response to any of this, and try very hard to ignore the strange, creeping feeling that’s just settled at the back of my mind.

I clear my throat, trying to swallow down my unease. “So. What do you do, when you’re not crashing strange office parties?”

“Statistician,” he says.

I blink. “Is that like maths or something?”

“Or something,” he replies with a smile. “I work for the BBC.”

My sister was right. He checks out clean. Relief runs through me, and I relax a little.

“Okay. So, like, do you count viewers or something? Decide which shows live or die?”

Theo laughs. “Not quite that dramatic. Normally I work for BBC News, analysing or finding data for news reports. Occasionally, I’ll analyse audience data, too. You know, viewing patterns, engagement, trends. Basically, I look at numbers and try to figure out what people like, what they don’t, and why.”

“So you’re the reason my favourite shows get cancelled?” I give him a look. “If you had anything to do with the demise of Torchwood I may actually walk out.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he replies with a confidence that is both borderline irritating and deeply sexy. “The pastries here are too good. Besides, at the BBC I’m part of a vast and complex system. There are probably multiple reasons for Torchwood’s cancellation, not least John Barrowman himself.”

I can’t argue with that, and so I pick up another pastry. “These are good. Cinnamon is my favourite.”

“I’m going to remember that.” He smiles, leaning slightly closer. “What about you? What do you do when you’re not cosplaying as an animal you purport to hate?”

I hesitate for half a second before answering. “I, uh, work in a shop.”

“Right. What kind of shop?”

“Antiques. Oddities. Questionable objects with questionable histories.” I gesture vaguely. “The usual.”

His brows lift slightly, interest flickering across his face. “I hate to tell you this, but that’s not the usual.”

“Depends on your outlook,” I reply easily. “It has its moments, though. Occasionally, something tries to kill me. Keeps things fresh.”

He studies me for a second, like he’s trying to decide if I’m joking, but I just take another bite of pastry and let him wonder.

We talk about small things after that — music, terrible films, the kind of books you pretend to have read and the ones you actually have. He tells me about his family, about the mother who died when he was a child and the father he’s now estranged from. I tell him about my family, about my favourite customers, and he laughs in all the right places.

It’s all so effortless. So natural. That’s the strange part.

There are no awkward pauses, no frantic searching for something to say next. The words just come, one after another, easily and without second guesses, and somewhere in between the third pastry and the second coffee, I realize something.

I really, really like him.

And when he smiles at me over a roll so thick with cream cheese and cinnamon that it should be illegal, I realize something else.

He likes me, too.

* * *

By the time we step back out onto the street, the air is cooler and the night sky darker. London hums around us, cars and voices intermingling, the distant wash of the river light in the background. It all feels slightly muffled, though, like the world has been turned down a notch.

Theo pauses beside me. “So,” he says.