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“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

She smiles, her cheeks a little pinker now, and I have to look away because apparently there is a limit to how long I can maintain eye contact with this woman before I forget I’m at work.

“Enjoy your Saturday.”

It comes out more abrupt than I mean it to, but she doesn’t seem offended. If anything, her smile lingers as she picks up her drink and heads to one of the small tables out on the patio.

“You fumbled that so bad,” Luis says after a while.

“Oh my god.” This might be a problem.

“You are fucked.”

CHAPTER 7

MERRYWEATHER

“The witch won’t give me a refund.”

Veronica looks up from the other end of my couch, where she has been systematically picking the mushrooms off the pizza we ordered an hour ago and depositing them onto my plate.

“Can she do that?”

“Apparently, she can do whatever she wants. She’s a witch.”

“That feels like exactly the kind of attitude that gets you cursed for real,” Dani says.

I look down at my phone again, where The Third Fairy’s response is still open on the screen.

“She says that my order was customized and that the spell has been cast, so she can’t issue a refund.”

It’s impressively professional and corporate for thanks for the five hundred dollars, good luck with the straight guy I accidentally manifested for you.

“Four hundred and eighty-nine dollars,” I remind them.

Dani winces from her spot on the rug. Aurora is stretched beside her with the complete bonelessness of a cat who has never had to contribute financially to anything and has zero worries beyond when her next meal will be.

“Jesus, Merry, every time you say the number, it gets a little worse.”

“I know,” I say with a groan, and I feel a blush starting to form on my chest.

“I still don’t understand how you spent that much.”

“I’m desperate, okay?”

Veronica stops picking mushrooms. “Why? It’s not like you can’t⁠—”

“I was a little drunk and emotionally vulnerable, okay? And you guys egged me on.”

Dani snorts, then follows it up with unintelligible baby talk directed at my cat.

I drop my phone onto the coffee table and reach for my wine. The windows are still open, even though it’s well into the afternoon, letting in the faint noise of a neighbor mowing a lawn a few houses over and a breeze that would probably feel nice it if weren’t carrying air that has no business being this warm this time of the year.

Under normal circumstances, I would be thrilled about it. Instead, I have spent an embarrassing percentage of the afternoon itching under my skin when I remember the woman from the café.

Specifically her eyes. And her smile. And the clumsy little laugh she made when I asked if Flora was actually her name.

Which is ridiculous, because I spoke to her for maybe fifty-nine seconds.