Page 29

She looks at the tree, then at me. “Are you okay?”

“Perfect, yes. Thank you.” Flora’s gaze drops to the hand I still have braced against the tree, then moves slowly back to my face. I straighten and smooth the front of my coat, as if this might somehow restore the dignity I lost approximately five business years ago. “The ground is wet.”

“It is.”

“And dark.”

Flora nods.

“I feel like you’re judging me.”

She blinks, and her face does this thing where she looks surprised but immediately tries to correct it, almost like I caught her in the act. “I’m not.”

She is, a little. I can see it in the way she presses her lips together, and somehow that makes it better. Flora smiling at my expense is preferable to Flora watching me fracture my wrist under a Japanese maple tree under the full moon, so I decide to take the win.

It also gives me a second to properly look at her.

She’s dressed differently than she was a week ago, obviously, because she isn’t working, but seeing her outside The Spindle makes her feel different, too. Softer, maybe. Her dark hair is loose around her shoulders, and the light from one of the installations catches along the side of her face as she watches me. The other day there had been a counter between us and customers waiting behind me, and the safety of knowing our interaction had a natural ending.

There is no counter here, obviously.

Just Flora, standing a few feet away from me in a lush garden, because the universe loves to complicate things and show me exactly how cursed I am.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. And I immediately feel like an idiot because it’s obvious why she’s here.

She lifts the black envelope in her hand. “My mom had tickets.”

“Oh.”

I wait for more, but none comes. Of course it doesn’t.

Because Flora is probably one of those people that isn’t afflicted with my particular inability to leave empty conversational space alone. I have already spent an embarrassing amount of time replaying every second of our conversation, and I know that my tendency to think after I speak the words out into the universe is definitely not normal. I understand the concept, theoretically, of thinking before speaking, but have yet to master it.

“I’m here because…” I stop.

Because my internet witch sent me on a full moon walk to reverse the fucking love spell I placed that accidentally manifested a man? I definitely should save this until at least the third conversation with someone I find attractive, before I scare them off. Again.

“I saw the event online,” I finish. “I’ve never been here before, even though I’ve lived in Seattle for, like, a decade already.”

Flora glances around the garden. “What do you think?”

“It’s beautiful.”

And it is. Now that I’ve stopped trying to document every leaf like I’m submitting evidence to The Third Fairy, I can actually see it. The path curves around the dark water behind Flora, illuminated just enough to catch the red and gold leaves along its edges, while pieces of blown glass emerge from the landscaping in unexpected places. Some glow beneath carefully positioned lights; others seem to disappear until I move and catch their reflections.

“I’ve almost fallen twice,” I add, “but aesthetically, ten out of ten, no notes.”

That gets another small smile.

And it’s breathtaking.

The realization comes with enough force that I immediately look toward the pond instead, where the moon is reflected across the surface between the scattered lights from the exhibit.

“Anyway,” I say, because yes I’ve—miraculously—run out of things to say to the gorgeous woman I’ve spent most of the week hoping I would see again. “I should probably keep moving before someone realizes I’ve been standing in the same spot for ten minutes, you know?”

“Probably.”

“I think there are rules about loitering in gardens during a full moon.”