Page 43 of A Witch in Notting Hill

Oliver

“Y ou still haven’t heard from her?” Lola asked, swiveling in my office chair and sipping a latte like we were in my living room and not at work.

“Don’t you think I’d have told you if I’d heard from her?” I said. I knew she was also upset Willow had shut us out of the quest, but I didn’t have the energy to manage anyone else’s emotions around that. I was frustrated and confused enough on my own.

But Lola had brought me lunch, so I couldn’t kick her out just yet.

“Do women usually throw you out right after a shag?” she asked.

“For the millionth time, Lo, you know that’s not what this was.”

“Aye, sorry, I was only joking.” She held her hands up in surrender, and only then did I realize I’d snapped.

I scrubbed my hands over my face and through my hair, trying to regain my composure.

I’d been such a wreck the past few days, just holed up in the shop with my phone up in my flat so I wouldn’t be tempted to check it.

I was really leaning into the whole grumpy bookshop owner vibe, only I wasn’t sure if it was bringing in business or turning it away.

“I’m sorry.” I sighed, collapsing into a chair across from her.

Wesley had everything under control out front, and it would probably do me some good to take a break to eat.

Lola slid a chicken shawarma wrap across my desk in my direction, watching as I unwrapped the paper and took a bite.

“This is delicious,” I said with my mouth full, even though I knew it would drive her crazy.

“Figured I owed it to ya,” she said. “Remember when Anika dumped me and you brought me wonton soup?”

“Willow didn’t dump me,” I said, going in for another bite. I hadn’t realized I was starving.

“Then why have you been acting like you’ve been dumped?”

“I haven’t.”

“Ol.”

“What?”

“You’ve been sulking around for a week. Min told me you haven’t been running, and the shop has never looked so clean. Did you dust the vents?” She squinted at the ceiling to make a point, and I rolled my eyes. “And you skipped pub quiz. On horror film night.”

“I had a headache,” I said, knowing neither of us believed my lame excuse. If either of them complained of a headache and tried to get out of pub quiz on horror film night, I’d have told them to pop a few paracetamol and get their arse on the Tube.

“It’s okay to be upset about this, you know,” she said, unwrapping her own sandwich and giving me a break from the eye contact. “I’m upset about this. So is Min. We all got attached to her, and it sucks when you get attached to people and they leave. Why is it such a big deal to admit that?”

“It isn’t a big deal,” I argued. “I just don’t think there’s much to say. I should have known better than to get attached in the first place, so really I had only myself to blame. And I’m sorry you and Min got dragged into this mess.”

“Are you kidding? This is the most exciting thing we’ve done all year.”

“Didn’t you guys go to Glastonbury?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, in that case, I’m sorry it ended this way.”

“How do we know it’s over?”

“Apart from her telling me she had to finish the quest on her own? Because that felt pretty obvious to me.”

“You’re such a pessimist,” she said.

“Weren’t you just telling me it was okay to be upset?”

“Upset, yes, but not negative. Isn’t the last thing she has to do convince a skeptic?”

“Yes, and?”

“ And... last I checked, you’re pretty damn skeptical.”

“Lo, if you’re implying she’s coming back into our lives to try to convince me magic is real, you’ve officially lost the plot. And besides, even if she did, I can’t say she’d have much luck.”

“You’re exhausting,” she said, dropping her fork directly into the hummus. “You work in a bloody magic bookshop, Oliver. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to just embrace it?”

“I’m not having a hard time, last I checked,” I said. “It’s not like I’m resisting it. I’m just being practical. There’s a scientific explanation for everything, even the anomalies. People don’t actually have powers. It’s all confirmation bias.”

“If you’re going to try to win Willow back, you better not let her hear you saying that.”

“I’m not trying to win her back.” Right?

“Well, you should be,” Lola said, dragging a piece of pita through the baba ghanoush.

I held my breath, watching her bring it to her mouth and praying she didn’t drop any on my desk.

“Because if you’ve been this much of an arse about the magic the whole time and she still shagged you, you’ve got a good thing going. ”

“Lola—”

“I know, I know. I’m taking the piss. But I do mean you should try to win her back. She was obviously into you, Ol, and I haven’t seen you that into anyone since—”

“I know.”

“I’m only giving you a hard time because I want you to be happy.

And I don’t think your differences in beliefs should be a dealbreaker.

Though I do think you should keep more of an open mind.

Magic doesn’t have to just look like waving a wand and saying a magic word and turning a princess into a frog, you know. ”

I didn’t want her to be right. Everything would have been so much easier if she wasn’t right.

And she usually wasn’t. Her advice was usually chaotic at best, destructive at worst, and she’d be the first to admit it. But this wasn’t one of those times.

I knew “magic” wasn’t waving a wand and saying a magic word. I was a cynic, not an idiot. And if I’d learned anything from Willow and from my years in the shop, it was that there were a million types of “magic” and a million types of “witches.”

I knew there was always logical reasoning, and I chose to see that.

And I’d been comfortable with that. Until now.

Not once in thirty-two years had I asked myself what would happen if I made another choice. Why I was so attached to logic in the first place and what would happen if I abandoned it.

“You don’t think it’s too late?” I asked Lola. It probably was, in which case I wouldn’t actually need to entertain the idea after all.

“You’re bloody Oliver Hadley!” she said, slamming the desk with the palm of her hand.

“I have no idea what that means.”

“It’s never too late. You know better than that.”

“Do I?”

“Unless you’re not the man I thought you were.”

“And what man is that?”

“The kind of man who knows what he wants,” she said. “Ever since I met you, you’ve always been particular. In a charming way, if a little weird.” She popped a French fry into her mouth, and I waited with raised eyebrows.

“Thank you?”

“You’ve never been indecisive, or insecure, or doubtful.” Now she was chewing with her mouth full, waving fries around as she spoke. “And for someone so obsessed with logic—”

“I’m not obsessed .”

“—you’d think you’d have realized by now that it’s a perfect viable outcome she’s more than likely to give you a second chance.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Min.”

She rolled her eyes. Brushed salt off her hands onto my desk chair. “Because you’ve been sulking,” she said. “And I’d like for everything to get back to normal. Willow included.”

“I thought this was about my happiness,” I said. “You’ve a selfish hidden agenda now, do you?”

“Two things can be true,” she said with a smile. “Come on, Ol. Are you really going to let the last few months go to waste because of some stupid celebrity gossip?”

“Need I remind you it was her idea to end things because of the celebrity gossip?”

“You said yourself it didn’t seem like she wanted to.” That much was true. She hadn’t even bothered to hide it.

She was an actor. She could have faked it if she wanted to. Pretended she believed it was the right thing to do and left it at that.

But she didn’t. She let me see how much it hurt her to break things off right when they were getting good. How much it hurt her to go it alone when she’d gotten so comfortable in our little world.

“You don’t have to say I’m right out loud if that makes you feel any better,” Lola said.

“Cheeky sod.”

“Guilty.”

“Thanks, Lo,” I said. “For the sandwich, I mean.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“I never should have underestimated the power of a good Lola Martinez pep talk.”

“That’s Dr. Martinez to you.”

“It most certainly is not.”

“Piss off, then.” She laughed, finally getting up from my desk chair but leaving her mess behind.

She stopped beside my chair to rest her hand on my shoulder, and I leaned my head on her wrist. “Remember, nothing changes if nothing changes. If you want her, you’ve got to go get her.

Maybe it can be your turn to teach her a thing or two about magic. ”

If Min and I pointed out every time Lola was insane, we’d have done nothing but point out that Lola was insane. Which was why it was so hard for me to get my head around the fact that this time, she was actually making sense.

Or we were both insane. Which was probably more likely.

I spent the days following our lunch lost in thought instead of lost in misery, and it was a nice change of pace, though my customers probably couldn’t tell the difference.

To them, I was still quiet, still pensive, still more engrossed in inventory and organization and responding to the emails I’d let pile up than I was in helping them figure out how to cook their food faster or grow their plants taller or start a fire with a snap of their fingers or whatever nonsense they were attempting.

The days were long and slow, but I liked them that way. It gave me the opportunity to really think about what I wanted. To look at the shop with a new perspective, to try to understand why I was so attached to logic, to make sense of what was next.

And most of my questions had the same answer: Willow James.

Save the logic, obviously.

But above all else, she was what I wanted. And she was what came next. Whether that was with happiness or heartbreak remained to be seen, but I owed it to us both (and Lola, unfortunately) to try.

Admitting I wanted Willow, however, was the easy part.