Page 20 of A Witch’s Guide to Surviving Halloween

“No can do. As one of the judges, I have to stay late.” It takes a significant amount of effort to keep a melancholy edge from my tone. Even if I wasn’t blowing Oliver off, I’d still be dreading tonight.

Initially, playing the judge at an all-night cooking competition sounded like the biggest perk of playing host. Now, after a night of no sleep, with an already drained social battery, it was taking everything in me not to call in sick like a kid trying to get out of a test.

Oliver’s brows furrow, and I know I’m being the queen of mixed signals right now. In a matter of days, we’ve gone from strangers to flirty dates to almost kissing, and now I’m giving him the cold shoulder. He’s about to say something else when the doorbell chimes, announcing a customer.

I hop up and beeline for the front desk, desperate for a large group that needs my undivided attention.

Instead, I find a young couple. A young woman in a Halloween-themed dress drops her girlfriend’s hand and goes straight for the history section, clearly on a mission.

The other hangs back, looking only mildly out of place as she browses the front table filled with stickers, pins, candles, trinkets, and an assortment of themed staff picks.

“Hello! Welcome to Moonlit Pages. Can I help you find anything?” I give the woman my cheeriest customer service voice, silently imploring Oliver to take the hint and leave before anything bizarre happens.

She grins back. “No thanks. Just looking around.”

My smile turns strained, and I seriously contemplate begging her to let me help her find something, or if that would be too pathetic.

Before I can decide, she turns away to go look for her girlfriend.

Reluctantly, I spin on my heel to head back to the front desk and find Oliver leaning there, watching me with a dubious expression.

I skirt around him, brushing a stray strand of black hair behind my ear to avoid his gaze and make my way behind the desk.

I busy myself with refilling our take-a-chance gum ball machine that gives people a book recommendation at random.

At least, that’s how it’s advertised. In reality, it’s been charmed to give recommendations based on the customer’s mood. Like a bookish mood ring.

Oliver leans across the desk until we’re at eye level and lowers his voice for only me to hear.

“Is everything okay?”

I have to physically bite my tongue to keep from spilling everything and instead say, “Of course. I’m just really busy.”

Oliver makes a show of glancing around at the mostly empty store before turning his attention back to me. “I’m sorry if I crossed a line last night. I . . . Well, I thought . . . Actually, it doesn’t matter what I thought. What matters is that I clearly made you uncomfortable and—”

“Oliver.” His name is sweet on my tongue as I touch his hand where it’s leaning against the desk without thinking. He stops his rambling, looking so distraught at the prospect of having violated some kind of unsaid boundary that I can’t help but comfort him. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He sighs with relief, his entire body relaxing. His hand turns over to grasp the tips of my fingers. The soft pad of his thumb brushes against my knuckles with a gentleness that shouldn’t be possible for someone with such calloused hands.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “After you ran off last night, I felt like the biggest ass in the world. I made the fritters as an excuse to come over and make sure we were okay.” He snorts, laughing at himself and shaking his head.

Longing pulls at my heart, and my entire chest starts to ache.

I can’t believe this is the man Grandma had to curse.

Why did she have to bar me from the guy who’s so upset over the prospect of almost kissing someone who wasn’t that interested?

Or so he thinks. Of all the assholes and pushy jerks in the world, it’s the one who looks like he stepped out of a fantasy novel and brings apology apple fritters that I’m not allowed to be interested in.

Even as we stand there, mere fingers touching, the magic of Ashwood Haven tenses, ready to lash out at any second.

I pull my fingers from his. “I can’t talk right now. I’m sorry, but you need to go.”

His brows furrow again, but this time, he looks at me as if he’s realizing something for the first time. We stand there without talking for so long that I’m about to ask him to leave again when he whispers, “You can feel it too, can’t you?”

My eyes widen, and a whirlwind of emotions stops my heart.

Hope that he is saying what I think he’s saying.

Panic that he might already know my secret.

Desperation that he understands what it is he’s feeling, and dread at the prospect that he doesn’t realize its magic at all.

That he can feel it but has no idea what it is.

“What?” I breathe.

A crash and cry of surprise startles us both, and we jump as if a gun has gone off.

It takes me a heartbeat to pull myself together before racing around the end of the desk and toward the only customers in the store.

I prepare myself for any number of things.

Flying books, bowling pumpkins, or the return of Ashwood Haven’s newest resident: the bookworm.

Instead, I find the two women huddled together over a pile of books on the floor, giggling.

The one in the Halloween dress blushes, pulling the books into her arms. “Sorry. I’m a butterfingers.”

I sigh with relief, a small laugh escaping me as I hold a hand to my chest in an attempt to stop my heart from beating right through my ribs. The bell over the front door chimes, and when I turn, Oliver is crossing the street to his bakery.