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“You came over to work on this with me and it led to some damn good sex. Coincidence? I think not,” I say with a smile.

“I like hearing you say our sex was damn good. For the record, I agree.”

I feel my face flush as he finishes up another jar.

“But I don’t think that had anything to do with the potion,” he tacks on.

There’s a hint—okay, more like a heaping spoonful—of residual skepticism when he says that. I can’t help but feel a tad defeated, like I’m a Jehovah’s Witness failing at selling him my nontrinitarian beliefs on Christianity.

“Let me guess. You’re having fun, but you still think it’s silly,” I say.

Whatever skepticism was in his voice is now matched with the deflation in mine.

“No, that’s not what I mean at all. I’m not humoring you, I promise.

I don’t have time for that. I respect you and I respect your work.

Angeline, too. But after my session with her, it hit me that your guys’ work is a little-of-this, a little-of-that, and poof here’s some magic in a bottle for you.

Everything in my field has to be exact. A quarter turn in the wrong direction and an elevator can go plummeting fifteen stories. That’s a lot of responsibility.”

“ Poof? I have at least thirty people whose love lives depend on me finishing these orders up tonight. That’s a lot of responsibility, too,” I remind him.

I don’t mean for my voice to come off combative. I’m aiming for educational. I want to remind him that who I am and what I do is just as legitimate as anyone else who has a job with paying customers.

“How do you quantify that?” he asks. The already-quiet house goes deafeningly silent.

“How do I quantify it?” I’m stumped. This is not a question my target market asks me or cares about.

“Look, if you’re asking me whether or not I have done follow up case studies with all of my buyers to see if they’re happily engaged or married, I have not,” I confess.

“But, if you’re asking me if I believe in the power of these ingredients and the intentions I put into them, then yes.

I do. This recipe comes from my mom. And my mom comes from a long line of women with special powers that have trickled down to me. ”

“So now there are secret powers involved, eh?”

“ Special powers,” I correct him.

“What’s that mean? You can cast spells?”

“I mean, sort of. There are things you don’t know about me, Ollie. Things that would make a believer out of anyone—even you. I’m…special.”

I wasn’t planning on now being the time I’d tell him about what makes me me . But, here we are.

“I agree you’re special. I wouldn’t be dating you if I thought you were one of those dime-a-dozen chicks. Care to share what these things are that I ‘don’t know’ about you?” he asks.

“I’m highly connected to the metaphysical world. Way more than you realize.”

“And I’m highly connected to the physical world, so you’ll have to spell this out for me. No pun intended.”

“I did a fertility ritual on my sister and she got pregnant after having no luck for years.”

“Sometimes pregnancy just takes time. My mom had me at forty, remember?”

He doesn’t believe me.

“I did some energy work with Shereé Jackson. As a result, her dream wedding venue confirmed her date after being told it was already booked.”

“I’m sure something entirely reasonable happened to the couple who had to cancel.”

“You don’t understand. Stuff like that keeps happening,” I try to explain.

“That’s just life. I know when good things line up one after the next, it can feel like something magical is happening. But that’s just life unfolding the way it naturally does. Statistically, the streak will end and things will go back to making logical sense.”

Ollie is getting in his own way of understanding me, so it’s time to get crystal clear with him.

“When I touched your hand that first time at Red’s, I saw—”

I catch myself about to reveal my gift. There’s a void in Ollie’s eyes.

The feeling of needing to pull the e-brake washes over me.

With my visions blocked, I can only rely on my gut intuition to predict the future—and in my gut, I immediately regret blabbering.

This was the wrong time, wrong place, perhaps even the wrong person to reveal what makes me special. I retreat.

“Never mind. Just hand me another bottle, will you?” I ask, attempting to quickly change the subject.

He grabs one and says: “Sure. After you finish that thought. You touched my hand and you saw…what?”

“Seriously. Just forget it,” I order.

He puts the empty bottle back. We are at an impasse and it’s my own fault for letting my mouth run.

“I’ve got nowhere to be but here with you, Moonie Miller. I’ll wait for you to finish that thought. You touched my hand and you saw…”

“I saw the way you talked to the bartender about comping my bill and it’s very clear you’re well respected at The Brockmeier,” I concede, hoping that’s good enough.

“Bullshit. What’s the real story?”

The real story is a nuclear bomb.

In an instant, I think of the last remnants of smudge spray and how good a job I’ve done thus far keeping my Exexveei a secret.

I think of both my sisters and their hesitance in revealing their true selves to their partners.

I think of my mom and the truth behind my parents divorce.

No doubt, the fear of rejection floods in and suddenly I know how the women in my family have felt for years.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—I don’t want to be in a marriage like Nora and Liv.

And while I’m certainly not putting “Ollie” and “marriage” in the same sentence intentionally, I know that protecting my heart from a fearful future like that begins with revealing my true self to whoever I happen to be seeing at any given time. And that time is…now.

“I saw a vision of you and me. That’s what happens when I touch people’s palms. I see the future.”

“I’m confused. What did you see?”

“Us,” I generalize. “Like, as a couple.”

“Well doesn’t everybody get caught up in their feelings? You date someone you like, you start imagining a future with them.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

His imagination is running wild.How could I have let my guard down like this? What do I even say next?

“It’s just that when I touch people’s palms, I can see visions of their future. Sometimes.”

ALL of the time , my conscience corrects me.

“And this happened with me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so that time you came over after the holiday market, did you know I was going to cook you Swedish pancakes and we’d end up in my bedroom? Because I didn’t know I was going to cook you Swedish pancakes and we’d up end up in my bedroom…”

I can hear the panic in his voice. He’s totally freaking out.

“No, I haven’t let my Exexveei work like that.”

“Oh god. It has a name?”

“XXVI is Roman numeral 26, as in, the year this gift gets bestowed upon people like me. And no,my visions weren’t specific down to the breakfast menu or anything. But...they can be,” I say before my conscience has a chance to kick me under the table again.

“So what did you see?” he asks.

“Our palms connected and I saw a flash of you and me in a bed. Just a flash. That’s it,” I explain. “It was impossible to tell what came before and what came after. The vision was over before it even started, really.”

“We were in bed doing what exactly?”

Ollie is on a quest for specifics, but the truth is—

“I don’t know. I pulled my palm away before I could see more because I wanted things to be a surprise. I still do. It was just a few seconds, Ollie. I swear.”

“And this happens every time we touch hands? Because we touch hands, and other things, kind of a lot.”

“Well technically it would. But, I’ve taken extreme measures to protect myself from seeing anymore spoilers.”

Ollie slumps to the floor of the bathroom. He rests his back against the tub and stares into the room.

“Are you weirded out?”

“Wouldn’t anybody be? I guess I’m more confused than anything,” he says.

“Ask me questions,” I beg. Questions are his love language.

“What do you mean you’ve taken extreme measures ?”

I pull out the smudge spray from the side pocket of my leggings and show it to him. It’s the least I can do to stop the bleeding.

“I made this,” I announce. “It’s a special formula that I coat my hands in before I see you. It forms a protective layer from my visions. Think of it like sunblock for harmful UV rays.”

“But it’s Cock Block spray instead?” he asks, reading and pointing to the frisky label.

My face flushes red.

“Angeline wrote that. You know how she is. It’s a joke.”

“So you have to use this every time we hang out or you’ll know exactly what we’re up to before I ever think of it for myself? That is a joke.”

“I don’t have to use it,” I say. “I choose to, though.”

“Huh,” he sputters out, the way you get stumped on a crossword clue.

“Please say more than that,” I request.

“I really like you, Moonie. I like you in that…buy-her-flowers, surprise-her-with-ice-cream, plan-a-special-day-in-the-city kind of a way. How can I ever be something special to you if you already know what’s in store from me?

Or worse, what happens if your vision of us isn’t so…

lovely…down the road? What if we don’t—”

“That’s why I use the smudge spray. For all the reasons you just said. And one more.”

“There’s more?”

“I saw this psychic.”

“Here we go,” Ollie mutters.

“No, listen. Really. I saw this psychic. She’s renowned.

She told me I had already met the one. At the time, I thought she was talking about this guy I was sort of seeing in OB.

But then I realized it might actually be you.

I had met you at Joe n’ Flow—briefly, but I think it still counted. And then she said—”

“I really don’t want to hear ‘what the psychic said’.”

“She said I’d have another chance. That’s what this is.

My second chance is happening right now.

At least that’s what I believe. Trust me, I want to be the girl you surprise with a cookie-dough Blizzard or a walk through Lincoln Park Zoo or with a dozen orange-colored roses.

I don’t want to know how this movie ends either.

Look, I think you know this by now—I’m different, Ollie.

I’m not tooting my own horn, but I just don’t belong in any neat little category.

And I’m sorry about that. But I can’t be sorry for that.

This is who I am. That spray is the closest I get to normal. ”

“It’s almost empty,” he points out.

“I’ll get the ingredients to make more.”

“What if they’re out of the ingredients?”

“They won’t be.”

“I read the news. Californians are deforesting natural habitats in search of some weirdly popular sage. You don’t know if you’ll always be able to getwhatever is in this mixture. And then what? We don’t touch anymore because no one wants to ruin the fun?”

He sets the smudge spray down on the bathroom sink and lets out another deep breath.

I thought he would be relieved to know there’s a remedy for this.

Instead, he’s finding all the ways to poke holes in a solution that I thought was not only bomb-proof, but romantic, too.

The things I am willing to do for love are apparently a giant turn-off.

We both sit silently on the floor and stare into space.

“So what are you thinking?” I finally ask, slicing through the silence.

“I’m thinking…I don’t want to be with someone who hasto take medicine every day for the rest of her life just to hang out with me.

You’re going to get tired of that, Moonie .

Or one day, you’ll be too busy fulfilling other people’s orders that you’ll put your own potion needs on hold and I won’t know you’re off the sauce. ”

“Off the sauce? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll just say ‘fuck it’ about the smudge spray, and I’ll be holding your hand while we walk to get a donut , and you’ll be staring off into the distance visualizing how many kids we’ll have.

Or what fight we’ll get into about the laundry later that day.

Or if I’ll get diagnosed with skin cancer on my fortieth birthday.

Meanwhile, I’ll be none the wiser about any of it.

I work so hard to understand how the world works, Moonie .

It’s a hobby of mine, a passion of mine, and I’ve dedicated my career to it.

It’s not fair that life will continue to be one big surprise, but only to me.

You know I’m in constant pursuit of stability. This is not that .”

“I think you’re getting way ahead of yourself, Ollie.”

“Says the person who just told me she thinks I’m the one because some psychic said so.

Regardless, thinking ahead is how my brain works.

I think about things rationally; logically; analyze and extrapolate them.

Speaking of rational and logical, it probably makes sense that I get going. There’s a lot to sort out here.”

“Don’t go, please. This isn’t that big of deal,” I plead once more, grabbing onto his arm before he can propel himself up and out.

“I disagree, Moonie. I’m sorry. Maybe you should have skipped the hand spray tonight. If I were you, I would have wanted to know the night was going to end like this before inviting me over.”

Ollie exits the bathroom and I can hear him take heavy steps down my sister’s reclaimed wood stairwell. A few moments later, the front door closes—slams—behind him. He really does know his way around a space.

Alone with about fifteen jars left to go and three slices of room temperature pizza hardening in the box next to me, I suddenly and fully get why Nora and Olivia chose to hide their true selves from the men they were interested in having a future with.

For if they did share everything there was to know about them, the tradeoff would be sacrificing love, marriage, kids, and family—in other words, a totally normal life.

I grab another jar, dunk into the tub, and wonder: how is there no in between?