I beeline for the stage, and for the first time, the sight of it doesn’t turn my stomach to lead. Instead, I’m giddy because I’m not going to be the one up there tonight.
Stacy and Don are standing by the steps. Stacy paces with a phone to her ear as she calls me, my own vibrating phone clutched in my hand. The moment she spots me, her expression is somewhere between relief and rage, and I realize . . . I don’t care.
“Amelia!” she screeches, hanging up the phone and letting her shoulders relax a hair. “Finally! We’ve been looking everywhere for you. We need to get you up on stage immediately. Remember, tonight?—”
“No,” I interrupt her, the word bringing a smile to my face.
Stacy stops in her tracks, finally looking at me. Truly looking at me. “No?”
I shake my head, feeling lighter by the moment. “No, I’m not going up there.”
“But you’re the host,” she states matter-of-factly, as if I could possibly forget after an entire week of it.
I take a deep breath, because even though it’s relieving to finally say it all out loud, I still have to fight the urge to cave beneath their scrutinizing stares.
“I hate hosting. I’m terrible at it, and I’m not going to do it anymore,” I say in a rush, the words falling out of me faster than I can catch them, so I don’t have a chance to take them back. When Stacy opens her mouth to argue, I turn to Don instead. “Will you do it?”
A wide grin splits Don’s face, and he straightens, puffing out his chest with pride. “I’d love to!”
We both turn to Stacy, waiting expectantly. I wait for her to rant and rave about timetables and the importance of sticking to the plan, but instead, she lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. Don, get up there.”
I’m stunned, mouth dropping open, but Don bounces with delight and rushes up the stairs, eager to greet the crowd.
“What? No fight, no ‘remember to do this and that,’ no nothing?”
Stacy turns her attention back to her clipboard, ticking yet another item off her never-ending list. “Sweetie, no offense, but you’re right. Youareterrible at this. I was doing everything I could to help because you were so insistent, but let’s be honest, Don has been dying to do this foryears.He’s probably had this speech prepared for a decade now, waiting for his moment.”
The magic around me swells like a tsunami and crashes just as hard. It ripples out through the town with so much energy that I stumble back as Don’s voice booms through the speakers.
“Happy Halloween, everyone! It is my absolute pleasure to welcome you to our annual downtown-wide trick-or-treating,”Don begins, explaining how every business and house within a mile radius will be open, handing out candy and decorated for trick-or-treaters.
I smile wide, my heart racing, because for the first time this year, I can look forward to Halloween—my favorite holiday. I’m absolutely thrilled, and I’m lighter on my feet than I have been in months. Before Stacy can give me any more directions, I turn and walk away.
A brisk wind kisses my cheeks, making my skin pebble with goose bumps, and as I go, I make a point of stepping on every crunchy, dead leaf I come across, simply because I can. My boots scuff against the brick, and I take the time to actually look around downtown.
Jack-o’-lanterns decorate storefronts, featuring everything from goofy expressions to intricately carved designs, like witches on broomsticks and haunted houses. Most businesses have lights strung up, too, each one in the shape of bats, ghosts, and pumpkins, dangling in the wind. Some have light projectors instead, and the antique store has a full movie screen in the window with various Victorian ghosts making scary faces at the people walking by.
Main Street is truly beautiful, swathed in red and orange garlands, lit up by colorful lights and fake candles.
And standing right in front of my store is a burly man in a long wool coat that covers his broad shoulders. Oliver cups his hands around his eyes, trying to peer into the dark. When he doesn’t see anyone within, he steps back, giving the door a wary look that suggests he’s weighing whether to walk away or plow right through it, until he notices me approaching.
He sighs with relief, running a large hand through his golden-brown hair. “There you are! Is everything okay? I felt whatever happened with the magic and ran right over to makesure nothing catastrophic was going on, but the store’s closed and no one seems to be panicking and?—”
Without a moment’s hesitation, I cup his neck with my hand, push up onto my tiptoes, and pull him into a kiss. Oliver freezes beneath my touch, his hands held out to the side, away from my body, but he doesn’t pull away. It’s as if he’s waiting for something to happen.
But there’s nothing.
No magic buzzing, no screaming pedestrians. The pumpkins don’t start singing, all the lights along the street stay on, and the plastic skeletons don’t start dancing.
The moment he realizes nothing’s going to go distressingly wrong, he relaxes into my kiss. His lips soften, melding against mine. His tongue swipes across the seam of my lips, and when I let him in, he tastes as good as he smells. Like butter, and sugar, and spice. One of his hands finds my hair, his fingers tangling in the strands as his arm wraps around my waist.
I curl my arms around his neck, closing any remaining space between us as the street melts away. I don’t care if people are watching or if we’re making a scene. I don’t care that Mike or Simra or Ellie will give me a hard time tomorrow. I don’t care if we become the subject of a hundred rumors and tomorrow morning’s gossip. In this moment, it’s just him and me—and no magic is getting in the way.
Eventually, Oliver pulls away an inch, breaking the kiss. He presses his forehead to mine to catch his breath.
“Fucking finally,” he pants, and I giggle because I was thinking the exact same thing.
Chapter Twenty-Three
