“I wanted to surprise you!”
We arrive at the door and I fling it open while keeping a hand on his back. “You surprised me all right, but I’ve got to go. And so do you.”
“Please, Candy.” His pleading tone sends a shot of guilt through me.
Dammit! Why didn’t I listen? I couldn’t even see past my own lust long enough to consider the consequences of using magic for myself.
“I just want you to give us a chance.”
I’ve stopped pushing him and he’s stopped struggling. I drop my hand, defeated. I have no idea what to do. But I do know Joe is waiting for me, and I’m definitely not going to miss my date—or whatever it is—to hang out with a man who is quite literally under my spell.
“Colin,” I begin, but I have no idea what to say after that.
He turns to me when I don’t go on, and his eyes are so droopy and sad that I immediately turn away so I don’t have to look into them. When his hands touch mine, I don’t pull back.
“Why are you running from me?”
For a second I see the real Colin—the one I fell in love with. The one who wasn’t under a spell. He stares into my eyes. Why am I running? I’m supposedly in love with him. Enough to cast a love spell on him. I have what I wanted, so what’s my problem?
“I—” My phone buzzes, cutting me off. It’s Joe.
Am I being stood up?
“Crap,” I say as I begin to type: No! On my way. Sorry! I turn back to Colin and his puppy-dog eyes. No matter how guilty I feel for what I’ve done, I can’t lead him on. I can’t just pretend we’re in love now and that everything is hunky dory. I have to make this right, and if he discovers he likes me when he’s not under the spell, well, then…we’ll take it from there. But I don’t want him like this.
Still, I feel the need to lie so I can get out the door. “Colin, I’m so sorry. I would love to watch the movie with you, but my friend is having a crisis and she really needs me right now.”
“Friend?” he says, as if it’s a totally foreign word.
“Uh, yeah. You know…those people we hang out with? Not family, but…” I wait for him to fill in the blank, like we’re contestants on $1,000,000 Pyramid. But he just stares blankly back at me. Good God. Have I wiped his brain, too?
“Oh, okay.” He nods, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Sure.” He starts to walk out the door and then turns back to me. “Can I call you later?”
He looks so sad and forlorn I’m almost tempted to say yes. “Why don’t we go for coffee before work tomorrow?”
He smiles brightly. “Really?”
“Really,” I say, silently praying that he’ll drink the antidote to this stupid spell.
~*~
Fifteen minutes later, I burst through the door of the restaurant where I’d agreed to meet Joe. He’s standing at the bar, his elbows propped on the counter as he swishes a swizzle stick around in his drink. He’s wearing dark jeans and a structured gray hoodie. I have to admit, his ass looks really good in those Levi’s.
When I tear my gaze away from his posterior, I scan up the rest of his body, only to meet with his amused brown eyes. My cheeks flood with heat. Great. Now he knows I was checking him out. He smirks as he pushes off the bar to greet me.
“I was starting to worry.”
I hold up my phone. “Yeah. I got that. Sorry.”
“Trouble picking out a track suit?”
I laugh. “How did you know?”
“Just a hunch.” He pulls a barstool out for me. “What are you drinking?”
I’m tempted to go for my usual martini, but I kind of want to keep my wits about me tonight. The last thing I want is it to embarrass myself in front of Joe. Besides, I need answers, and I’m fairly certain he has them.
“Amstel Light,” I finally decide. I don’t know why I feel the need to qualify my drink choice, but I add, “Taking it easy tonight,” for good measure.
The bartender drops the beer in front of me and I take a sip before turning to Joe. I’m not sure where to begin, but thankfully he beats me to it.
“So, you cast a love spell on your own behalf, huh?”
I stare at him, mouth agape. “Way to cut to the chase.”
“Why beat around the bush? We both know the score.”
I shake my head and take another swig of my beer. “I’m not so sure I do, actually. Maybe you could fill in some of the gaps?”
“Ha!” Joe throws his golden-brown head back. “That could take years. But let’s start at the beginning of your story.”
“Okay,” I say, drawing out the aaaay, before I launch into what’s happened over the last few months. The fortuneteller, my job in New York, my eventual take-over of the bakery and discovery of my talents. By the end, I was ready for another beer, which the bartender placed promptly before me.
Joe, however, didn’t say anything. He just stood there, nodding, his eyes narrowed.
“Do you want to get a table,” he finally says. “I’m starving.”
“Oh.” I blink a few times. “Uh, sure.”
He settles the bar tab after assuring me tonight is on him, and then goes to the hostess stand to see about a table. I’m left at the bar slightly dumbfounded. I want to know what he’s thinking. Correction: I need to know what he’s thinking. It’s driving me a little batty, this whole mysterious vibe he’s putting off. Not to mention, is this a real date? I sort of thought we were only meeting up to talk about all this spell stuff, but if it’s more than that, well, I’m not going to complain.
I follow him across the restaurant, the European music forcing me to walk to a techno beat, and sit down across from him at the tiny table in the corner. It feels intimate and romantic. My only regret is that I’m in a sweat suit and not one of my trendy, designer outfits. If I was, I’d feel like the leading lady in a fun romantic comedy. Like Katherine Heigl in 27 Dresses, or something. As it stands, I just feel like a frumpy almost-thirty-year-old who’s given up on life.
I peruse the menu and decide on their “eclectic” mac & cheese. It won’t do anything for my waistline, but maybe it’ll cheer me up. Something about carbs and cheese makes me all giddy inside, especially after my protein-bar lunch.
Once we’ve ordered, Joe focuses his attention on me. I squirm a little. Why do I get the feeling he knows way more about me than he should?
“Listen,” he says. “Don’t beat yourself up. Rookie mistake. Everybody’s done it.”
My eyebrows shoot up of their own volition. “Everybody? Does that mean you, too?”
Joe shrugs, a gesture that makes him look even more adorable than he already is. “I may have used a little magic for my own gain a time or two.”
“Two?” Now I’m really curious. “Spill. I need to hear how you screwed up so I can feel better.”
Joe chuckles. “I guess a little schadenfreude is in all of us.”
I lean forward and whisper, “It’s my middle name.”
He laughs again as I sit back with a smile, waiting, praying his story is worse than mine.
“Well, the first time I did it was in high school.”
“High school?” I say, compelled to interrupt. “How long have you known?”
“It’s different for us. We grow up already knowing, kind of. I don’t know what kind of curse your family has, but that whole ‘you’ll find out when you’re twenty-nine’ thing must suck. I can’t imagine. At twenty-nine, you’ve got your whole life planned out. What if you were married with a kid…or five? Would you have uprooted your entire life to come here and run a bakery?”
I scoff. “I might not have a husband and five kids, but trust me, it sucked just as much. Although…” I trail off, unable to keep my eyes off Joe. I’m locked in some kind of trance.
“Although?” he prompts, and I realize that what I was about to say would have been entirely too flirtatious for a first “sort of” date.
I flounder, and finally spit out, “Oh, nothing. Eh…I don’t even remember what I was going t
o say.” I roll my eyes and force a laugh. “Anyway, you were saying?”
Joe thankfully lets it go, and moves on with his story. “Oh, right. High school. Well, there was this big game—”
“Basketball?” I ask.
“Football.”
“Oh.” I blink a few times. I wouldn’t have pegged him for a football player.
“I know, right?” he says, gesturing to his body, as if he heard what I said. “Definitely not your standard football player.”
I scrunch my face into an apologetic grimace. “Not really.”
“So obviously I was a little nervous about the game. I probably shouldn’t have been. I was actually a pretty good player. Fast and agile. I was able to fake out the other team pretty easily, but still…I wanted to make sure we won.”
“So what kind of spell did you cast?” I ask, and it’s only then that I realize what an absurd conversation this is. Asking someone what spell they cast makes me feel like we should be in the Gryffindor tower of Hogwarts.
He takes a breath and then blows it out. “A protection spell.”
“Protection?” I repeat. “Why not a strength spell or a run-faster spell?”
“Ha! I was already faster than anybody on the field. But that didn’t always protect me from getting tackled. And I needed touchdowns.”
“So what happened?”
Joe takes a sip of his drink. “It worked great, actually, but I wasn’t smart enough to realize I needed to downplay it.”
“Oh?”
It’s his turn to grimace. “We won…by 235 points.”
My jaw drops and then I burst into laughter. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I wish I was,” he says and then shakes his head with a chuckle. “I obviously got found out, and the entire town was in a tizzy, much to the chagrin of the elders.”
My laughter stops and I give him a quizzical look. “I’m sorry, did you say elders?”
“Oh, man,” Joe says, his voice gruff. “They really hung you out to dry, didn’t they?”
Our food arrives, but I’m not that hungry anymore. What the hell is he talking about?
I wait for the waitress to leave the table, and then launch into him. “Who are the elders? And why don’t I know about them?”
“I’m guessing you don’t know about them because your parents never told you.” He takes a bite of his food—some kind of chicken dish with goat cheese and spinach—then closes his eyes with a drawn-out, “Mmmmm. This is amazing. You want a bite?”
“Uh, no,” I say, as if my aversion to sharing food with near-strangers should have been a given. “I just want to know about the elders.”
Joe smiles. “You’ve gone this long,” he says. “You can’t wait another ten seconds for me to savor my first bite?”
“Clearly not. Now tell me.”
“All right, all right.” He puts his fork on the plate, washes his chicken down with another swig of his drink, and then leans in, lowering his voice. “The elders are a group of magical and non-magical-but-in-the-know people who are basically here to keep us in check.”
“Us?”
“The next generation,” he clarifies. “One day, you, me, your sister, and a few others, will make up the group. But for now, we’re being watched.”
“Watched,” I repeat, not sure how I feel about this.
“Making sure we’re using our magic responsibly.”
I roll my eyes. “Great. I’ve barely been on the job for six weeks and I’ve already screwed up. Why don’t they tell us these things?”
“It’s a test of your character. Do you do the right thing because it’s the right thing? Or do you only do it because you’re afraid you’ll get caught?”
“I think we all know the answer to that one. I never would have done that to Colin if I had known I was being watched by the Secret Magic Society.” I cock my head and narrow my eyes. “Are you sure we’re not in a Harry Potter book? Because this is just way too…weird.”
Joe huffs. “This is not Harry Potter, I assure you. This is real life, not some storybook.”
“Sorry.” I hold up my hands. “Didn’t mean to offend.”
“Are you gonna eat your dinner?”
Weird segue, but he has a point. My gourmet mac & cheese has gone untouched. I take a bite, savoring every flavor: the bits of bacon, the thinly sliced mushrooms, and the array of cheeses—goat cheese, gruyere and mascarpone, according to the menu. But to my taste buds, it’s simply heaven.
“Good?” Joe asks.
I’m still chewing and savoring, so naturally I shush him. He honors my request for silence, and when I’m ready to engage in conversation again, I open my eyes.
“Yes,” I say, finally answering his question. “Divine.” Another moment of silence passes before I ask, “So, what do I do now?”
Joe shrugs, looking so calm and cool in his hoodie. “Get him into the shop for coffee. I’ll be there. I’ll make sure he gets what he needs. But…”
I tear away from my mac & cheese to look up at him. “But?”
He squirms a little. “Are you sure you want to break it? I mean, you must have a thing for this guy if you were willing to put a spell on him. What if he’s not into you once it’s broken?”
It’s a fair question—a very good question. And it’s not like I haven’t considered all of that myself. The Colin I fell in love with wasn’t the Colin who invaded my living room tonight. That Colin was easy to let go of. But what will happen when he’s back to normal? Will he capture my interest again? Will I feel that all-consuming jealousy I felt before when he was with my sister?
I take a sip of my beer. “I have to do the right thing,” I say. “I don’t know how I’ll feel when the spell is broken. Hell, I don’t even know how I feel right now.”
It’s when I say this that I realize how awkward this situation is. I have no idea if this is supposed to be a date or just magical friends talking about their magic powers. Either way, things have gotten weird. Joe’s gone all quiet on me, but I don’t know him well enough to know if he’s being moody or just thinking.
“But I’m bringing him in for coffee in the morning,” I finally finish. “I can’t let this go on any longer. I’ve made everyone in my life completely miserable.”
Joe gives me a half smile that sends a shot of relief through me. “I think you’ll be glad when it’s all over.”
“I hope so.”
“Should I get the check?”
I’m not eager for the evening to end, but there’s no way I could put anything else in my mouth at this point. I can feel the elastic waistband of my Juicy suit straining under the expansion of my stomach.
“Yeah, sure,” I say with a nonchalant shrug.
Neither of us says anything else while he pays the bill. It’s not until we’re out on the street in the chilly fall air that he speaks again.
“So…” The corners of his eyes get wrinkly as he scrunches up his face. It’s so adorable and boyish, I can’t help but smile back.
“So?” I get the sense he wants to ask me out again. Or maybe he wants to kiss me. I kind of want him to do both.
“Well, this was great,” he finally says. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Oh, um, yeah.” I’m taken a little off guard and I want to yell, “Where’s my kiss?” But somehow I refrain and simply say, “Thanks for dinner and…everything.”
There’s an uncomfortable moment where I’m pretty sure we’re both wondering what we’re supposed to do now. Hug? Wave goodbye? In the end, Joe balls his hand up and punches me playfully in the shoulder, and I suddenly feel like I’m back in the fifth grade. Maybe I should send him a note: Do you like me? Check YES or NO.
“Have a good one, Candy.”
“Yeah, you too,” I reply as he walks away.
Eighteen
My alarm goes off way too early the next morning. I am so not in the mood to bake today. Or do anything, for that matter. The thought of taking Colin for coffe
e terrifies me. I wish I could just stay in bed with a pillow over my head all day.
“Good morning, sunshine!”
Oh, God. I groan at the chipper voice penetrating the basement windows. What is wrong with him? Oh, right. I put a spell on him.
“I brought you coffee!”
I sit up with a start. Coffee? Did I not say I’d take him to get coffee this morning? Crap!
Colin raps on the window, trying to get my attention, but I refuse to look at him.
“Candy!” he calls. “I’m here.”
I roll off the foldaway bed, being careful to keep the sheet wrapped around me since my tiny shorts and Playboy bunny tank top aren’t terribly appropriate. Not to mention, with all the weight I’ve gained, I’m pretty sure I look more like a poorly-stuffed sausage than a hot Playboy bunny.
He’s still calling out for me as I enter the bathroom and shut the door. This has got to stop. I wrack my brain and play out different scenarios as I shower and quickly ready myself for the day. When I’m done in the bathroom, I use the sheet to cover myself once again as I make my way to the dresser.
“Candy, can’t you hear me? I’ve been waiting out here for you! Look! Coffee!”
I finally dare to look. He’s holding up a cup of Starbucks coffee (which he had to go to the next town over to obtain) and grinning like an idiot. God, I’m such a horrible person. I turned one of the nicest, most normal guys into a clingy, pathetic lapdog.
I give him the thumbs up and then hold up my finger to indicate that I’ll just be a minute, before I trudge back to the bathroom to put on my clothes. This is getting annoying. I should be able to get dressed in my own room in private. But with any luck this will be the last time I have to do this.
A minute later, I reemerge, fully dressed for the day in another tracksuit with a plain white t-shirt underneath. I can practically feel last night’s mac & cheese straining against the flimsy white fabric. No way will I be able to take my jacket off today.
“You look beautiful!” Colin calls as I gather my purse and sunglasses.
I fling open the basement door. “Thanks, Colin. But what are you doing here?”
The Matchbaker (A Romantic Comedy) Page 19
