Page 51 of A Witch in Notting Hill

“Other than the way you legged it out of the car?” He laughed. “Your face had gone white as a ghost. None of the usual flush to your cheeks.”

He noticed the usual flush on my cheeks? And thought to bring it up now, while my head was hanging over the side of the damn boat? Maybe I’d be better off if I jumped. Just right into the sea and sank to the bottom. I couldn’t be embarrassed at the bottom of the sea.

“Come with me,” he said suddenly, grabbing me by the elbow.

“What? Where?” I was terrified to leave the edge of the ferry but didn’t seem to have much of a choice.

“Just trust me.”

I didn’t say anything else, mostly because I couldn’t for fear I’d throw up, but instead stumbled behind him as he pulled me by the arm to a secluded corner of the lower deck, with a half-wall instead of a railing, lined with a few wooden stools.

“Helps to be closer to the water,” he said. “Even if it seems like it would do the opposite. And if you alternate between sitting and standing, your body will feel the movement of the boat a little less. And the wall is better than the rails. Feels more like you’re on solid ground and less like you’re out to sea, doesn’t it?”

“How do you know all this?” I asked, sliding onto a stool and trying to breathe.

“My granduncle used to love the ferry, so we’d take rides all the time when I was a kid. I used to get quite seasick, and this always helped.”

I kept my eyes on the horizon, willing my stomach to settle and trying to distract myself. I wondered about his granduncle. He talked about him in the past tense, with a sort of nostalgia I knew all too well, and I couldn’t help but figure we had something tragic in common.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said. “Hang tight.”

Seeing as I couldn’t move a muscle without feeling like my stomach was turning itself inside out, I didn’t have much of a choice.

He returned a few minutes later with a ginger ale and a damp towel. “Take slow, small sips,” he said, handing me the soda. I obeyed, my hand shaking as I brought the can to my lips. As I drank, he pushed my baby hairs off the back of my neck with a gentle sweep of his fingers, then held the cool towel against my skin. The sensation bordered on erotic.

“How does that feel?”

All I could do was nod.

The pressure of his hand on the back of my neck, the cool towel, the intimacy of his care, it was almost too much. When I finally tore my eyes from the horizon to risk a glance at him, I was surprised to find he was already looking at me.

“You’re okay,” he said. “Keep looking straight. We’ll be there before you know it.”

I did exactly as he said, and he was right.

Chapter 20

Oliver

The vulnerability of Willow’s seasickness left me shaken in ways I wasn’t willing to admit. The way she relaxed back into me when we made it to the lower deck, trusting my advice and letting me take care of her, filled me with a sense of pride I hadn’t felt in a long time.

I didn’t want towant totake care of her like this. I hadn’t planned to feel a swell in my chest every time she looked to me for support, every time she let me take the lead. She was seeing someone, she believed she was a witch, and she was going back to California in a few short months, and none of that made it okay for me to feel this way. I needed to get this crush under control.

But then I remembered Lola saying that the guy Willow was seeing was a real dick, and I was back at square one: wanting to protect her, look out for her, even though I knew she didn’t need either. It didn’t stop me from wanting to be the one she could lean on.

Which, I knew, was insane.

I tried to snap myself out of it as we arrived at the Isle of Wight, focusing instead on my surroundings and our plans for the day and the welcome break from the heat of the city.

“Tell me we’re here,” Willow said from the back seat with her eyes pressed shut. “Are we here?”

“Indeed we are,” I said, likely as relieved as she was that she’d made it in one piece. It was touch-and-go there for a second, but fortunately she pulled through.

“Thank god,” she said. “Sorry for the drama.”

“Oh, please. That was nothing compared to the drama Lo’s capable of,” I said.

“He’s right. I’m more dramatic by nine o’clock in the morning than you’ve been this whole time you were fighting for your life.”