Page 100 of A Witch in Notting Hill

She was an actor. She could have faked it if she wanted to. Pretended she believed it was the right thing to do and left it at that.

But she didn’t. She let me see how much it hurt her to break things off right when they were getting good. How much it hurt her to go it alone when she’d gotten so comfortable in our little world.

“You don’t have to say I’m right out loud if that makes you feel any better,” Lola said.

“Cheeky sod.”

“Guilty.”

“Thanks, Lo,” I said. “For the sandwich, I mean.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“I never should have underestimated the power of a good Lola Martinez pep talk.”

“That’s Dr. Martinez to you.”

“It most certainly is not.”

“Piss off, then.” She laughed, finally getting up from my desk chair but leaving her mess behind. She stopped beside my chair to rest her hand on my shoulder, and I leaned my head on her wrist. “Remember, nothing changes if nothing changes. If you want her, you’ve got to go get her. Maybe it can be your turn to teachhera thing or two about magic.”

If Min and I pointed out every time Lola was insane, we’d have done nothing but point out that Lola was insane. Which was why it was so hard for me to get my head around the fact that this time, she was actually making sense.

Or we werebothinsane. Which was probably more likely.

I spent the days following our lunch lost in thought instead of lost in misery, and it was a nice change of pace, though my customers probably couldn’t tell the difference. To them, I wasstill quiet, still pensive, still more engrossed in inventory and organization and responding to the emails I’d let pile up than I was in helping them figure out how to cook their food faster or grow their plants taller or start a fire with a snap of their fingers or whatever nonsense they were attempting.

The days were long and slow, but I liked them that way. It gave me the opportunity to really think about what I wanted. To look at the shop with a new perspective, to try to understand why I was so attached to logic, to make sense of what was next.

And most of my questions had the same answer: Willow James.

Save the logic, obviously.

But above all else, she was what I wanted. And she was what came next. Whether that was with happiness or heartbreak remained to be seen, but I owed it to us both (and Lola, unfortunately) to try.

Admitting I wanted Willow, however, was the easy part.

It was understanding my resistance to magic—challenging it, even—that kept me up at night. And in a fog during the day. And in a state of quiet chaos and painful existentialism every minute in between. The cliche of grumpy bookshop owneropened its arms even wider, and I walked right into them.

So, I did exactly what I would have been expected to do, given the persona and that, and I poured a few fingers of whiskey, then a few more, then settled in an armchair in front of my fireplace, where I planned to sit for the rest of the night until I figured out a plan.

It wasn’t fair to Willow for me to go chasing after her while still being so cynical about such a huge part of her identity, so I needed to sort that out before I did anything else. And I needed to figure out what the hell was going on with that Kip Whatever, but I needed to focus on one thing at a time.

The fire roared in front of me, the only light and sound in my tiny flat. I never felt like it was particularly safe to have an active wood-burning fireplace in a flat, but Uncle Arthur seemed to use it for his whole life and he didn’t burn the place down, so I figured I could indulge. With my heels on the bridge edge, I let the flames warm my feet and the whiskey warm the rest of me, savoring the bitterness of it on my tongue.

Trying not to remember the sweetness of Willow by comparison.

I’d gotten so lost in her that night, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to find my way back out. Lost in her scent, in the feel of her skin, in the sound of my name in her mouth. Lost in the feeling of finally connecting with someone, wanting someone, feeling wanted in return. The thoughts alone were so intoxicating I felt my stomach clench at the memory.

I was fucked.

So fucked, in fact, I found myselfwantingto believe in magic. Wishing that disconnect didn’t stand between us like a bloody monolith.

How did Uncle Arthur do it? And how did he do it while he was brothers with Grandad?

As whimsical as Uncle Arthur was, Grandad was the opposite. And my dad took after him. Stern, cold, formal. Everything someone who believed in magic was not. And I was toldtheirdad was even worse. So for Uncle Arthur to believe even despite that, so much so that he opened the shop, was an act of immense bravery. More bravery than I had, that was for sure.

If only I’d asked him more questions when he was alive. If only I had the courage to continue believing the way he had, instead of letting Grandad and Dad get under my skin. Letting them convince me I was “too old” or “too clever” to believe in magic. Then maybe I would have known what Uncle Arthur would have done.