Page 10 of Homegrown Magic

“What are you—” Margot starts to say.

At the same moment, Yael says, “Do you drink here often?” As if they’re strangers in a gilded bar in Ashaway. As if it’s perfectly normal that the golden child of the Claunecks, someone who probably sips champagne out of crystal goblets at breakfast, has just wandered into Clementine’s Tavern.

“I…yes…of course…” Margot’s words trip out of her. She takes a swig of frothy ale, swallowing hard as she tries to calm her racing heart. Her thoughts are already sluggish from the several drinks before this one, and now they churn around the same baffling truth over and again.

Yael Clauneck is here? Sitting next to her? Wearing that smug grin that always made Margot want to smack them, or kiss them, or something in between the two? Impossible. Utterly, entirely, ridiculously impossible.

Fighting against the urge to touch the letter from Yael’s parents in her pocket, Margot sits up taller and wraps both hands around her tankard. “Yes. I come here almost every night. Well, that is, on the nights I can get away. Not that I drink every night; I just come here for company sometimes. Gods, that sounds pathetic. I mean I just come to chat or check in about an order at the greenhouse. Of course, sometimes I just head straight home. Or I fall asleep in the greenhouses, which is what happened tonight, which is why I’m still in my work clothes…”

Stop talking. Please, Margot. Just breathe.

Across the counter, Clementine’s eyebrows are nearly in her hair as she looks between Margot and Yael.

“Friend of yours?” Clementine mouths.

Margot clamps her teeth down over her words. She isn’t twelve years old, showing Yael Clauneck her tower hideaway, the two of them licking jam off the same silver spoon with Margot hoping madly that Yael shared her feelings—or at least that the jam would ease her heartache if they didn’t. And she isn’t seventeen, hoping to invite Yael to the Greenwillows’ masquerade ball, though the two of them were barely friends by then, and she wasn’t sure they could come all the way from their boarding school if she did write to invite them, but still, the thought of Yael in a mask and three-piece suit had made Margot’s teenage insides twist…

No. She is twenty-two. Responsible. The owner of Greenwillow Greenhouses and a credentialed plant witch. Yael is just an old childhood friend somehow passing through Bloomfield. Surely they aren’t here to check up on her?

It seems unlikely given how pleased Yael is looking with themself for running into Margot.

Clementine pulls a bottle of wine and two glasses from below the bar and sets them in front of Yael. “On the house for a friend of Margot’s. Stew’ll be right up, darlin’,” she says with a wink.

Yael replies with some combo of banter and charm that draws a loud, delighted laugh from Clementine.

Margot frowns and looks away to clock how many Bloomfield residents are watching them. Exactly none, which makes her breathe a little easier. If the townspeople don’t know who Yael is, then surely they won’t put together who Yael’s parents are or why that would matter to Bloomfield at all. Margot can’t help herself this time, and her hand flies to her pocket and the Claunecks’ letter.

“This girl’s a good one,” Clementine is saying to Yael while she swats at Margot with her bar rag, dragging Margot back to the moment at hand. “You’re lucky you sat next to her.”

Yael grins. “I assure you, I count myself the luckiest person in all of Harrow to be sitting beside her now.” They turn the power of their charm on Margot, and her cheeks heat.

She finds herself returning their grin.

Ridiculous.

Clementine throws Margot another meaningful look and mouths, “Cute!” as she walks away. Margot rolls her eyes, not missing how Yael’s gaze lingers on Clementine’s retreating form. Not that it matters. Not even a little bit. Yael can look at whomever they want, however they want.

Probably they weren’t ever friends, whatever Margot had hoped. After all, wouldn’t a friend have sent a note after Granny Fern died? Or perhaps a “thinking of you” bouquet after Margot’s parents decimated the Greenwillow fortune and the Claunecks finished the job? Wouldn’t a friend have wondered where Margot was in all those long years after she left Ashaway?

She glances over at Yael, who’s deftly opening the wine bottle with Clementine’s pocketknife, oblivious to Margot’s internal stewing. Clementine was right: Yael is cute. Margot remembers the way their eyebrows come together when they’re concentrating, as they’re doing now, and the way they chew on their lower lip.

Not that it matters. Margot is absolutely not thinking about nibbling on their lush lower lip.

That’s just the ale talking.

Steadying herself, Margot glugs half her tankard in three gulps.

Yael pours the dark-maroon wine into two glasses. “Cheers,” they say, sliding a full-to-the-brim glass toward Margot. “To old friends and to getting lucky.”

Margot can’t help the snort that escapes her. Yael is bold as always and charming enough to pull it off, unfortunately. Good thing they’re not friends.

And since they’re not friends, maybe that means Margot wouldn’t be breaking her own rule, if…

No.

Not thinking about that.

Still, it has been so incredibly long since she’s gotten lucky.