Page 39 of Meet Cute Magic

“Uh, hi?” I ask, and her head jolts up, a wrench in her hand, wielded as a weapon. I have to fight the urge to laugh, especially when I see a smear of dust over her cheek, eye makeup smeared beneath her eyes like she’d been rubbing them, and her normally perfectly coiffed hair thrown into a wild knot on top of her head.

“Oh my god, you scared the shit out of me,” she groans, the wrench falling with a clatter to the cement floors as she lets out a sigh. When she sits back, I realize she’s in a pair of pink pajamas with little books on them, the buttons pulling at her full chest with the way she’s sitting, and I have to force myself not to think about whether or not she’s wearing a bra. It looks like she rolled out of bed and got to work on this mess. My mind wanders to what she looks like when she first wakes up, but I shut it down quickly.

That fucking kiss bond. It’s messing with my head more than I’ve been willing to admit, but now that she’s here, right before me, I can’t ignore it anymore.

“You okay back here?” I ask, fighting a smile on my lips.

“Yeah, just dandy. Something you need? I’m closed for the day, and I’m too busy to go on an ingredient adventure. Don’t worry, we’ve got more than enough time until the moon.”

“Yeah, I got that,” I say, looking around. The front panel of the heater is open, and a YouTube video is playing with the sound off on a laptop a few feet in front of her.

“What happened?”

She lets out a deep sigh; whatever modicum of nonchalance she’d been holding onto is long gone.

“My heater kicked out. The last time I had Chuck out here, he helped me limp it along, but he said the next time it went out, I’d probably have to replace the whole thing, which is like a billion dollars. Isn’t that crazy?” I don’t think this is the right time to tell her it definitely wouldn’t cost a billion dollars, so I just nod instead. I also know that Chuck, the local handyman, is kind of an ass and loves to overcharge people when he thinks he can get away with it.

“You can’t fix it with magic?” I ask, confused. She shakes her head and lets out another forlorn sigh.

“Unfortunately, since I don’t know what’s wrong, I can’t tell the magic what to do. Practical magic is wildly impractical that way. I have to know at least how to do it, and despite my watching these videos all morning, I still can’t figure out what it is this thing needs,” she says, then kicks her foot out, hitting the heater.

It makes sense, I suppose, that her magic can only do what she already knows how to do, even if the concept of magic as a whole is new and doesn’t actually make any sense to me.

“I don’t think kicking it is going to get you the results you want,” I say, moving closer and squatting in front of the unit to inspect it.

“I told her it was the same one I had,” my grandfather says from beside me. “He knows how to fix it.” From the look of it, I think a few of the connectors have gone bad, and it might need a new circuit, but it’s nothing that would be too difficult. I bet I could…

Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t—“I could probably help you,” I say against my own best judgment. Her head tips up, hope on her face, and I know I’m fucked. So very fucked.

“Really?”

Say no. Say no, Jack. Say no. Tell her you’ll stand by when Chuck comes to make sure he doesn’t take advantage, give her some pointers, say you have emergency surgery today, say anything so you’re not stuck here with this consuming feeling for hours on end, anything but—“Yeah. Definitely.” Her eyes start to water then, and any hesitation I felt about helping her in order to maintain distance is completely washed away.

Distance? Who needs it? Definitely not me with my mixed emotions and scrambled thoughts.

“Oh my god, you don’t know what that would mean to me.” Pride swells in my chest at the look on her face, and again, I have to fight not to give in. Instead, I move to squat and take in the unit before looking at her pink toolbox.

“Will those work?”

I give her a smile, because while I have a full-sized box of tools in my shop, I’d rather use her things, show her how to fix it so her magic can do it next time. So instead of heading to grab my things, I reach behind me and take off my damp hoodie, tossing it in a corner before nodding.

“Yeah, they’ll work. Want me to show you what I’m doing so you can learn?” Her eyes water again, and she surprises me by putting her arms around my neck and pulling me in for a tight, grateful hug.

“That would be amazing, Jack. You’re a lifesaver.”

I get to work, pointing out different things to her so she can understand them, even if some of the fittings need loosening or tightening, probably beyond what she could do herself. After a while, we fall into a comfortable silence, but I’m desperate to hear her talk some more.

“All these books—have you read them all?” I ask.

“What?”

“This room is full of books, your overstock, I guess?” When I look up, she nods. “Have you read them all?” A beat passes before a light laugh leaves her lips.

“God, no. I wish. It would take me a century to get through them. Plus, more books come out every day. It’s actually a nightmare of mine, dying before I read all of the books I want to.”

“I feel like that’s more of a reality than it is a nightmare.” She gives me an exaggerated gasp, and I smile, trying to lean into the heater to hide my smirk. “I’m just saying, you’re never going to be able to read a million books.”

“I can try. What if one I skip is secretly a book that will be my favorite for the rest of my life?”