Page 77 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

Every box in my mental attic has toppled loose and there isn’t a smile big enough to Jenga them back together.

I shake my head.

The bed shifts as Logan sinks down next to me, a still weight. I lean into his frame.

“Want me to stay?” he asks.

I should say no. He might be here now, but he won’t be forever. I don’t want to depend on someone who I won’t always be able to count on.

But right now, all I want is his comfort.

So, I say, truthfully, “Please.”

Logan rounds the foot of the bed and lifts the covers, sandwiching himself under my thick pile of blankets.

I roll over so I’m facing him and he tugs me toward his chest, slotting my forehead below his chin and folding me in his arms. I inhale his smell: bright and earthy, grass after rain. Despite the devastation still being wrought outside, I find that comforting.

The shivers up my spine ease. The crackle of my mind quiets.

Eventually, I fall asleep.

Hazy morning light filters through sheer curtains. My hair, tacky with the residue of sweat and tears, is plastered to my cheeks. I force my eyes open and find one of Logan’s arms cinched around my waist. My chin is planted into the dent of his sternum.

He brushes a curtain of my curls away from my face.

“Morning,” he says softly.

Oh, my heart answers. It’s you.

The ceiling fan turns gentle circles, ghosting my sticky cheeks with air. It might be the only thing that saved me from sweating through this pile of blankets.

“Did I dream it?” I whisper.

Logan shakes his head minutely, as though a smaller gesture will hurt me less. The plunging of an emptying drain pulls through my stomach.

“But the gala?” I ask.

“A success,” he confirms. “The guests left happy.”

“And how about…the two of them?”

Logan’s expression hardens. “Mason told them to get lost before I had a chance.”

I stare at a swirl of plaster on the ceiling. They might be gone, but this isn’t over. If I’m lucky, that gala will be the last time they’ll show up at my house, but this is a small town. I’ll never be able to walk into a grocery store or the dentist’s office without low-level anxiety. Every time I think I’ve moved on, there they will be, a sharp reminder of my fallibility.

When I don’t say anything else, Logan asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” A frustrated sigh rattles out of me. “Wouldn’t it be weird?”

Logan hums under his breath and grabs my palm, starts tracing my lifeline with a callused thumb. “I don’t think there’s much you and I can’t talk about.”

In my mind, a tire swing creaks.

I nod and blow out a long breath, remembering that look Blake and Liv exchanged. I’m sure I’ve seen it before. Once in the car, when I was falling asleep in the back seat and they were up front. Once when I interrupted them cooking together and they startled apart by the oven. Once—across a crowded bar—when I was pulled away to greet an old client.

And all of these moments? They didn’t happen in Oregon.

They’re all memories from Florida.