Page 45 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

Preferably before he proposes marriage or puts me on a mysterious committee of lesbians trying something different?

Is that different thing that he’s trying to get me to try a penis? His penis?

GROSS.

I’m kidding.

Mostly.

Hello?

CHAPTER 14

FLORA

By ten-thirty on Saturday morning, the line at The Spindle has finally stopped curling around the pastry case.

It isn’t gone, exactly, but there are only three people waiting instead of fifteen, which means I can make a latte without Luis calling another order over the grinder before I’ve finished the first one. The rush has left its usual evidence behind: chairs pulled away from tables, abandoned napkins beside the trash instead of inside it, and enough sugar scattered across the condiment station that I can feel the grains when I’m walking back and forth from the counter.

I’ve been here since seven, and I’m beginning to feel it in the space between my shoulder blades and my lower back.

“You want to take five?” Luis asks as he comes back from clearing a table.

I shake my head and reach beneath the counter for another sleeve of lids. “I’m fine.”

“You said that an hour ago,” he replies, eyeing me up and down and shaking his head.

“And look at me,” I say with a sarcastic flourish. “Still fine.”

He makes a noncommittal sound as he walks past, and that reminds me that he is definitely my favorite coworker because he’s the least nosy of the bunch..

I wedge the sleeve onto the shelf and check the clock.

There’s a lull coming. I can feel it in the way the room has settled, the noise no longer one continuous blur but individual conversations I can pick out if I pay attention. Once the last few orders are done, I can take a break, eat something and finally answer the dozens of messages that have been sitting on my phone since I read them this morning.

I haven’t figured out how I’m going to reply, and that bothers me more than it should.

Usually, I know what a customer needs from me before I answer.

But Primavera is harder.

I spent too much of my walk to work thinking about one sentence buried in the middle of everything she’d sent me, then caught myself doing it again while I was restocking the pastry case and deliberately redirected my attention to counting mass-produced croissants.

Whatever I send her next needs to get her out of her own way.

Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how to do that without telling her exactly what I think she should find, which would defeat the entire point.

And also, that magic doesn’t exist.

“Flora?”

I look over to Luis, who is holding out a cup.

“Sorry.” I take it from him and read the order written along the side. “Just spaced out.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

I give him a look, and he smiles before turning back toward the register.