Page 66 of The Pumpkin Spice Spell
“I mean it,” I say, stepping a little closer. “You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to want better. And you’re allowed to have people in your corner.”
There’s a long silence. Then, slowly, Tate nods. “Okay.”
Just that. But it lands like an earthquake under my skin.
“Also,” Ivy cuts in, sniffing dramatically and yanking a tissue from her bag, “I just want to say this is peak sister behavior. I’m proud. I will now accept muffins and your strongest tea blend for my emotional damage I went through today.”
“I made cinnamon apple,” I say, already walking toward the back to grab more.
Tate calls after me. “Those werefor me, huh?”
I pause in the doorway, looking back at him over my shoulder. “Yeah,” I say, smirking. “You.”
His smile is small. But real.
And I think for the first time in a long time, he’s happy.
By the time we finish organizing the last batch of flyers for the festival, and sorting through the chaos that is the sign-up sheet for the festival activities, the bookstore feels like it's hummingwith life. The glow from the string of lights above the counter is casting a honey-like haze over the room.
Tate leans back in the chair next to me, stretching one arm behind his head and groaning like an old man. “I think I’m never doing this again.”
I laugh, full and unguarded. “That’s what you get for not speaking up when Donna and my mom manipulate us.”
He gives me a tired grin, and I realize for the hundredth time today how ridiculously handsome he is. Hair mussed, sleeves pushed up. A smudge of ink on the side of his hand.
“I gotta say,” I murmur, curling my fingers around the last of my cider, “this isn’t how I thought this was all going to go.”
He tilts his head. “The festival?”
“Everything. Us. You helping and being here.”
His lips twitch into a slow, knowing smirk that makes my toes curl in my boots. “You did, didn’t you?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Did what?”
“You hoped,” he says, voice dropping to something lower. Warmer. “You hoped it’d get better.”
I blink. “You thinkIhoped?”
He leans in, eyes never leaving mine. “I know I did.”
My heart squeezes. “And has it?”
Tate nods, his smile soft now, a little shy. “Yeah. It has.”
And just like that, everything in me goes quiet.
I don’t realize I’ve moved until my leg brushes his under the table, and neither of us pulls away. Outside, the wind kicks up, rattling the front door just enough to remind us the season is shifting. Inside, though? Inside, it’s warm. Electric.
We fall into an easy silence, the kind that hums with things unsaid butunderstood.
Then Tate clears his throat. “So…this town ghost tour thing. Please tell me you’re dressing up.”
“Oh,absolutely.I’ve got a velvet cape, dramatic eye makeup, the works.”
He laughs, head tipping back slightly. “Of course you do.”
“What about you?”
