Page 36 of A Touch Charmed

“Maybe your father had something on her, or maybe she was just taking a swing at you.” He tilted his head in contemplation. “How close were the two of you?”

“I’ve known her since grade school.”

“This is a small island, gorgeous. Everyone’s known each other since grade school.”

Close was a relative term. Did we share personal things? Sometimes. Did I consider her someone I could count on? Maybe. But I didn’t make friends the way other people did in school. I got told who my friends were before I ever set foot in a classroom.

Finn was the first person I ever chose for myself.

“Our parents are friends,” I said.

“Your parents network and use their kids to network.” Sadness touched his eyes before he tucked my hair behind my ears. “That’s not a friend.”

“Oh.” I stared at the dirt crusting the inside of my nails. “I guess I never had any friends then.” I blinked as I raised my gaze to the sky. “God, that’s so pathetic.”

“You had other friends, not just Olivia.”

“You mean the ones who told me how many people you were sleeping with, like it made them happy to rub it in my face?” I swallowed the log in my throat.

“None of them.” His lips thinned. “I know what Olivia said by the Ferris wheel bothered you, and I don’t blame you for it, but for what it’s worth, I didn’t sleep with anyone until you didn’t come back the next summer. When I thought I’d lost you for good…” He fisted his hands together. “All I had left was missing you. I thought it was better to feel nothing than that empty place where you should’ve been.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’m not going to hold any of that against you.” As soon as I said the words, they rang true and right for me. The past had done its damage. It was time to move forward. I ran my fingers through his short hair and brought his gaze to mine. “Haven’t we hurt each other enough already?”

“Yeah, I think we have.” He stood and helped me up.

The woods went eerily silent around us. I blinked as a dark cloud covered the sun. A black arrow shot out of the trees, just barely grazing Finn’s ear. Before I could open my mouth to scream, he scooped me up and already had me home.

Chapter 11

Thora

Finnsetmetomy feet once we made it inside. Though we understood the walls couldn’t keep the curse out, it still made us feel safer. Our palms glowed with soft, pulsing light and my magic hummed inside me in that same gentle rhythm.

My mind still reeled from everything we’d uncovered in the forest. He had never sent me those texts and had never gotten any of my texts. It took him almost two weeks to get a new phone because he had to wait for payday. By then, I’d already blocked his number.

Hank brought him over on the ferry after he dropped me off. My father must’ve told security at the school not to let Finn up to my dorm. It couldn’t have been anyone else. And no one else had access to my phone. But why had Olivia gone along with all that?

I still couldn’t wrap my head around that part. What could my father have offered her to make her do something like that? Then again, if Finn and I hadn’t already been going through a rough patch, none of those things could’ve taken place. It had all formed a perfect storm.

While I wanted to march right over to my father’s house to confront him about everything he’d done, my anger for him didn’t burn as bright as my regret for the time I’d lost with Finn. We’d been kept apart for seven years. An untold amount of longing lay between us and I wanted to heal with Finn more than I wanted to hurt my father.

The same desire sparked in Finn’s eyes as he took my hand and led me to the bedroom. His palm held a mild pearlescent gleam, but his speed remained normal. Tonight was about us. Not our magic, not what we needed to do about the curse, not even about the past.

I didn’t want to wallow in the things I couldn’t change.

I wanted to hold happiness again, the way I had when I was twenty-one.

I wanted new memories.

As soon as he closed the bedroom door, I circled my arms around Finn’s neck. “I don’t want to talk about what happened anymore. At least, not tonight.”

“Agreed.” He rubbed his hands up and down my waist, sending shivers of desire down to the tips of my toes. “But what do you want to do instead?”

“Remember that request I made after we got off the Ferris wheel?”

Humor danced in his eyes. “Vividly.”

“Can we get back to that?”

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