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“It wasn’t hard.”
“These tables are heavy.” Maggie leaned on one to prove her point.
“I plow into giants for a living. This was nothing. Sit, please.” Maggie sat and pulled the basket toward her. She poured each of them a drink of the Thistlestone holiday whiskey.
“I was saving this to open with you, but the witches got to it first.” Lucas sat behind her and pulled her against him before taking his tumbler. His fingers brushed hers and it was just…
“Like magic,” he said, finishing her thought and setting down his empty glass. “How much of us is magic, Maggie?” he asked, and she heard the fear in his voice.
“None of it. The magic doesn’t work like that. We can’t magic something that wasn’t meant to be.”
“But yet you’ve enchanted me for years,” he said, dropping his head on her shoulder as if resigning himself to his fate.
“I didn’t conjure this feeling between us. Trust me.” Believe me, please.
“What about Elspeth, Penny, or Harper?”
She turned to him. “They wouldn’t either, because—”
“It doesn’t work that way,” he said with her.
“Right. It sounds like Cal told you a lot.”
Lucas laughed bitterly against her back, and the vibrations ripped through her. She didn’t need Penny’s skills to know how disturbed he was about her confession. “I feel like he barely told me anything.”
“Why don’t we eat, and you can ask me all your questions?” With shaky fingers, Maggie opened the basket and unloaded the appetizers and the other finger food, and Lucas poured himself another glass of whiskey.
“I don’t know if whiskey goes with all this delicious-looking food,” she said, handing him a bottle of water.
“I don’t think it matters.” He loaded his plate and sat next to her. They ate in silence, giving brief smiles whenever they caught the other’s eye. She wanted to scream. “So, how long can you keep these flowers alive? I know the other bouquet lasted a lot longer than usual, but I thought I’d just gotten lucky with a fresh batch.”
“Four? Maybe six weeks if I focus on it.”
“Does it take a lot of focus?”
Maggie nodded her head. “And it’s really draining. That’s why I missed your call after my confession. I was napping.”
“And everyone was there because you summoned a signal, like the bat sign for Batman?” Maggie laughed, but it wasn’t funny.
“No, everyone was there because we needed to talk about who was bringing what for Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas day. It was prearranged. There is no signal. We’re not superheroes, Lucas. We’re witches. There’s a difference.”
“Not from where I’m sitting. You seem super to me, so humor me and tell me all your superpowers.” Even with his kind, possibly inebriated, words, her heart flew, but her brain bristled. Maggie hated the analogy. It was wrong. They weren’t superheroes, but if it helped him understand… If it gave them a chance, then she’d be a superhero for him.
“I’m not a very proficient witch. Harper calls me mediocre Maggie, and she’s not wrong, but I’m working on changing it. On being better about a lot of other things, too. Not just my powers.” She tossed back the rest of her drink and poured another. “I’m leaving for San Francisco in a week. For school. I’m taking a two-month bakery business boot camp. I’m following my heart. In a lot of things,” she said, catching her breath.
“I see.” Maggie’s heart dropped at his calm acceptance.
“San Francisco’s not too far.” He squeezed her hand and twined his fingers with hers. Shouldn’t he be upset? she wondered.
“So, what are your mediocre skills?” he asked, biting the empanada from her fingers.
“Not protecting my food,” she muttered, and he chuckled. “I’m good at living things, but not people. I can’t read them accurately or intuit their feelings, but I can get a general sense. And I can pull out dark emotions and dissipate them. The others are better with people, but no one crosses into family or the people we love.”
“So, you can’t help someone you love?” he asked, sounding worried as he held a stuffed date to her lips. Maggie bit half of it and savored the sweet, salty hit on her tongue. Lucas ate the other half while Maggie tried to form a coherent answer in her head. Lucas looked at her intently, as if memorizing every freckle and the shape of her lips.
“I can help, but I don’t know what they’re thinking. It’s like when you injured your hand. I healed it, but I didn’t know what you were thinking.”
“The poultice was a ruse?”
