I started searching around in the dark for my clothes, somewhere between impressed and embarrassed at just how far flung some pieces were. “You don’t have to get up. I can see myself out.”

  “Nonsense.” I couldn’t see his face in the shadows of the bedroom, but Andre sounded a little affronted. “I’ll take you home—at least see you to your door.”

  I laughed, feeling replete and a bit lazy, but still giddy, with sparks of pleasure still skittering over my skin. “You don’t need to do that. I live literally up the road. It’s a forty-five second drive. Don’t be silly.”

  But he didn’t lie back down, just tugged his pants on, and then fumbled with the lamp on the bedside table until it clicked on and spilled pale golden light into the room.

  “If you don’t want an escort home, I suppose I’ll have to honor that request,” he said and gave me an expression that wasn’t pleased. “But I’ll at least see you to your car, if you can just give me a moment.”

  “Okay.” I probably should have protested more. There was no reason for him to get up and get dressed, just to walk me down the stairs and three feet to my car outside. But his care was nice. I appreciated it. And I liked that he wanted to spend another few minutes with me. I felt the same way, wanting to stay almost more than anything. The bonds between us felt like warm toffee, sweet and golden, but I knew they could and would stretch as we moved apart.

  “I can’t seem to find my shirt,” Andre mumbled, checking the floor under the bed. “Sorry, Poppy. Just a moment.” He disappeared into the closet.

  I didn’t mind an excuse to linger for another moment. It gave me a chance to actually look around Andre’s bedroom, since I hadn’t paid much attention earlier.

  His bedroom was sparse, bordering on spartan, really. Andre didn’t have a lot of shelves or knick knacks of anything. The curtains were heavy, draping all the way to the floor, and in the same navy blue as the duvet on his bed. The dresser was dark, heavy wood, with a mirror attached that was smaller than the one I had in my own bedroom. There was also a large trunk at the foot of his bed that I had no idea how I hadn’t noticed before.

  Then I remembered exactly what we’d been doing when I came into the room, and I understood. A flush rose in my cheeks even though I was grinning. Andre could have had a live alligator in the room, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed it.

  There were some papers on his dresser, and I wasn’t exactly given to snooping, but I had to admit that I was curious. And Andre was still in his closet, I could hear fabric rustling, so I knew he was going to be out any second, and so I took a step closer to the dresser and took a little peek. They were right there, out in the open. It wasn’t like they were hidden, or anything.

  It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at, but one thing caught my eye right off the bat. It was emblazoned across the top of the page, a letterhead that involved a stylized lion strutting across the page. The logo for the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.

  I only caught a glimpse, the first couple lines of the letter, but it was pretty obvious what I was looking at. It was a job offer. For Andre. To do a magic show at one of the biggest and best hotels, in one of the most prestigious cities in the country when it came to acts of any sort. From what I could tell, this wasn’t an offer for a weekend gig either. This was a permanent position they were talking about, with multiple shows a week. Thousands of miles away from Haven Hollow, and thousands of miles away from me. From Finn.

  My heart dropped so hard and so fast, I was surprised it didn’t bounce across the floor. I took a step back from the dresser, and then another. My thoughts were whirling so fast that I felt like I was going to be sick.

  Was Andre really going to just pack up and leave? I mean, why wouldn’t he? Sure, he’d said he wanted to stay, that he would teach Finn how to be a Magician, but those were just words. They didn’t have to mean anything, really. And maybe he’d meant them, really meant them, before he’d received this offer? Maybe this offer had changed the course of his life and he just wasn’t sure how to tell me?

  Had all that talk about being right where he was meant to be just talk? A kind of empty flattery? Or worse, just a line to get me into his bed, and now that the deed was done, he was ready to move on? At that thought, my stomach about dropped to the ground and my stomach instantly soured. Was Andre just like all the rest of them?

  All the warmth lingering in my skin went cold, and a greasy nausea continued to build in my stomach.

  Okay, no, stop it, Poppy, I told myself. Andre is different. He will never be like all the rest of them.

  Andre had proved over and over that he wasn’t that type of guy, and nothing like a bunch of guys that I’d dated in the past. The bonds between us were real. Heck, I could still see the magical red threads that bound us together out of the corner of my eye. They were real. He was real. We were real. That meant something.

  And, if I was being completely honest with myself, I knew I had a kind of anxious attachment style. I was always worried about being abandoned and I always needed reassurance in a relationship. To the point that when I’d realized Roy had a soulmate out there that wasn’t me, I’d broken up with him pre-emptively just so he didn’t have a chance to break up with me when he figured out that it was Fifi who was the woman for him.

  I wasn’t going to jump to conclusions or make decisions based on past relationships and past trauma. Andre was different. I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. If he wanted to leave, I had to trust that he would tell me himself.

  But the MGM? That was one heck of an opportunity. What a move for his career. Andre would be using his magic to make thousands of people happy, every day. He could bring hope to so many people. Could I really ask him to pass that up just to stay with me in Haven Hollow? Would he even want to continue building our little family? Could I really be that selfish?

  My thoughts were still whirling around in my skull like a flock of startled birds when Andre finally emerged from his closet, doing up the last buttons on his shirt with quick fingers.

  “Sorry about that. Are you ready?”

  Luckily for me, the bedside lamp didn’t cast all that much light, so the smile I managed to dredge up must have actually looked believable. “Yeah, thank you.”

  Still, Andre kept shooting me little looks as we moved down the hall and towards the front door. When we reached the entryway, he stopped me with a hand on my arm and a little frown of concern between his brows.

  “Are you alright?”

  I swallowed hard, but I forced myself to smile and tried to remember the warm, champagne bubble feeling I’d been filled with earlier. “I’m fine, I’m just tired.”

  As fibs went, it wasn’t a bad one, since I did want nothing more than to be home and able to crawl into bed again. I must have convinced Andre, because he smiled and leaned forward for another kiss. I leaned into it and ignored the burn of tears threatening. I wasn’t going to leap to conclusions. We’d had a lovely evening, and even if the fires had all burned down to cold ashes now, I was still going to remember the warmth.

  He gave me one more kiss goodnight at the door of my Jeep, and that managed to get a real smile out of me. I leaned into that one, too, and drew back only reluctantly.

  Andre waited on his porch until I pulled out of his driveway and got far enough down the road that we couldn’t see each other anymore.

  I drove slowly, carefully. It wasn’t a long drive to my house, but we were far enough from the more populated areas and close enough to the woods that sometimes critters liked to run across the road, and that was the last thing I needed that night.

  I parked in the driveway, feeling a little gray and numb, and just sat there in the Jeep for a long moment. Late season crickets picked up the chorus after a few seconds, and my engine ticked for another few as it began to cool. Still, I didn’t move. Instead, I stared into the dark for a long moment and an even longer one after that, my head feeling both too full and too empty.

  Then I dragged myself out of the car and, drudging up a smile for Finn, I went inside.

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning, I felt kind of terrible.

  I knew I was overthinking things, but even so, I had to physically restrain myself from jumping to conclusions. But knowing I was being silly somehow didn’t stop me from being silly, which felt pretty unfair.

  Finn frowned down at his bowl of slightly soggy cereal and swirled his spoon through the milk again with a dubious expression. “Um. Did your date with Andre… not go well or something?”

  “Not go well! Why would you think that?” I over-insisted, shaking my head and laughing. “No, no no. It went great! So great!” I finished with a smile that was a little too wide if the way Finn was looking at me meant anything.

  “It did?”

  “Yeah,” I insisted. “I just, uh… woke up a little late—hence why you’re having cereal for breakfast.” I took a breath. “Why don’t we go out to dinner tonight? Just the two of us?”

  Finn gave me another worried look, but then shrugged and dug into what was left of his soggy cereal. “Sure,” he answered and gave me another look. “Do I need to remind you, Mom, that I can tell when someone isn’t being honest?”

  I felt my heart drop, but I knew I couldn’t tell him the truth. Not yet. If Andre left town, it wouldn’t just break my heart—it would also break Finn’s heart, and there was no way I was going to clue him into the fact that that could be an actual reality.

  “I’m not ready to talk about it yet, Finn,” I managed as I whirled around and started aggressively doing the dishes, determined not to keep thinking about it.

  ***

  The next couple of days went by in a blur, and I continued to feel pretty much terrible. Andre and I still texted all the time, and things felt normal (well, as normal as they could, given the context). Regardless, he never once brought up his fancy job offer, and that somehow just made the anxiety twist a little tighter inside my chest.

  Finally, one morning after dropping Finn off at school, the tension was so thick in my body, I thought, to heck with it, and turned left at the intersection where I was supposed to turn right. What was the point of being the boss if I couldn’t go into work late every once in a while? And I was desperately in need of a self care day. I’d been dragging my funk around for way too long now. Finn was more than aware that his mother wasn’t her usual happy self, and I knew I’d hardly been myself. And when Wanda made a comment on my mood, then I knew it was bad.

  For most people, hearing something like, “what’s the matter with you? You’re not as irritatingly chipper as usual,” might have sounded like an insult, but it was just Wanda’s very special type of concern. And if Wanda was picking up on my sour mood, then drastic measures were in order. I needed something to lighten me up, something that would make my day a little better, and I had just the place in mind.

  No, it wasn’t Sweeter Haunts, but the chocolate shop was a temptation. Instead, I turned onto the street where one of the Scapegrace coven members, Imani, had opened up the town’s only magical hair salon.

  Imani came to Haven Hollow all the way from New Orleans. She’d heard good things about our local coven, apparently, and liked how progressive things were with warlocks being full members, and even a few non-witches involved. She’d stuck around town for a little while to decide if she wanted to stay, and was now the coven’s newest member and I was happy about that because I liked her a great deal.

  Haven Hollow had also been badly in need of a salon, and now we had one that could offer charms woven into someone’s hair. Charms for luck, or confidence, or romance. I turned my thoughts sharply away from the last word and focused instead on finding a parking spot.

  Luckily for me, it was early enough that it wasn’t too hard to find a spot within reasonable distance of the salon. Hopefully, the same could be said of Imani’s schedule—it wasn’t like I had an appointment. The second I stepped through the door, something in my shoulders relaxed. The quiet music, the faint smell of eucalyptus in the air, the hum of the dryer, it was almost meditative. There was just something soothing about a good salon.

  Imani was with a client when I stepped through the doors, but she smiled and called a greeting when she saw me.

  “Hey, Poppy. How are you?”

  “Good thanks.”

  “What are you in for?”

  “I just need a little pick me up,” I answered, trying to keep my voice even and my smile in place. “I don’t have an appointment, but I was hoping you’d be able to fit me in?”

  “For sure, for sure. Just give me a minute to finish up here. Why don’t you take a look at the magazines on the coffee table there and pick out what you like.”

  “Oh, good idea,” I answered with a quick smile and a little wave.

  Imani gave me a nod. “I’ll be right with you.” Then she tossed the waterfall of her braids back over her shoulder, the little golden beads she’d sealed the ends with clicking together and sounding like rain. With a deft brush and a hair dryer, Imani went about styling the hair of the woman in her chair into soft waves that framed her angular face.

  I drifted over to the couch in the corner of the salon and glanced down at the magazines, which were organized neatly in rows on top of the coffee table. I didn’t need or want anything too fancy. Just a little trim and maybe some highlights or something. Just a change—something to lift my spirits. Even just getting a charm woven into a blow dry would be nice. The way Imani worked was always so relaxing. Her magic was a combination of witchcraft and voodoo, and the way she whispered her prayers in Creole French as she carefully wove her charms into a person’s hair could just melt you if you weren’t careful. Even the act of being fussed over would probably lift my spirits.

  But which charm to get? I looked up at the framed list of charms available that was hanging on the wall in a gold, gilt frame. As I drifted down the line of various charms, two ladies entered the shop, their heads bowed together as they whispered to each other and took seats in two chairs opposite the couch, where I was standing.

  There were a lot of options to choose from as far as the charms were concerned, and I was having trouble picking while also completely ignoring all the romance options on the pink tinged poster board. Almost against my will, my eyes kept sliding that way though, and I was putting in so much effort to ignore them, that I wasn’t actually reading any of the other options.

  “Do you think they’ll have to redo the whole thing, then?” One of the women in the waiting area chairs whispered a little too loudly over the hair dryer. In fact, she was so loud, she might as well have just used a normal speaking tone.

  “I don’t see how they could. It was statewide, not just at the local high school. I don’t even know how they’d go about doing it over. Besides, why punish the entire school when it was just one group that was cheating?”

  When the other woman, who had dark curls and was dressed in a green cardigan, said as much, my ears perked up. I didn’t like to eavesdrop, but if something was happening at Finn’s school, I wanted to know about it.

  The first woman, a blond with baby-fine hair, clucked disapprovingly. “It sounds like it was a pretty big group that got caught.”

  Cardigan huffed a laugh, but there wasn’t anything humorous in it. “I know. And they weren’t exactly subtle about it, were they? All of them getting perfect scores, even though none of them were top students.”

  “Top students?” the blond huffed. “They weren’t even close to B students!”

  “That’s asking to get caught.”

  The blond lady shook her head, but there was an eagerness to her, like a bird spotting a tasty worm. “Do they know how they did it, yet?”

  “No.” Cardigan tossed her hair back, tugging her sweater tighter over her chest. “But there’s going to be an investigation. They’re looking into the group, and there might even be some suspensions. I don’t know what they were thinking. This is going to affect funding for sure.”

  The two of them tutted some more, and then turned the conversation towards someone named Janice who was apparently having problems with her husband. I really didn’t want to hear about someone else’s relationship troubles, so I inched away, closer to where the good luck charms were listed, but still unable to pay any attention to what I was reading.

  I didn’t know how much of what the two women were talking about was true and how much of it was inflated for the sake of gossip, but it didn’t sound good. Sure, Haven Hollow High probably had its share of kids trying to cheat on tests. But that had sounded large scale and organized, which was odd. And the fact that the teachers apparently didn’t know how the kids were cheating? We’d come a long way from my days in school, where the only options were crib notes and writing on your hand and hoping you didn’t sweat very much.

  I made a little mental note to ask Finn about it later. I knew he wouldn’t have gotten caught up in any of it; he’d spent way too long studying to risk his marks by cheating, even if I thought he’d be inclined to try, which I didn’t. Growing up knowing exactly when someone was lying to him had made Finn a bit of a stickler for honesty.

  “Poppy, why don’t you come on back and sit in the chair for me, hon?”

  Imani’s voice jolted me out of my thoughts, and I realized she was just ringing out her last client at the register.

  A little bit of pink crept into my face at being caught staring into space, but I smiled and scooted back to the waiting chair. Imani followed quickly, snapping a pretty purple cape around my shoulders to protect my clothes.

  “Did you pick out a charm?”

  “Not really,” I had to admit. The blush grew a little deeper. “I was thinking something for good luck? Maybe you should pick.”

  “And did you just want a blow out?”

  I nodded. “And maybe a trim or highlights?” I paused. “I just feel a little… blah, so anything you can help to get rid of the blah would be good.”