Okay. Two days is definitely a long time, and that’s when I’m suddenly filled with a strange kind of panic that feels like thin ice forming over my skin, cracking, and re-forming … over and over again.

I go over everything in my head again—the entire conversation we had in the darkroom before everything happened. I worry I said something wrong, or I didn’t say enough. I worry about his state of mind regarding what he went through in the fire at the lake house, and that maybe we should have talked about that more.

God. I hope I didn’t pressure him into kissing me. I mean, I blocked the door. He asked me to move. Was all of it one-sided? Did I read the signals wrong? I don’t think so.… At least, I didn’t at the time.

Or maybe it was none of that. Maybe he just changed his mind and decided that kissing his best friend was too weird and squicky. Please, please, please don’t let that be it.

I could just ask him. That would clear things up.

Be upfront and honest: Are you awash in strange, new feelings for me? Because I can’t stop thinking about you, and you’re messing up all my plans, and now I need to know if I’m under a dark generational curse, or if you feel the same way, because I’ve never done this before, and I don’t know what I’m doing.

I think about texting him several times. I even compose a practice message, but before I hit Send, Evie walks behind the bookshop counter and catches me in the act.

“Want a little advice from Madame Evie the Great?” she says, dark circles under her eyes. “The spirits would tell you not to send that. Let him come to you. Or even better, just let him go. Chasing Adrian when he ghosted me after our first date got me where I am now, and I regret it completely.”

I’m a little insulted she’d even lump Lucky and Adrian into the same group; then again, she’s got more experience in these matters. Maybe she’s right and I should just wait. The more I hesitate, the more unsure I become … until all I end up doing is watching Lucky come and go, wondering what I did wrong, from the bookshop window.