Lucky for me, as soon as the coffee leaves my mouth, the entire restaurant seems to spring into action, which gives me a few seconds to get my head back on straight. My mom looks at me like I’ve sprouted a second head but quickly hands me a napkin, and the man Mason is with, a wiry, energetic man in slacks and a checkered shirt, runs over and starts enthusiastically clapping me on the back. A plethora of servers magically appear with cloths, and the entire table next to us begins clucking with concerned comments, including “Is she choking? Is she ill?” A teenage girl standing behind Mason glares at me with unbridled disgust. Is Mason going to tell my mom I was there? I attempt to make eye contact with him, but he’s honestly a little bit hard to look at directly because he’s just…

Again, this is clearly not the most important thing at the moment, but he’s extremely nice to look at. He has thick eyebrows, a small scar running through one of them, and his lips are sort of bow-shaped, the bottom one fuller than the top and—

Well. His lips are just really good. Suddenly he blinks and steps backward, like he suddenly remembered his surroundings.

“Willow,” my mom says. “Do you need some water?”

“I’m fine, totally fine. I’m sorry, I think I just, ah, aspirated my drink or something.” My mom’s shoulders relax, and I see the boy mouth my name silently. Willow. I don’t mind terribly the way it looks on his lips, and that thought nearly makes me choke again.

I have literally never been this instantly attracted to a boy before, and I have to say, the timing on this is extremely inconvenient. Also, I know so much about him. I have literally read several pages of his diary.

“Willow, what…?” my mom says.

“It happens!” one of the cluckers at the next table says sympathetically. “My coffee was too hot too. You poor thing. How embarrassing. How humiliating.”

The teenage girl cracks a smile at this, and I realize she’s younger than I thought. She and Mason don’t seem to have anything in common looks-wise, other than the guarded look they’re both exuding.

My eyes go right back to him. He doesn’t know what to do any more than I do, but unlike me he seems to have figured out how to wipe all emotion from his face. I do my best to send eye messages. Do. Not. Tell. Them. I glance at my mom, then back at him, and shake my head lightly. I’m not sure if he gets it or not.

“Your name’s Willow.” He takes a few steps forward. “Like the big tree in the witch’s backyard?”