Page 65 of The Fate Factor

“Are you talking to my cat in a baby voice?”

“Um, that’s the only way to talk to a cat, Noel. Otherwise they don’t understand. Oh my God. Have you been talking to her in a regular voice this whole time?”

I laugh harder, my heart aching with the way it stretches. “What was I thinking?”

“How long have you had her? She looks like a kitten.”

“She’s three. Nana adopted her when she was already sick. It was kind of a given that Pixie would outlive her, so she’s always been a little bit mine. Sometimes I think she knew I would need her.”

The vulnerability I’ve let slip has his eyes back on me, and my cheeks warm again.

“Um, do you want a beer? I actually have some of yours.”

A grin explodes across his face. “No. Thank you. You go ahead, though. Please. Make my fantasies come true.”

I smile at his joke, but it’s wobbly. I don’t know what to do with flirty Jamie after how we left things. After not speaking to him for three days.

A little liquid courage will be a start. I pull out his fall ale and pop the cap, taking a big gulp. There’s a tension here, an awkwardness that’s all me, and unless I want to explain to him that I thought we were destined for each other, and now, because of his choice in body ink, I’m not so sure, I need to start acting normal. If there is a normal in a situation like this.

“Listen, Jamie—”

“Can we sit down?” He sets Pix on the floor and looks toward my couch.

“Yeah, of course.” He follows me into the living room, where I notice too late the burning candle on the coffee table that I swear wasn’t an intentional ode to this thing between us.

He seems to notice this too, and he gives me a shy,well, this is awkwardsmile before taking the seat beside me.

“I want to say something.”

“Okay.” Inside my chest, my heart can’t decide what to do, sink like a stone at his serious expression, or do more of that berserk thing from the fire escape. I really wish I could tell the future right now.My God, the irony.

“This is really important to me,” he says, then clears his throat. “This deal we made, asking you to try to see some cosmic tip. I wouldn’t have asked you if it wasn’t.”

“I know.”

“But I realized something the other night on the beach. Before that really, if I would have let myself admit it. I realized that ifit were a choice between never getting another glimpse of the future, or getting one and having that be the end of this, of my excuse to see you all the time. Well, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t want that.” He pulls in a shaky breath. “I missed you so much the last few days, Noe. More than I—”

“More than makes sense,” I say, finishing his confession with my own.

“Yeah.”

“Me too.” My heart firmly chooses the berserk thing, pounding against my breastbone. But I know you can’t always trust your heart with these things. Missing. Wanting. These are things that get you in trouble. Missing him doesn’t change the fact that holes in this magic make the two of us as end game so much less likely. He doesn’t know that part. He doesn’t know most of it, the most important parts.

And he’s here anyway.

Everything that’s happened so far flips through my brain like a photo album. I saw us in bed together somewhere I can’t name, with his body different than it is now by a fraction. I saw us on the porch just on the other side of this wall, touching in a way I’m sure I’ve never touched anyone else. Absorbing his kiss like it was my birthright.

I didn’t see us three stories up on a fire escape, me following him like I was possessed by the spirit of someone braver than me. I didn’t see us running into the ocean in October in my underwear, touching him with that same bravery. And then freaking out.

How does this thing, whatever it is, decide which movie to play in my brain? And how does this fit? Him sitting here now, confessing that I’m not imagining what’s brewing between us, even if what I saw was flawed.

I wish, not for the first time, that I’d asked Nana about this when I had the chance instead of pretending that night on theroof never happened. Looking back, she must have been some kind of professional. She seemed to be able to control it, wield it. We’d ask silly questions, and she’d give us silly answers that maybe weren’t that silly after all. But it didn’t come out of nowhere and shock the hell out of her.

Or maybe she just didn’t tell me that part. It’s entirely possible she saw more than what she shared with two pre-teen girls. By the time I was old enough that she might have trusted me with the details, we’d stopped asking. I didn’t believe in it. Which leaves me shit out of luck now when I need to know more.

“You really believe all of this, don’t you? Like with your whole heart.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “I do.”

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