Page 123 of Book Boyfriends
“As we have been summoned, I imagine the witchcraft consultant provided a solution to this situation.” James waves his hand between all of us.
“No. She said my wish is complete, and there isn’t a way to solve it. At least, not one she knew about or had the power to fix,” I say, my tone soft.
“So, we’re here forever?” Lars asks, his expression unreadable.
“But you said that you had a way.” James’s forehead crinkles.
“I do. At least, I think I do. But I want to give you all the choice.” I pull out the three pennies from my pocket.
This all began with a wish. It seems fitting for it to end with one. Only not mine, theirs.
The idea came to me after exchanging well-wishes with Will. In so many ways, this whole thing started with the end of that relationship. A relationship where all my wishes and hopes for the future appeared to be ripped away. Only—as Rem said—it never was my future. It was me forcing myself into what Ithoughtwas supposed to happen. Who I thought I was supposed to be with.
So many of my failed dates since Will weren’t just their fault, but mine. It wasn’t the fear of getting hurt by someone else that held me back, but of making the wrong choice again. Some of them were exactly who I pictured, but I didn’t trust that.
I didn’t trust me.
Thanks to this wish gone right or wrong, however you look at it, I trust myself now. Right now, I trust that this may be the answer we’ve been looking for.
“I don’t know how wishes work or if this will. What I do know is that I want to give you the choice. Something you didn’t have from the start. Even if I didn’t mean for you to be brought here, you had no choice in that. I want to give it back to you.” I hand each man a penny. “For you to wish for your happiness. Whatever that is. It’s your choice.”
“You want us to wish?” Owen says, his speech hesitant.
“What if it goes sideways like yours did?” Lars asks.
“But my wish didn’t actually go sideways,” I say.
This entire situation isn’t what I wished for. None of this went as planned. Even if I didn’t plan for it. It didn’t come with a guaranteed happy ending, like one of my books. It just is. My eyes are now open, and my heart is ready to live life knowing that things may not turn out okay. It’s both terrifying and freeing.
“Wishes don’t work the way we think they should… But they do work. We just have to be open to it. Each of you has helped me know what I want and at great sacrifice to yourselves. Selena. Ivy and your pack. Lady Cecily.” I meet each man’s stare.
“You want us to leave. To wish to go back.” A tight smile anchors Lars’s hard expression.
“I want you to do whatever you want to do. To wish for what you want. To do what I’d failed to do, write your own endings… your own stories,” I murmur.
Whether their stories are only figments of my imagination or communicated to me telepathically in some strange inter-realm game of telephone, these are their stories, not mine. This morning, as I listened to Elsie and Patrick’s story, the words came alive with each tap of my fingers on the keyboard, and that truth nested deep within me.
“Whatever we want,” Owen murmurs, holding the coin up.
“Yes.” Stepping back, I gesture to the fountain. “Make your wishes.”
“And what if we don’t want to wish?” Lars asks.
“That’s your choice. Whatever you choose, I’m here for you as you’ve been here for me.”
In a different way each, of these men have guided me to reclaim my own story. Even before they magically appeared, they’d been part of the piecing back together my heart. It’s now their turn to reclaim their stories.
“Thank you, rabbit.” Lars reaches over and squeezes my shoulder.
Coin in hand, each man stands at the edge of the fountain. The stone gleams in the not-quite-evening sunshine.
“I wish whatever is supposed to happen, happens.” Owen tosses his coin into the water.
“I wish for those I left behind’s happiness, as well as my own.” Lars follows suit.
Face wrinkled, James studies the coin before lifting it to his lips and pressing a tender kiss. “I wish for Lady Cecily to get her true happy ending,” he murmurs and then tosses it in.
The three just stand, their gazes fixed on the ripples in the fountain’s pool. I don’t know what I thought would happen. Just as the night I made my wish, it’s quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary. No poof of magic or sprinkle of fairy dust.
