Page 85 of The Secret
“Hey, Uncle Micah.” She wrestled out of my grasp a mere second later and looked past me to where Con was rounding the hood.
“Are you Constantine?” she demanded.
Con’s smile froze. “Um. Yes. You’re Olivia, right? Happy birthday. Thanks for letting me come to your—”
“My mom says you’re gorgeous,” Olivia informed him, hands on her hips.
“Oh.” Con blushed furiously. “Well. I’ve never officially met your mom, but um, that’s nice of—”
Olivia cocked her head. “You do haveverypretty eyes.”
“You really do,” another little girl I didn’t recognize said.
Constantine shot me a wide-eyed glance.
“You really do,” I said mildly.
Con glared back.
“Well,mymother says you’re a magician.” My niece Cora pushed through the crowd of little girls and gave Constantine an up-and-down as faintly disapproving as anything the O’Leary librarian had ever dished out. “Is that accurate?”
Con looked at me again, and I shrugged, though I was pretty sure I knew exactly what she was talking about, since Lauren had started calling Constantine “The Miracle-worker” in our conversations, and no matter how many times I’d told her that things with Con and me were complicated, she’d refused to accept it.
“You just laugh so much now, Micah. It’s like he’s unlocked something inside you that lets you really enjoy life in an uninhibited way. I didn’t know that was possible.”
Neither did I. But with the laughter came this other, sadder emotion. Like I was grieving for something I hadn’t lost yet.
“No,” Constantine told Cora. “Sorry, not a magician.”
But I inhaled sharply, because the smile he gave herwasmagic, and it made me want to forget all the very real issues that would prevent Con and I from ever making thisthingbetween us into something really permanent.
“You’re wearing a pink shirt with a dancing unicorn,” my nephew Killian told Con, with his uncanny gift for stating the obvious. “Also, I’m six, like Olivia, but I am going to be seven in four months because I amolder. By a whole grade.”
I pressed my lips together and leaned against the car door as Con nodded gravely. “I’ll remember that. And yes,” he looked down at his shirt, “this unicorn is dabbing on the haters who think unicorn shirts are ridiculous, because unicorn shirts are cool.” Con turned his head to smirk at me. “Right, Micah?”
I smoothed down the front of my own shirt, which had a simple outline of a unicorn against an orange and yellow background. Or, as Constantine called it, “Literally the only unicorn shirt on the entire internet that you would ever wear because it looks a little like the Pink Floyd logo.” He was absolutely right.
“Yeah,” I told Killian. “Unicorn shirts are cool. Do I get a hello?”
Killian ignored me, his attention solely focused on the newcomer. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and pushed overlong blond hair out of his eyes. “You can use my Stomp Rocket,” he told Con matter-of-factly. “Because I like you.”
Get in line, kid.
“Wow,” Con said. “I don’t know what that is, butyes.”
“Killian Michael DiMastrio, you’d better not have brought that Stomp Rocket when I specifically told you to leave it at home.” Killian’s eyes went wide with guilt as his mother approached, and he melted back into the crowd of children.
I laughed out loud.
Lauren, who was dressed in a long black-and-white unicorn-print shirt and leggings, detoured around the crowd and wrapped her arms around Constantine’s waist like she’d known him for a hundred years. Con gave me an amused glance over her head as he returned the hug.
“Um. Hi. Lauren, right?” he guessed.
“Yes! God, sorry.” Lauren pulled away. “I’m Lauren. And my mischief-makers are Killian and Cora.” She pointed at her children. “And I amsoexcited that you’re here!”
“Thanks for inviting me.”
“Inviting you? We told Micah he wouldn’t get so much as a Christmas card if he didn’t bring you with him.”
