Page 60 of Back to December
He glances after Quinn as she excuses herself and hurries away. “Eavesdropping again?”
“I have ears everywhere.” A faint smile curves his mouth. “But I don’t need them to know who’s on your mind.”
I shake my head. “You all really need new hobbies.”
“Love stories make better conversation than politics,” he says. “And yours has everyone quietly rooting for a happy ending.”
Something tightens in my throat. “Yeah, well. She wanted space. I’m giving it to her.”
Sebastian studies me for a long moment. “You’ve done something.”
It’s not a question.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have the coin anymore, do you?”
I don’t know how he knows—except he’s the one who slipped it to me in the first place. Fascinating problem for another day. “Nope.”
His eyes narrow, curious. “You gave it to her?”
“The night she left. But I didn’t exactly hand it to her like you did with me… I tucked it in her bag.”
Sebastian is a hard person to read on a regular day. But now, when my emotions feel like they’re tumbling around in a roulette wheel, it feels nearly impossible.
He leans forward slightly. “Why?”
I exhale, thumb worrying the edge of my coffee sleeve.
“Why did I give it to her, or why did I put the coin in her bag?”
He smiles. “I’d be interested in both answers.”
“I gave it to her since it helped me when we were snowed in last December.”
He nods slightly, but stays quiet. So I keep going.
“I put it in her bag because I knew she wouldn’t stay until morning. We’d already more or less said our goodbye—I felt it. And I wanted to test a theory of my own.”
“And has it proven anything yet?” he asks softly.
“I don’t know. The whole point was to see if the enchanted letters would work for us. She always talked about Ella’s fascination with them, and I could hear the yearning in her voice when she did.” I shake my head. “You wouldn’t get it,” I mumble.
“You’d be surprised,” Sebastian says. “Please continue.”
I sigh. “I always make her these mixed CDs every year—and I give her a new one every Christmas. Songs that reminded me of her all year. We still watch DVDs when she’s here. I thought maybe letters would make a bigger impression than texts—you know? That it would appeal to the hopeless romantic in her that always gravitates toward the simpler things?”
“You hoped the coin would provide a sort of link between the two of you so it would send them straight to her,” he murmurs.
“I mean, yeah. Sort of like?—”
“A path straight to you. No bypasses or wrong turns.” The corner of his mouth lifts in a cautious smile. “No accidents.”
“Right. But I don’t know if it’s working.”
A glimmer of something—sympathy, maybeunderstanding—passes through his expression. “That’s the thing about old magic. It’s patient.”
“Patience, I’ve got,” I say. “Silence is what’s slowly killing me.”
