“Come on, baby, how can you resist me?” he purred, making sad eyes at me.
I didn’t know about magic, but that was enough to break any spell. “Seriously?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re resorting to puppy dog eyes? That, right there, is why we’re not right for each other. You want a girl you can win stuffed animals for at the fair, and I am so not that girl. We don’t even have the same idea of what’s romantic.” For instance, his whole romantic proposal scenario left me cold. I didn’t want to be surrounded by strangers for what was supposed to be a private moment. If I knew Owen at all, if he ever did propose, it would just be the two of us there. He wouldn’t make a big production out of it.
“So, it’s really over, then,” he said. “You won’t give me another chance?”
Had I ever been this whiny and needy about a breakup? Maybe in high school—at least, I hoped that was the only time. “Yes, it’s over. Thank you for the good times, but I think it’s best if both of us move on, really. I’ve got a new job at the store, and I’m really enjoying it here now. I don’t need you to take care of me.”
Ever so slightly, Josh glanced at the gray guy, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that the gray guy nodded. “Okay, then,” Josh said, backing away, but still holding onto my hand. “If that’s the way you want it.”
It occurred to me that if I’d stuck with Josh while retaining my memories, I might have had a chance to learn something. But I wasn’t that good an actress. He’d have probably figured me out before I learned anything useful. “It is the way I want it,” I said firmly.
He gave my hand one last squeeze, and I blinked as another wave of magic hit me. I had a moment of haziness, and then my head cleared. “Well, then, have a nice life,” he said.
“You, too,” I added, smiling fondly. He glanced over his shoulder, like he was looking for someone, but no one was there, and then he left.
As soon as he was gone, Florence exhaled loudly and said, “Good riddance to bad rubbish. If you hadn’t sent him away, I would have.”
“I guess I should have said something more before I ran off last night,” I said sheepishly. “When a guy asks a question like that, you owe him a real answer.”
“I can picture him kneeling in that restaurant with you already out the door.”
I winced. “How humiliating!”
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Now, let’s get this place ready for the afternoon coffee break rush.”
The rest of the afternoon, I had the nagging sense that there was something I was forgetting, something I was supposed to do. I must have been pretty obvious about it, since Florence asked me at one point, “Did you leave the iron on, or something?”
“What? Why do you ask that?”
“Because you’ve got that look.”
“Oh. I guess there is something I’ve forgotten, but I can’t remember what it is. I suspect there’s some errand I was supposed to run today, but in all the excitement, I’ve totally forgotten. When my electricity or telephone gets cut off, I suppose I’ll know, huh?”
“Ah, new love. It makes fools of us all,” she said with a melodramatic sigh, but in spite of her teasing tone, she looked serious.
“Yeah, when you go straight from having one guy propose to realizing you’re in love with another guy, it really messes with your mind.”
“But in a good way.”
I kept that strange feeling the rest of the afternoon. At the end of my shift, Florence told me, “Now, you go down and see that adorable new guy of yours. Do you two have plans for tonight?”
Plans, there had been something about plans, hadn’t there? “Just going out to dinner,” I said with a shrug. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d forgotten something important.
“Well, have a good time, and in case you were wondering, you did the right thing. You made the right choice.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. I hope you are.”
“Yeah, I guess I’m sure.”
“‘Guess’ and ‘sure’ don’t usually go in the same sentence. But I bet when you see him, you’ll know, and there won’t be any ‘guess’ about it.”
I hovered in the doorway of Owen’s office when I got downstairs, watching him work. His dark hair fell across his forehead as he bent to study the document on his desk, and my fingers itched to go over to him and push it back. He looked so at home in the office cluttered with books and papers. He belonged there, and I belonged with him. Florence was right. Now I was sure.