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Then just as I was getting into it, my necklace began vibrating furiously.

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I should have known it was too good to last. “Um, Owen?” I said between kisses.

“Mmm hmm?”

“Unless you’re working some serious mojo on me, there’s magic going on.”

He pulled away, keeping his arm around me, and we both turned to look at the television. “What do you see?” he asked.

“I was right. It’s a mattress commercial.”

“That’s not what I’m seeing. But I don’t think it’s any better than the mattress commercial in production values.”

“Yep, that would be the ad I saw the other night.”

“And there’s no indication that there’s anything unusual about the ad you’re seeing?”

“No. It’s not even a new ad, just that same annoying mattress ad that’s always on. It makes you wonder if he actually bought the airtime, or if he’s hijacking it and the station thinks they’re showing the same old ads.”

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“He still had to produce the ad and somehow get it on the air, since we know that there really is an ad there. It isn’t an illusion.” The ad ended and he picked up the remote to turn the TV off. “I guess that’s mission accomplished for the night,” he said. “Now, where were we?” He bent to kiss my temple, then my cheek, and then my neck.

I leaned back against him with a sigh of contentment. “I still feel like there’s something we’re missing. There’s a connection we haven’t seen yet between the funding and the person who seems to be running things. Like maybe why they’re doing this when it doesn’t look too profitable. And where did all this come from, anyway?”

“All what?”

I turned to face him. “You. For the last couple of weeks, you’ve barely touched me, even though we were supposedly dating, and now, well, wow. We’re not under enchantment again, are we?”

He tapped the locket where it rested in the hollow of my throat. “What does this tell you?”

“That there’s nothing magical going on nearby right now.”

“So?”

“So, excuse me if my head is spinning.”

“You said it yourself, there was Ari’s escape, the fire that wasn’t a fire, the ice, my family, the crisis of the day, the dragons, the messed-up dinner plans. This is the first time in a long time it’s been just us with nothing crazy going on, and I was determined to make the most of it instead of panicking, getting nervous, or chickening out.”

“You were channeling your inner Bogie,” I said, resting my hand against his cheek. “I get it now. I like it.”

He wrapped both arms around me and pulled me against him in a warm embrace. “Sometimes I wish we could forget about magic and saving the world and all of that and just be us for a while.”

“But without the weirdness, would it still be us?”

“Good point. I guess we’re stuck with it.”

“I don’t mind all that much.” I rested my head on his chest and could hear his heart beating. “Now we know that all we have to do to have a successful relationship is never go out again.”

“That sounds like one of your better plans.”

But we did have to go out again, since the rest of the world was still spinning and we had things to do. After another hour or so of quality snuggling mixed with a kind of twenty questions quiz as we swapped lists of our favorite things, he walked me home and arranged to meet me the next morning to head over to Times Square. This time, I got my good-night kiss on the front steps. Things were definitely looking up.

I got home in time to catch my roommates in the middle of planning their costumes for the party. “Ooh, someone’s all aglow,” Gemma said when I walked into the bedroom. “We could turn out the lights in here and still find our way around, thanks to Miss Radiance USA.”

“I take it you had a good date,” Marcia said, raising one eyebrow.

“Yeah. Good date.”

“What did you do?” Gemma asked, flipping through a carton of masks.

“We ate dinner on his living room floor and talked.”

“Talked, huh?” She held up a black mask shaped like cat’s-eye glasses frames. “What do you think of this one?”

“Very sexy,” I said. “And, well, there might have been a little more than talking going on.”

“Then you’re home awfully early,” Gemma remarked.

“It wasn’t that much more than talking,” I said. pqdm.com