Tiggy was poking his face and giggling. “I love everyone,” he said. “Except people who hurt Gary and Sam. I smash those people.”
Everyone at the tables was staring at us but I couldn’t care less because Ryan fucking Foxheart got boner
s because of me.
Just play it cool, Sam. You’re under a truth spell, but you got this. Just play it cool.
So I opened my mouth and played it cool.
“I jerked off to the thought of you the day I first saw you,” I said, cringing immediately. Not cool! Not cool!
“You were fifteen,” he said, sounding scandalized. “Why did you… I can’t even… I jerked off to the thought of you the day after that.”
“I was fifteen,” I said, eyes wide.
“I know,” he said. “I felt guilty for three days and then I did it again. Your mouth.”
“What’s wrong with my mouth?”
“Nothing,” Ryan said. “Except for the fact that it doesn’t have my dick in it and holy fuck, this needs to stop.” He looked horrified.
I was too. Except I also had a boner.
Horrified boners are horrifying.
As was the fact that all I could think about was telling him that he was my cornerstone. Cornerstone. Cornerstone. Cornerstone. Corner—“I’m Mervin!” I managed to say instead. It came out strangled, like I was choking.
“How much of this mixture did you give them?” Eloise asked with a frown.
The man across from me said, “Too much. I thought since they were magical, they’d need more. I gave them three times the normal dose.” He looked over at me with a contrite look on his face. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t forgive you,” I told him. “Like, at all. There is no forgiveness between you and me. In fact, I’m so far from forgiveness that it’s a foreign concept to me and I shall never understand it with you. You dick.”
The man pouted.
Good. That made me feel good.
“This is going to get worse before it gets better,” Eloise said with a sigh.
“Mervin?” Gary asked.
“Mervin,” Tiggy said. “No Mervin. You’re Sam.”
“Mervin?” Ryan said, furrowing his brow. Then he figured it out. “What?”
Don’t say it. DON’T SAY IT. “I go to the Ryan Foxheart Fan Club meetings dressed up as a guy named Mervin because I secretly pine for you and your biceps. Also? My muffins were not dry and anyone that says otherwise is a lying bastard.” I glared at the people of Tarker Mills, daring them to say anything about my muffins.
“I knew it,” Gary whispered. “I fucking knew you were sort of creepy in a sweetly romantic way and did things that most people would consider ridiculous. You went in disguise to a fan club for Ryan. Who does that?”
“Lovey Sam is creepy Sam,” Tiggy agreed.
“I’m also a Foxy Lady,” I told everyone even though I wanted to do anything but. “And then Ryan gave me his autograph thinking I was Mervin and he said he was a Sam Girl and I went home that night and put it under my pillow. And I’ve been to at least thirty meetings and I wish I wasn’t saying any of this out loud. So bad.” I tried to close my mouth, but I couldn’t help but add, “HaveHeart forever!”
“I think this is getting out of hand,” Eloise said. “Why don’t we—”
“I knew that was you,” Ryan said. “Okay, well I didn’t. But I did.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” I told him. “But that’s okay. You don’t need to make sense because I’ll still lo—no.” I looked back at Eloise. “You don’t get to have that. You don’t get to take that from me.”