The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(44)

“Hard,” Vivienne murmured to herself, and Rhys blinked at her.

“Beg pardon?”

Startled, Vivienne glanced over at him. “Oh, um. I was just thinking. That’s . . . that’s where her potion went wrong. The spell was supposed to make him . . . you know, and it did, but it was . . . an all-over effect instead of . . . region-specific.”

“Vivienne Jones, are you blushing?”

She pushed off of the shelf with a roll of her eyes, but he saw the way her hands fidgeted with the ends of her gloves again. “Definitely could’ve been worse,” she said.

“Do you see now what I was saying?” Rhys asked, stepping closer to her, close enough that he could see the little constellation of freckles on her right cheek, close enough to touch her if he wanted to.

Which he did.

But he wouldn’t.

“We can’t keep putting out these little fires, Vivienne. We have to fix this.”

“I know,” she said, her head snapping up.

And then she lowered her voice, ducking her head. “Halloween is huge in this town. The biggest moneymaker, too. Some of the businesses in Graves Glen are set for the year after Halloween. And if we haven’t fixed this by then, it might not be safe. We can’t risk that.”

“Also slightly concerned about me being safe,” Rhys said, “but I see your point. Luckily, magic tends to be at its strongest around Samhain. And that means that if we work quickly, any kind of curse reversal might work stronger.”

“I like where your head is at, Penhallow,” Vivienne replied, pointing at him, and Rhys brightened, smiling at her.

“Did you just call me by my last name? Like we’re on some kind of sports team together?”

To his surprise, she actually smiled a little at that. “In a way we are, right? Breaking a curse has definitely turned out to be a lot more . . . athletic than I’d anticipated.”

“Hiking across campus,” Rhys noted.

“Fighting ghosts,” Vivienne added.

“Snogging in libraries . . .”

At that, her smile dimmed and she straightened up, moving back from him.

“That was a mistake,” she said, and Rhys shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Was it, now?”

She turned back to him, meeting his eyes. No blush now, no fidgeting. “You know it was.”

What Rhys knew was that kissing her had felt like waking up. Like he’d been drifting sleepily through everything for the past nine years until he tasted her mouth again and remembered what actually being alive felt like. Better than any magic, Vivienne’s kiss.

And he didn’t want to go without it for another nine years.

“We’re adults,” he reminded her. “Not kids furtively sneaking into dorm rooms anymore.”

“Which is why we know better than to complicate things right now,” Vivienne said, eminently sensible and, much as Rhys hated to admit it, completely right.

He was leaving when this was over.

She was staying.

What they had was not the kind of thing that worked in a long-distance sense, and hell, for all he knew, all they had was intense physical chemistry that would burn itself out.

It didn’t burn itself out over nine years, the bastard part of his brain reminded him. Do you really think it’s going to now?





Chapter 19




The next afternoon, Vivi sat in her office, pretending to make lecture notes.

In truth, she was staring at the blinking cursor on her computer and thinking about kissing Rhys while also wishing she’d never brought him to her office. This was her space, a very decidedly Rhys Penhallow–free space, and now every time she looked at her bookshelf, she saw him standing there, studying her books, asking her questions, actually seeming interested in her answers.

What a bastard.

But then every time she thought about kissing him, she remembered what had ended that kiss, the ghost in the library, and how she was so sure she’d seen that face somewhere before. How the ghost had so clearly been looking for something, and how it all had to be related to the curse somehow, but how?

So really, it was no wonder that her lecture on the function of the feudal system consisted of exactly two bullet points, one of which just said, “PEASANTS??”

Shaking her head, Vivi leaned over her desk and flipped the switch on her electric kettle, hoping a strong cup of tea might get her head straight. Gwyn and Aunt Elaine had given her the hot-pink kettle last Yule, and she loved it, but loved the tea they’d wrapped with it even more. It was one of Aunt Elaine’s own blends, and it tasted like mint and licorice and something a little smoky while also having enough caffeine to power her through even the most heinous grading sessions.

She’d just made herself a cup when there was a knock at her office door.

Brain still foggy with thoughts of Rhys, she almost expected to see him standing there—or leaning, really. Rhys never stood when he could lean.

But the woman in her doorway was definitely not Rhys, and also standing straighter than Vivi had ever seen someone stand, she was pretty sure.

The woman was young, probably Vivi’s own age, and had dark hair caught back from her face with a pair of combs.

“Vivienne Jones?” the woman asked, her expression friendly, dimples appearing in her cheeks as she smiled.