“Well, anyway, I have something for you, which I’m sure you’ve already guessed by now.” I handed him the book. “Merry Christmas from your secret Santa. You did know, didn’t you?”
“Well,” he hedged, not quite looking me in the eye.
“Owen, I thought we were going to be honest with each other.”
“Okay, then, yes, I knew. Who else was going to go to that much effort? But you did a good job covering your tracks.” He then looked me in the eye, turning pink, but keeping eye contact steady. “And I was glad it was you. I can have magical things anytime I want. But I almost never get the kinds of things you did for me. Thank you.”
I felt myself turning almost as red as he was. “Aren’t you going to open it?” I asked.
He tapped the wrapping paper with his index finger and made it disappear. Then he grinned. “This is great, thanks! You do pay attention, don’t you?”
“Well, I may not have ESP with a twenty-four-hour Owen channel, but I do what I can.”
“Thank you. I know I’m going to love this.”
I noticed that he didn’t hug me or otherwise touch me. Now that the game was over, it appeared that we were going to go back to being just friends. It was a disappointment, but I wouldn’t want to lose his friendship now that I knew how much it meant to me. “And thank you for everything,” I said. “You got me through this. Without your help, this wouldn’t have worked out at all.”
“That’s what friends are for, right?”
I forced a smile even though I wanted to cry. “Right.”
He put the book down on a nearby table. “Actually, I haven’t been entirely honest with you.” He turned a shade of pink I’d never seen before, then it faded to white, leaving his cheeks rosy. He seemed to search for words, then finally blurted out, “It wasn’t just the shoes, you know.”
“What?”
“Ari was wrong. It didn’t take the shoes for me to find you interesting. That twenty-four-hour Katie channel has been tuned to that frequency pretty much since the moment I first saw you.”
I was so shocked I forgot to breathe. “Oh,” I managed to gasp. “But I thought—all this time—you didn’t even—Why didn’t you say something? Or do something?”
“You mean other than walk you to work every morning, ask you to dinner, talk to you more than I talk to anyone? And you kept talking about being friends.”
I laughed. “That’s because I thought that’s what you wanted. I didn’t want to scare you.”
He pulled me to him and held me against him. I could feel the laughter rumbling in his chest. “We’re so clueless, I think we deserve each other,” he murmured in my ear.
I was glad he was holding onto me because I felt so dizzy I was afraid my knees would buckle under me. “It’s funny, but I seemed to interpret all those clues that you liked me as clues that you didn’t like me, or maybe that you liked me, but only liked me. I was trying so hard just to be your friend, and you made it more and more difficult by being perfect.” I looked up at him. “And what does someone like you want with someone like me, anyway? You’re like a superwizard and I’m Miss Ordinary.”
“Katie, shut up.” He said it kindly with a fond smile on his lips. “Don’t talk yourself out of this.”
I groaned and leaned my head against his chest. “See what I mean? You take in homeless cats and keep old ladies in their homes, and you’re brilliant and powerful and did I mention gorgeous, and here I am—”
He proceeded then to shut me up very thoroughly. It turned out that first perfect kiss was no fluke caused by a pair of enchanted shoes. The second was even better, and this time it was for real.