The Serendipity (Only Magic in the Building)

by Emma St. Clair

I stop just short of saying how hot our new building owner is. And how good he smelled. The way I wanted to keep arguing with him just to hear him growl out answers in that gravelly voice. Irrelevant, I tell myself. Too old. Too grumpy. Too much the owner of the building you live in. I skip over the parts of Archer that make my stomach flip even now. Instead, I focus on how cold and stiff he was, how he marched me silently back down to unlock my apartment like he was my prison warden. Which somehow really worked for him. Something—besides my closet—is clearly wrong with me.