Signed, Sealed, and Smitten (Only Magic in the Building)

by Melanie Jacobson

“Jay Martin,” he says. “Favorite grandchild of Foster Martin.” “How do your cousins feel about that?” He grins. “I’m the only grandchild.”

a bewildering amount of common sense

I caught a hottie with a nice body

He grips the inside walls and vaults himself into the wardrobe, landing in a crouch. A suspicious crouch. “Are you doing a Spiderman impersonation?” I ask. “Yes.” He grins and straightens.

“Do better next time.” “Yes, ma’am.”

“Absolutely, your royal directorness.” “I am special by title, not birth. The correct form of address is your noble directorness.” “I’m embarrassed on behalf of all Americans. Please accept my apologies, your majestical directorness.”

“You did not almost die, your majesticalness.” “I meant you when I almost killed you for touching my noble heinie. Although, to be fair, that almost gave me a heart attack, so maybe we both nearly died.”

He and I will have words on my next cemetery visit.

“What happened to supporting me no matter what and carrying the shovel when we bury a body?”

“Spill it like it’s the Boston Tea Party,”

“The passage adventure ended with me getting groped, then launched through a wardrobe.” There’s a beat of silence. “I know I should ask about the groping, but I feel compelled to ask about the wardrobe. Was it Narnia?”

“Boston Harbor. Chuck that tea.”

“Don’t worry, he sent me a bouquet of hyacinths the next day with a card that said they were sympathy flowers because it must be painful to be so wrong.”

Saying her hair is caught in the chain is like saying tornadoes are breezy. Her hair is forming a symbiotic relationship with the bicycle.

Nothing like a woman burning the rubber of her sneakers to get away from you.

That is unfortunately sexy. I make sure my expression doesn’t change even as the urge to fan myself strikes like I’m a Colonial woman in forty-seven petticoats and a wool dress and the Sixth Regiment just came to town after getting baths.

“What’s wrong?” “I had to deal with a sudden urge to push you up against a wall and make out with you.”

“Hold on. You got the urge to make out with me because I made a map and a plan?” “You’re forgetting the against the wall part. I like that part a lot.”

Hottie Historian. Revolutionary Rizz. The Hot Prof.

All I have to do is not make out with her and make the friend zone my permanent home.

I want to keep this man talking because he’s like a character from Stars Hollow come to life.

“I don’t know any good magic words,” he says. “You pick.” I’m aware of every place his skin touches mine as we keep our pinkies connected. I can’t concentrate, so I do the first thing I think of. “O-O-O-O’Reiiiilly … Autoooo Parts.” “Really?”

Is that a love language? Being really into each other’s random history investigations?

“I’m neither dead nor deaf, my dear,”

“You mean to tell me you kissed her”—an emphatic finger stab toward Phoebe—“a lot before you even took her on a date?”

“I figured we should start with the legend of the first director of the Museum of Serendipity.” Her eyebrow goes up. “What legend is that?” “Once upon a time,” I begin. “About eight months ago,” she adds.