Nico’s full name was Nicolas Barnes, of the Barnes family that owned the most popular canal cruises in town and famous tourist attraction, the Tunnel of Love. Nico spent his days cleaning the boats, manning the Barnes booths spread throughout Grimbaud, and sometimes giving tours when the cruises were booked low. Over the weeks she got to know him, she had learned how to speak above the roar of boat engines. Nico had mastered that skill long ago and had no trouble bemoaning Martin’s now ex-girlfriend and the fact that, to anyone’s knowledge, Martin didn’t like boys.
The line continued to move and each step brought them closer to the moment of truth. Fallon could see Zita’s storefront now, adorned with slanted gold lettering. The windows revealed a shop lit with warm, round lights. Love potions in glass-blown bottles gleamed in the windows. A rack holding prewritten love letters spun like a carousel while charms molded like cupids sat in half-price baskets. Fallon tore her eyes away from the enchanting display.
The love fortune machine was built into the wall on the left-hand side of the shop. Like the storefront, it was painted the same shade of pink and rimmed with golden swirls. A series of cogs kept behind rose-colored glass moved each time the machine printed a new fortune on the paper strips. The boys in front of them shoved their coins one-by-one into the slot; Fallon heard Nico swallow loudly when the last boy, shouting with victory, brandished his good fortune and walked away.
“Who’s going to go first?” Fallon said. Her hands shook.
Anais rolled her eyes. “Me. Otherwise, we’ll be pelted for holding up the line.”
She slipped her coins into the machine and placed her hand on the scallop-edged heart in the wall. The heart pulsed as the cogs turned. No one knew exactly how the love fortune machine worked, but it was clear that the heart read who you were—somehow. Fallon felt a slight tremor under her feet. As if Zita herself was underneath the cobblestones right now, reading Anais’s heartbeat and scrawling her fortune.
The ticker tape slid out of the machine facedown. On the other side, written in red ink, was the fortune.
Anais squealed. “Good news for me. ‘Your love life will be fruitful as long as you are true to yourself.’”
Fallon let go of the breath she didn’t know she was holding.
Nico frowned. “What does that mean?”
“If I’m myself, I’ll get to keep Bear as my boyfriend.”
“If,” Nico said, “you actually let him see you in your work uniform.”
Never.”
“What about the biscuit tins? I’m sure he’ll think you’re adorable when—”
“No way. No boyfriend of mine needs to know about that.” Anais pushed him forward. “You go next.”
Nico turned green when he put his hand on the heart. He shuddered so badly that the printing of his fortune seemed miraculous. Nico scanned the fortune, one, twice, and muttered, “Oh, no. Oh, no.”
Anais plucked it before he could drop it. “‘Your love will go unnoticed by the one who matters.’”
Fallon rubbed his shoulder, at a loss for words. “Nico…”
His eyes grew red with unshed tears. “No big deal, right? I expected this.”
“Shut up,” Anais said, drawing him into a hug.
Fallon wished she could tell him not to give up, but that wasn’t how Grimbaud worked. Zita’s love fortunes were always right. The red ink was clear enough; Nico would do better forgetting Martin once and for all. Easier said than done. Fallon squared her shoulders and stepped forward, taking her turn at the machine.
She placed her hand on the scallop-edged heart and closed her eyes. The cogs turned in a symphony of clicking and clanking. In that moment, Fallon swore the earth absorbed her heartbeats like sunlight and saw the truth in them. Her fate. She almost forgot to reach for the ticker tape as it slid out of the machine.
“Fallon, read it,” Anais said, soft with new worry.
She opened her eyes and tore off the strip. The red ink made a long scar on the surface. “‘Your love will never be requited,’” she whispered aloud as she read each word.
Her stomach dropped out of her.
Nico rubbed his eyes, turning a new shade of green on her behalf. “Are you sure?”
Anais gently pried the fortune out of Fallon’s hands and read it herself. “It’s true. It really says that. Fallon, have you been holding out on us? Is there a boy you like? Someone from your hometown, maybe?”
It took a few seconds for her throat to work. “No.”
Anais cursed.
Fallon forgot how to breathe. The word “never” scared her. It held the weight of forever.
Her fate was sealed.
Temple West, debut author of the YA paranormal romance Velvet, is as nerdy in real life as she is on the Twitter. Armed with a very shiny English degree, she spent four months in Oxford holed up at the Radcliffe Camera amongst the hush of ancient books and the rich musk of academia. Returning to Los Angeles, she acquired a concurrent degree in film, mostly as an excuse to write essays about The Princess Bride and Hook. She can sew (poorly), drive stick (please fasten your seat belt), and mostly lift her feet off the ground while stuttering into first gear on a very small motorcycle. She currently lives in Nashville and is the proud mother to a one-year-old laptop and a vintage Remington typewriter.
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