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As it turned out, the cats really had thought of everything. While neither of them had ever possessed the magic to alter memories—that was an illusion witch specialty—Luna was able to successfully guide Merlin in brewing a powerful sleep potion.

They prepared it in gas form so it would be far easier to administer to our subjects. And once Drake and Kelley were out cold, Merlin teleported the lot of us back to Kelley’s new house.

Virginia’s old furniture hadn’t been cleared out yet, so we moved both of our sleeping beauties to the floral-print couch. I took extra care to position them snuggled together with Drake’s head in Kelley’s lap. Just in case that helped to get him thinking about her as a potential girlfriend.

Our primary hope, though, was that they’d wake up in the morning and believe everything that had occurred was nothing more than a crazy dream, one they’d somehow managed to create and move through concurrently.

I, of course, would deny any involvement in their ghostly adventures. While I hated gaslighting my friends, it really was for their protection—and sanity.

It would have been nice to have human friends with whom I could share my magical comings and goings, but it would be selfish of me to expose them to any long-term risks that came with knowing. Without any witches to claim and protect them, they would be on their own and, thus, in grave peril. At least that’s what the cats told me.

Anyway, Kelley and Drake both had enough to keep them busy with how popular the newly improved Harold’s House of Coffee had already proven to be.

The day after our great nocturnal adventures, Kelley was scheduled for another double shift with the new hires set to help during the morning rush and me and Drake to join her later in the morning. Yeah, she’d definitely have to expand the staff again soon, but I trusted her intuition when it came to knowing when to act.

And when I arrived to start work, I found Drake had already beaten me to it—something that had literally never happened before. I also found that he was holding hands with Kelley while she rang up a customer and one of the new staff members worked the espresso machine.

“Good morning!” I cried joyfully once they’d finished tending to the customer. “I got a great night’s sleep and am ready for whatever today throws at us.”

Okay, so maybe I was selling the ruse a little too hard, but they didn’t know that. I’d taken great care with my eye makeup that morning to ensure not even the faintest of dark circles graced my visage. And now I would be chipper and upbeat for the entirety of my shift, no matter how much I wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep it off.

Drake yawned openly, refusing to let go of Kelley’s hand. “What’s so good about it?”

I nodded toward Kelley.“It seems like something’s good. Or at least something’s different.”

They both blushed, and frankly, it was adorable.

Kelley motioned for me to come closer.

“We spent the night together last night. I don’t remember him coming over, but when I woke up, there he was.” She smiled as Drake pressed a kiss to her cheek. They’d really gone from zero to sixty in hardly any time at all.

“I don’t remember, either,” he said, “but that’s not so unusual. I forget stuff I should know all the time and know stuff I shouldn’t.”

Kelley dropped her voice to a husky whisper.“The weirdest part, though, is that we both had the craziest dream. The same dream!”

“Really?” I squeaked, doing my best to imitate surprise.

“You were there, too,” Drake pointed out as if he expected me to remember. “Did you by chance dream about ghosts and magic talking cats last night?”

I shook my head emphatically.“Nope. I slept like a log.”

“Isn’t it so funny how the little bits and pieces of daily life can fuse together to create this whole big adventure in the dream world?” Kelley asked, shaking her head. “Like my dad was there as a ghost! And there was this other ghost trying to hurt us, but Drake saved everyone. That’s when my dad came and told me how much he loved me. I swear, you just mentioned ghosts one time as part of our icebreaking games, and it turns into this!”

“Yeah, and the wildest part is how we both dreamed the same thing,” Drake said, narrowing his eyes at me. “The exact same thing.”

“That is pretty wild.” I nodded toward their joined hands. “It seems to have brought you together, though.”

“Kelley’s a pretty cool chick. Or should I say, pretty and cool,” Drake responded before giving her little butterfly kisses with his eyelashes.

I was happy for them but also felt like if the pumpkin spice didn’t make me puke today, their sickeningly sweet antics might.

“I’ve gotta go do the shift-end debrief with the new guys,” Kelley announced with a sigh. “Be back soon.”

Drake accepted a quick peck on the cheek and wiggled his fingers goodbye, watching her the whole way as she sauntered back toward the office.

“So you and Kelley?” I asked, not even trying to hide how happy I was about this turn of events.