by Amy Gregory
“All right. All right, fuck a duck, you win, I’ll stay with the two of you. I really appreciate it.” Joshua rolled his neck from side to side, then rested his head against the back of his chair.
How bad could it be? Have a couple of beers, stay the night—one night—and fake an urgent meeting he had to excuse himself to get to, with a sincere apology, of course, for leaving earlier than he’d planned on.
They said their good-byes and ended their call. His mother was outside, tending to her beloved flowers. He suddenly felt ugly on the inside. The call with Bill made him realize he was acting like a spoiled trust fund brat, despite his career and own fortune he’d earned.
Chapter 3
Jenny knocked on Lessy and Bill’s front door. Over the last several months, she’d become quite fond of her new neighbor, Lessy. She was kind, foul-mouthed, and creative, and worked a lot of hours at their new store. However, she was quickly becoming Jenny’s closest friend, especially considering the question she was about to ask.
“Good evening. Are you busy?” Jenny asked.
“Oh no, come on in, sweetie. And why do you always feel the need to bring a basket of something sweet? It’s totally not necessary. Plus, if I didn’t have a magnificent metabolism, my ass would be the size of a large condo by now.” Lessy laughed as she led them both to the kitchen.
Jenny followed, knowing exactly where the couple’s plates were. She placed the basket on their kitchen table and headed toward the cabinet as Lessy went the opposite direction toward the refrigerator. They met back at the table prepared with plates, forks, glasses, and a bottle of wine.
“I have to talk to you. Are you sure you’re not busy?”
“Nope. Bill is on the phone with a friend of his from back in Vermont. It sounds like he’s coming to visit us,” Lessy said as she helped herself to three brownies, stacking them to make it like a cake.
“That’s genius. If I added frosting to that, it’d be a decadent cake-like dessert.” Jenny made a mental note of the new creation.
“Ha, I didn’t think of that. It was just the fastest way to consume a lot of chocolate without looking like a complete fucking pig, you know what I mean?”
Jenny failed to hold in a laugh as her friend took a drink of her wine. Lessy was in a class of her own and didn’t really care what people thought of her. With the exception of her shitty family and awful childhood, Lessy was the person Jenny wished she could be more like.
She’d uprooted her entire life, moved to Assjacket, opened a store that was extremely busy, and, Jenny assumed, very profitable. Lessy was loving and had an amazing husband—and she wasn’t afraid of anything.
“What’s up? You look very perplexed.”
At her friend’s prompting, Jenny turned and dug out the travel book from her purse. Closing her eyes tight, she silently counted to three before facing her friend again, and then laid the book on the table.
The indentation between Lessy’s brows deepened, yet she stayed quiet…waiting.
Jenny dropped her chin to her chest. “Hawaii,” she whispered. “Have you ever been?”
She peeked up in time to see Lessy grab the book and start flipping through the pages.
“This is gorgeous. No, I haven’t, but it’s on our bucket list. We just haven’t figured out the right time of year to close the store for a vacation. Wait… Are you going? You lucky girl!”
Jenny swallowed, her pulse speeding up, the familiar tingles starting to spread through her. She shook her head.
“I…I can’t.”
“Okay, honey. You’re gonna have to help a dense girl out. I don’t know what you’re asking me, sugar.” The pages quit making noise as Lessy stopped flipping them. “Jenny. Jenny, are you all right? You’re as white as an old lady’s doily. Do you need some water instead of wine?”
Jenny’s mouth was drier than the time Scotty James had dared her to eat a mouthful of sand at recess back in grade school at WW Academy for Young Witches and Warlocks.
“I’m… I’ve…” She propped her head in her palm, unable to face her friend and admit her biggest weakness.
“You…want…to go to Hawaii.”
Lessy had let the word “want” hang in the air. Jenny nodded and, after a few moments, dared to look her friend in the eye.
“What are you scared of?”
Shit buckets.
What was she supposed to say? Everything? Including her own shadow. She tried über-hard to be as normal as any other witch or shifter in Assjacket. In some areas, though, she felt like a complete disappointment.
“You’ve never left town even once, have you, Jenny?”
“Fuck a duck. You just keep nailing your own questions with perfectly correct answers. Are you sure you don’t do some mind-walking on the side, you know, just for fun?” Jenny failed miserably at a forced laugh.
“Jen, did something happen when you were little? I’ve never wanted to be nosy and ask, but where is your mom?”
“She got stuck in a wrinkle when she went to visit my grandma. I don’t know where. I was a baby. I just know that’s what my dad said. And no, we never ever left town to go anywhere. I’ve seen all these gorgeous places in books that Dad has, but the thought of actually leaving scares the holy bejezus-ma-neezus out of me. And there is absolutely no way to pretend to be normal and fly on a plane with mortals. I know there’s no way I could possibly remember not to use magic for even simple—or especially simple—things. Big things, maybe, but I’d be that witch who just suddenly had a Sprite appear on my tray next to some kid who went wide-eyed and would rat me out to everyone in the damn vicinity. You know what I mean? How do you not end up in a padded room, a jail cell, or worse—the magic pokey?”
“Wow. All right. So we go back to the beginning. Um, your mom. Have you talked to your dad about that, asked him more in-depth, now that you’re not a kid anymore?”
Jenny shook her head. “He never speaks about her. There’re no pictures anywhere of her. I asked when I had a homework thing a long time ago about a family tree. He mentioned the wrinkle, and that’s all he said before he practically flew out of the room. He was so…kinda…mad and sad at the same time. Not at me, I definitely could tell that, but… I don’t know, maybe at her? It was strange, and super obvious he didn’t want to talk about her.” She shrugged. “I never asked him anything again.”
“I can tell you from my experience, wrinkles don’t exactly work like that. And transporting is super easy as long as you’re at full capacity on your magic. I know you remember that I had to drive here from Vermont, but that was a very different situation, don’t forget that very important fact. We’ll go talk to Zelda and Mac and see if we can find out more about what could have gone wrong. You good with that?”
“This is as utterly embarrassing as all hairy swinging donkey nuts, Lessy. Do we have to? I mean, I’ve known Mac my whole life. The thought of going to him and Zelda with something so stupid and having them think I’m dumb—it makes me want to be sick. Really, they don’t have time for my trivial crap.” Jenny sighed and swiped the hair at her neck into a long ponytail, then let it fall again.
“You’re kidding me. I had so little magic by the time I made it here, I couldn’t even make doors open. Now that is what we classify as fucktascularly to the gazillionth degree embarrassing. So you really want to start comparing, sister? I’ve got ya beat, hands down.” Lessy grinned.
Jenny smiled at her friend as Lessy reached out and patted her hand. If one good thing came out of the whole situation, it was that she had Lessy as a true friend. To have put her worst fear out there in the universe, aloud, without Lessy laughing was a close second. To have her want to help, that was simply the cherry on top of a friendship sundae.
Chapter 4
“Can I get you something to eat? Perhaps some coffee or juice?”
Joshua glanced up from his menu and had to shake himself back to the present. The waitress was gorgeous. Nowhere close to the type of women he typically dat
ed, yet he was drawn to her as if the Goddess above had snapped her fingers and made it so. She was not quite a full foot shorter than him, he guessed about five-foot-two-ish. Not a tall blonde bombshell like he’d typically be drooling over. She had long dark hair that fell in ringlets and gorgeous light brown eyes with enough copper in them to make them shine as bright as the stars above.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. Um, yes…I’ll, uh, coffee, please.”
“I’ll be right back.”
He put his finger up to stop her. “Great. First, I stumble over my own words like a teenager. Now, random diner coffee that will be disgustingly undrinkable.”
If only he’d had a hot minute to gather his wits and ask where a real coffee shop was located, he could go there instead and order something close to his normal obsession. But he’d been fixated on the woman before him. He was also pretty sure he’d seen her catch herself rolling her eyes—at him.
I am Joshua Thorston Englewoodie.
He had to pump the brakes on his temper. Of course, she wouldn’t know who he was. In a Podunk town like this, he was a regular Joe Blow, not the upper-class Englewoodie blue blood who was hounded by females up and down the East Coast looking for his ring—and his fortune.
Inhaling, he mentally talked himself off his bigheaded mountain, where only he and his ego managed to fit. While berating himself for being a dick-in-a-box, then chuckling like a teenage warlock at the SNL skit reference, something very familiar hit his senses. He crawled back over the last few minutes, and, yes, he had heard a coffee grinder.
No way, not in Goddess’s whirling of rainbows and puppy kisses is there any possibility of that.
* * *
Jenny finished grinding the freshly roasted brown beans until they were perfectly sized to be brewed. She wasn’t a big fan of the fancy coffee machine, so she pointed at it to do the work for her.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” DeeDee asked.
“See Mr. Goddess’s-gift-to-all-witches-and-probably-warlocks over at table six? I have a sneaking suspicion he’s a little too pretentious to drink something the rest of us immortals would be perfectly happy with.”
“He’s really cute, Jenny. Are you sure you’re not going out of your way for a very different reason? When’s the last time you used coconut milk and the frother?” DeeDee peered around her. “And caramel? Bobo Baby Boy’s favorite that you spoil him with every time Wanda’s son bats his big brown eyes at you for special hot chocolate that only you know how to make?”
“You know I adore him. Bo, I mean.” Jenny shrugged. “But that guy? He’s not that cute.” She dared a look over her shoulder at the stranger. Every strand of his light brown hair was in perfect place. He had a strong, chiseled jaw and the most fantastic green eyes she’d ever seen. “Fuck a duck. He caught me looking at him. Dammit, DeeDee. You have to take this to him. I…I can’t.” Jenny finished with a perfect zigzagged stream of caramel over the top of the white foam.
“No, my darling girl, it’s time for you to meet someone. And something tells me, when you go to all that trouble to make that drink, you’re already invested. Good luck, and I want details.”
DeeDee disappeared through the swinging doors in time to leave Jenny no other choice but to face the probably-was-a-model with all his tanned skin and perfectness. Grabbing a tray so she didn’t accidentally slosh the drink over the side of the mug onto the clean diner floor, she started his direction.
“What the…well, fuck a duck.”
“I’m so sorry, I’ll take it—” Jenny replied.
He reached out, placing his hand on the tray. “No, I never expected… How did you know how I like my coffee? This is the only way I drink it.”
All she could do was shrug. White noise filled the space around her. She watched his gorgeous pink lips moving, but heard nothing. Swallowing, she did indeed feel her tongue, so her familiar wasn’t back at her house holding it.
That whole “cat got your tongue” thing mortals teased about wasn’t funny. It was a serious issue with her and her turd-ass cat, as Gonzo did it from time to time, thinking he was a real comedian. A giant whooshing sound zapped her, and real-time kicked back in. His voice, low, smooth, and sexy as all hell, was about to melt her into a puddle of pink swirly-girly goo on the floor near his brown Gucci dress shoes.
Not once in her entire life in this realm had she had a reaction to any male in her small town. Strangers drifted in and out of the diner on their travels—again, nothing. One man, on a boring cloudy Tuesday, showed up out of nowhere and completely fried every freaking cell in her system.
“Are you all right?”
He was grinning at her. Jenny nodded as she started feeling all warm and tingly. Not the scared kind she felt when dreaming of traveling. It was way different. The kind that made her fidgety and afraid to open her mouth for fear she’d say something really dimwitted.
Tailored-suit guy was so far out of her league, she wished Zelda would come flouncing in the door. She’d know what to do, what to say. She was not only the town’s Shifter Wanker, she was a total badass. And she’d be able to go toe to toe with this guy, as she dressed in the same fancy labels. If nothing else, at least Zelda could whisper to her what to say to the beautiful man.
“You’re sure you’re all right? Would you like to sit with me? I promise I don’t bite.” He winked.
Jenny felt her face heat to at least a blistering sunburn level, and all she could do was stare at him wide-eyed. No one had ever said anything so overtly flirty to her. A bite was nothing to joke about. A bite could take them from strangers to committed in less time than his unreasonably high-maintenance coffee took to produce.
“Um… I should… I need…tables. Work. Hope you like the coffee.” Jenny took five swings at a complete sentence before she got one out. “Goddess above, why am I such a moron?” she asked quietly as she walked back behind the counter.
Lost in her own head doing math while arranging her tickets, Jenny felt a tug on her shorts. “Hey, my favorite buddy in the whole realm, how are you?” Jenny picked up Bo and sat him on the counter beside her pile of papers.
“I’d be better if…you know.” He tilted his head and grinned.
She shook her head at the four-year-old. “You know I can’t resist that beautiful smile of yours, lil’ man. Of course. Do you want whipped cream, caramel, and a cherry?”
She was trying to stay as serious as he was as he contemplated the very life-altering decision she’d given him to make. He tapped his chin several times as he really took his time. It was all she could do not to smile, but she knew how it felt to have someone make fun of her. It was an awful feeling to have people think you were dumb.
“You know what, didn’t your tummy hurt the last time we put both the whipped cream and the caramel on top? Should you maybe just have caramel?”
Wanda patted her son’s leg as she passed by. “Jenny spoils you, son. And I’d say you should eat breakfast before your hot chocolate, but I’m just the mom here. What do I know?”
“Mom, can I please have it? What if Miss Jenny makes it for me with my food?”
“What a very political way to respond. A little give and take on both sides. Bobo Baby Boy, you’re going to be the next mayor of Assjacket someday, kiddo. That’s what I think.” Jenny smiled, hugging the sweet little boy to her chest.
Chapter 5
Joshua watched in awe, unable to quit staring. He’d flustered the waitress, who still remained nameless. He managed to turn her cheeks a beautiful shade of rosy pink right before she darted away. Covertly, he’d glanced at her as often as he could without looking like a stalker. Watching her with the little boy stopped him cold.
He was unable to look away as her smile lit up the room when she saw the child. The way she morphed from a shy woman to an obviously loving person did something funny to his heart. She was piercing holes in his bachelorhood armor without even knowing it. The little boy was cute, but when Joshua saw a
nother woman walk by them behind the counter, it was clear who he looked identical to, and the waitress could only be someone he knew well.
They were deep in concentration over something, and Joshua wished he could be the one she was talking to. Her eyes closed, a stunning smile graced her face as she hugged the little boy, and Joshua was sunk. If he hadn’t known better, Joshua would have said that his mother and Bill had plotted this entire scenario out themselves. Yet he’d arrived too early to show up at Bill and Lessy’s home, so he’d come to the town’s only open restaurant to waste an hour or two. Plus, Bill had never mentioned anything other than officially introducing him to Lessy and catching up while he was in town, not trying to set him up on a blind date.
He pulled out his phone, scrolled through his work emails, and deleted all the ones he could. Joshua peered at the Rolex on his left wrist, sneaked another glance at the waitress, responded to a necessary email, and repeated the process for a tortuous forty minutes more until he had to leave. He couldn’t help but look for her, watch her move through the diner, waiting on other customers, and she hadn’t come back to his table even once to check on him.
At any other restaurant in the world, he’d consider this the worst service he’d ever received. Joshua knew he’d embarrassed the poor young woman, or worse, scared her. He couldn’t blame her, and if they had a bigger staff, she’d probably have begged someone else to come bring him his check. Instead of calling her over, he pulled a twenty out of his money clip and tucked the corner under his mug, so the coffee and tip were paid for. With one more glance over his shoulder, he watched her for a long minute, visiting happily with a couple at a table. Sighing, Joshua walked outside into the sunshine. Gone were the clouds that had hidden the sun upon his arrival in town.
