by Sadie Sears
“Well, as you can see, we aren’t quite open yet, but I would be happy to add your name to the group yoga class at the house until we’re ready here.”
My dragon roared, but I didn’t move yet. I could be patient. I would wait until the last possible second to jump in because I knew Lila was too nice to turn someone away when they overextended their hand. And I knew he would because she was Lila.
Frank chuckled, the sound broken, fraught with nerves that made his pitch higher and his breaths sound like a wheezing cat’s. The Lila Effect. I’d suffered it once or twice myself.
“Uh, yeah. At the house.” He smiled. Too friendly. Too close to her.
“Great.” She walked to the counter Ben built and pulled an appointment book from a cubby. “I have a full class on Tuesday.” People came from Burlington to work with her, so a lot of her classes were full. “But Wednesday has openings in my ten o’clock and my eleven thirty classes. Do either of those work for you?”
His gaze darted away from hers nervously. He wasn’t there to book a fucking thing.
“Maybe we could talk about it over dinner, tonight?” He didn’t look at her directly, but something about the downturned chin, the narrowed eyes, the fist clenching and unclenching around the curve of his old wooden cane said this answer mattered to him a lot.
“Oh, I…”
Finally, I stepped forward and then wrapped an arm around Lila’s shoulders. I stuffed my dragon down hard, so he didn’t tear this jackass’s limbs off and feed them to him, despite how much the image appealed to me. Lila was a sensitive soul, mostly, and she would never forgive me. My dragon relented, but he wasn’t happy.
“Hey, Frank. How are you?” I kept my tone friendly, my smile wide but obviously fake. I didn’t mention the cane or his lack of it at the grocery store, the way he’d shuffled without so much as a stuttered step down the aisle to get away from me.
He scowled at me for a second, not quite quick enough to keep the look hidden behind what he thought was a fake, passive mask. “I’m doing fine.”
Lila moved closer to me but smiled politely at Frank. “I’m actually seeing someone, Frank, so dinner wouldn’t be appropriate, but I am so flattered. Thank you.”
Frank cleared his throat once more and nodded, looking down at his feet. “I understand.” But when he looked up, his eyes were distant and hard. Angry and frustrated. This was a guy who wore his emotions in his eyes like a window into his mind, and right now, he wasn’t feeling the peace and love.
“Did you still want to make that appointment? Classes fill up pretty fast.”
Bless her, she was still trying to help him. He frowned down at the floor and shuffled his feet. “I’ll check my schedule and get back with you.”
He straightened his back and turned for the door, then walked out. He hadn’t come in to make an appointment any more than I had. He’d come in to ask her out. Period.
“Why did he…” She sighed and shook her head, stuffed the appointment book back into its cubby then twisted so we were chest to chest. “Now, about that breakfast.”
She curled her fingers around the back of my neck and pulled me down for a kiss. The slow, sensual, lingering kind. My favorite kind.
“About that breakfast.” I smiled when her stomach growled again. “We could get it to go. Have a little picnic in the park.”
“You’re all about the little picnics.” She chuckled. “Is it an earth dragon thing?”
She made it easy to smile every minute of every day.
“It’s a man who wants to be alone with his girlfriend thing.” Well, we’d said we loved each other. It wasn’t a leap. “And if it happens that I can work it around so we enjoy the great outdoors, I will. Every single time.”
She laced her fingers with mine and we walked down the street to Snowshoe Brew, picked up an order to go, then headed to the park. When she sat across from me at one of the tables, she took a bite of her sandwich and chewed, tilted her head and stared at me. “Do you think it would be possible to move the opening up by a couple of weeks? Zoe wanted to help out and she’s afraid school and the theater club will make it impossible.”
We had a lot to do. And it certainly depended on the arrival of all her equipment and supplies, but if I had to work night and day and drive across the country for pick-up, Sacred Spaces would be open tomorrow if that was what she wanted. “I definitely think we can be open by then.”
She smiled and looked down at her sandwich, then pulled a piece of croissant to pop into her mouth. Her expression was thoughtful, and I tensed when I realized this was about to be a talk. Very little good came from those. Lately because I said all the wrong things.
“I talked to Zoe about us.”
“Oh?”
My stomach churned while I waited for her to continue. I had no illusions about this situation. I knew Zoe’s input was as important to this relationship as Lila’s. I was aware the kid liked me, but I wasn’t entirely sure where she would come down if she knew her mom and I were getting serious, that it was possible I might be in her life in a more permanent way.
“She loves you, Leath. She’s playing it cool like the almost-teenager she is, but she’s over the moon.” But the smile that should’ve reached her eyes never quite made it there.
“You okay?”
She nodded. “I’m fine. It’s just, Zoe’s getting older, you know? Not my little girl anymore.” She slid her tongue along her lower lip like she needed a minute to organize her thoughts and that was her way of taking it. “It’s always been a possibility that she could end up with MS. A small possibility, but any risk is a big one when it’s your kid.”
I nodded because I didn’t want to interrupt her train of thought.
“And even if she doesn’t get it, chances are high my disease is going to progress, probably soon because that’s— It just happens. It’s very unpredictable.” She frowned down at her food. “It worries me.”
I should’ve rethought it, should’ve kept my mouth shut until I considered all the ways it could or would go wrong. But I didn’t. The idiot inside of my head spoke. “I know a way we could stop the disease progression.” Of course she knew what I meant.
Her lips parted and her eyes narrowed.
Fuck. “I’m sorry, Lila. I—sometimes my brain doesn’t have a good sense of time and place before I say stupid things.” And now, like I hadn’t fucked this up enough already, I sighed. “I’m sorry.”
After a few long, tense seconds of me holding my breath and her frown going deeper than I’d ever seen it, before it disappeared and a half-sincere smile replaced it, she sliced her hand through the air. “No worries. I know you meant well.”
Meant well. Fabulous. Not that I was right. Not that she wanted the bite as much as I wanted to give it to her. Not a thank you or even recognition that I wanted her to feel better, without pain or suffering. Instead, she went quiet. Almost catatonic.
“Lila, I’m—”
She stood. Dusted her hands together then stuffed our trash into the bag. “I should get back to the studio. Still a lot to do if we’re going to move the grand opening date forward.” She waited for me, but this time, we didn’t hold hands, didn’t chat on the way back. And a bad feeling settled in my gut that I’d done irreparable damage to our budding relationship.
And it took until Friday before I had proof. Well, a stronger gut feeling anyway.
We were at the studio, paintbrushes locked and loaded, when the sun shone in the window at just the right angle to highlight the perfection of my mate—the chestnut highlights in her hair, the glints of green in her hazel eyes, the glow of her skin.
If she looked more fatigued, her skin more drawn and the circles under her eyes a bit darker, I chalked it up to moving the grand opening date to mid-August. I smiled at her, but she didn’t return it.
“Sam said Gretta told him you have an appointment on Monday in Burlington.”
She scoffed, wiping at the sweat building on her forehead. “I d
on’t know what business it is of Sam’s to tell you anything.”
And because I didn’t understand what was happening, or maybe because I did, I stepped further into it. “He thought maybe I would want to take you, to be there for you.”
“So now Sam is deciding things for me and Gretta?” Sharp and angry, her tone bit into the air and into me. “Typical.”
“What’s typical, Lila?” I wasn’t being saucy or sarcastic. I really needed to know what she meant.
But instead of an answer, she huffed out a breath and twisted away because apparently looking at me or even my way wasn’t something she cared to do any longer.
“Lila.”
She jerked around to face me. “I can get myself to Burlington. Thank Sam for me, though. His concern, and yours, is so comforting.” Her tone said otherwise.
And I was in a bad episode of The Twilight Zone. My beautiful perfect and sweet girlfriend had just turned on me, for doing nothing more than loving her, for caring about her safety and her illness.
The bell above the front door tinkled and Donna and Carl rolled in together. This was a much easier building for them to get into, especially since Taurus and Theo built a wheelchair ramp in front.
Donna’s smile spread across her face. “Oh, Lila. This place is beautiful.”
I watched them gush at Lila, and Lila gushed back. I wasn’t hurt that she had smiles for them. I wasn’t upset she’d talked to me like I was the enemy. And it didn’t bother me that we hadn’t had a friendly conversation in days. Much.
16
Lila
I hadn’t even pulled my hair back yet when Sophie blew the horn out front. And while I didn’t want her to have to wait, I’d been rushing for days, wearing myself out for the sake of the studio. Five minutes to do my hair before I traipsed back to that place wasn’t going to upset the balance of the space-time continuum or whatever paradigm happened to be in place today that was slowing me down.
When I didn’t rush out to greet her, she came up and stood behind me in the mirror. “Wow. You look—what’s wrong?”
Wrong? Everything was wrong. I had a disease that made walking a chore, and I’d taken on the responsibility of a partnership for a small-town business, for another person’s livelihood and risk, and I had a boyfriend who wanted to change me into something else. And I was lying to all of them.
“My problem?” I looked at her. Concern dripped from her pores. And she was my best friend. Lying wouldn’t work. “I might’ve made light of what could possibly be—” Sugar-coating didn’t work with her either, and she cocked her head at me before I continued, the whole truth this time. “What is a relapse.”
The leg aches were the big tell. The numb hands came in a close second. And the number of times I needed to pee in a day tripled. There was no doubt. This was a relapse. Also, why I’d made an appointment in Burlington.
“Oh, honey.”
And pity wasn’t going to help. I shrugged her hand off my shoulder. “Anyway, I don’t have time to fall apart. We have twenty days until the opening. Twenty. I can’t get sick now. The massage table isn’t in yet. The yoga mats haven’t arrived, and the towels that finally showed up were bar towels, not hand towels.” This was the short list of problems.
“And your mood swings?”
I scoffed. “Mood swings aren’t a symptom. They’re a reaction to the actual symptoms.” Which could’ve probably landed it in the classification column of either symptom or reaction, but it didn’t matter. Sophie knew all of this. Saying it was for my benefit not hers. “I need to head it off this time because I need to be on my game. Top of the line.” The more I spoke, the more manic my voice got.
“And so you don’t drive Leath away.”
Drive Leath away? She obviously hadn’t heard the destined dynamo he would become if I tried to get rid of him. He had the staying power of Gretta on espresso the day before the medical boards. “Leath isn’t going anywhere.” I could hear myself being bitchy, but I kept going. “He’s the energizer bunny of not going away.”
She smiled wryly and crossed her arms. “So, you think you can treat him like shit, and it won’t matter. Interesting.”
Just what I needed, a fight with Sophie.
“Excuse me? He’s the one who said I could just end my MS if I let him bite me in exchange for promising to be his for all eternity.” I made my eyes wide. “Do you have any concept of eternity? It’s a really long fucking time.” These days, I didn’t even care about the swear words. “Plus, who says I would even want to be a dragon? It’s not a small decision.”
Sophie nodded, her blue eyes narrowing at me. “I agree. It’s a big decision. A lot like standing by someone you have to watch suffer in spite of being able to help them. In spite of being the one person in the world who could make sure the person he loves never suffers again. And he’s standing by you anyway.”
“That’s the destined determination.” I shook my head. “I read up on it. It’s not even determination. It’s just need and desperation. That’s it. It’s destined desperation. Sound fun to you?” I grasped at straw after straw and she shook her head. “It’s hurtful. And I’m not going to let him bite me and commit to him for the rest of my life because my illness inconveniences him.”
“Oh, that’s what you think? You inconvenience him?” One more eye roll out of her and this conversation was over. She pulled me to the bed. “Come here. Sit.” When I sat, she pulled out her deck of tarot cards.
“Come on, Sophie. I don’t have time for this.”
She chuckled and eyed me. She’d refused to read my cards last time. There had to be a reason she was so eager to do it now. “See? Right there. We’ve known each other for how long? And I’ve been reading your cards since that first day, and never have you ever turned down a reading.” This time, when she cocked her head at me, I saw the idea form. “What is it that you don’t want to hear, Lila? What don’t you want to know?”
Just my luck I’d picked an intuitive best friend who could read me as well as she could read my cards.
I sighed. Maybe talking about it and getting this all out would help me sleep better, which would help me with the aches and pains, and then my mood would hop out of the gutter on its own. “Leath keeps telling me his claiming bite will cure me. Make me better.”
“That bastard.” But she shot me a side-eye grin. “What’s the problem?”
“The problem, and you should know better than anyone, is that nothing comes without a price, and do you know what a potential price for a cure like this is? Dragon psychosis. I could go insane, hurt myself, or you, or Zoe.” I shook my head. There wasn’t a lot of momentum to this argument because Gretta had pretty much pegged it a while ago. The wizards were arrested, gone, and Sam and the others would’ve noticed something off about us by now. Still, it wasn’t something to take lightly. Leath said he’d been scanned, but it was so hard to believe it was real. Too good to be true.
I’d prayed for years for a cure. A way to guarantee I would be around and in shape to spend Zoe’s adult life with her, watch her find the love of her life and marry, and have babies of her own. But that was my hope, my wish, and it was selfish. That selfishness would come back to bite me in the way everyone else seemed so convinced wouldn’t happen.
“He needs to accept me for who I am. Warts and all.”
“Degenerative illness and all, you mean. Suffering through the days, writhing in pain through the nights. Right. And being a guy who can fix it all, he should keep that to himself, too.” She hadn’t flipped over card one, but she had pretty much pegged this all without any intervention from her spirit guides. “I get it, Lila. It’s a big decision to become a dragon and to spend all of your life with one person, and there’s a risk associated with everything you do in life, especially where love is concerned. But you do love him. And this isn’t about his arrogance. It’s about your pride, and maybe a little paranoia based on a poorly timed experience.”
“It’s not that simple.�
� She’d reduced it to the most uncomplicated terms. “I’m part of a community that prides ourselves on being strong enough to overcome adversity, to not letting a disease stop us from living full and happy lives.”
Sophie shook her head. “Full lives? How many of Zoe’s performances can you actually remember through the haze of pain you were in? How many times have I had to make dinner for Zoe because you were in too much pain to get out of bed? Or Gretta picking her up from school? Or Justin taking her to the carnival?”
Each point hit harder, hurt worse, drove the nail further into my heart. They weren’t thoughts I hadn’t had before myself, but they hurt twice as bad when they were being flung back at me.
Apparently, she was finished. She shoved her cards into their pouch and put them back into the deep pocket of the cardigan she wore over her tank top. “You don’t need a reading. You need an intervention. Maybe an exorcism because clearly you aren’t thinking straight. These people in your community would be thrilled for you to be healed. It won’t change you or who you are, and it won’t diminish the reason you want to help them. It will take away your pain, your crutch. The thing you’re using to push him away.” She shook her head. “We need to go if we’re going to get anything done at the shop.”
She walked out of the room.
“Hey! Wait up.”
She poked her head back through the door and pointed at me. “You’re strong enough to overcome this. Meet me in the car.”
This time, she walked out and stayed out. I sighed and followed her, yanking open the passenger door and sliding into my seat. Then she drove us—in the loudest silence I’d ever heard—to the studio.
She pulled up and parked, and immediately my mind panicked. Something was horribly wrong. The glass window had been shattered in the front. Glass glittered the sidewalk. The door was standing open, frame splintered, hanging away from the building.
I gasped. Sophie cried out. I shoved my door open. “Son of a bitch!”
