“Ugh. The fact that you know that!” Skylar stormed past her to sort through the already sorted napkins and spoons. “I just... I don’t know. Every time I go on a date, I just feel this tension.”
“It’s the sound of commitment, and you running away from it. You have problems.”
Yes, but it’s because I’m not some fake witch throwing crystals on a mat or pulling cards from a deck to con people.
Being arealwitch meant she had issues. Glass fractured and lights surged around her in unexplainable ways when she gotemotional. She could make real potions, do real spells and hexes. Cast magic.
It was weak – she wasn’t the most skilled witch – but she just had this overwhelming fear that if she dated a guy, things would go wrong. She’d already had her heart broken in the past.
What if I tell the guy and he pulls out a pitchfork?she thought, brushing spilled sugar onto the floor to be mopped up later.Or he blasts me all over the internet, and I become a trending hit sensation for ridicule, and the government starts asking questions until someone close to me, like Kaylee, is taken and hurt. What if they ask for proof and record me somehow and I become imprisoned like an alien from outer space?
What’s the Australian equivalent of Area 51?She shuddered at all the possibilities as her thoughts continued to spiral.What if... he just doesn’t believe me, thinks I’m insane, and tries to get me admitted?She paused and tapped her toe in thought.No. They’re not legally allowed to admit someone for that in Australia unless they’re a serious harm to themselves or the community.
Honestly, what truly scared her was falling in love with someone and them just up and leaving her because of it...again.
It’d been nearly ten years since she’d been able to trust someone like that, only for them to throw it in her face. A whole ring and impending wedding bells had been involved, and she’d felt compelled to tell him the truth before they tied the knot.
It’d blown up in her face when they’d argued about it, as he hadn’t found it funny that she’d kept pushing this ‘false ideology’ onto him, when she hadn’t been lying at all.
She was too afraid to find out if things would repeat themselves, and random booty calls had started to lose their fun now that she was almost thirty-one. The guys made her feel used, even when she was the one using them for some quickdick. Despite some amazing hook-ups – like really, really good dick – she just couldn’t trust what those joy sticks were attached to.
Sighing, she pressed her fists to the counter, with a rag dangling from the right one.But Kaylee isn’t wrong.Skylar was a horny fucker, and her toys weren’t doing it for her anymore.
She craved touch. Physical attention. To feel beautiful, wanted, and to be railed into like the little nymph she desired to be.
Sigh. Or maybe my issue is that men see the way I dress and just think I’m easy.Which couldn’t be further from the truth. Although her skirts were short, her outfits sometimes sported bondage strapping, and she liked to feel pretty with some make-up, she didn’t want to be treated like a skank.
She wanted to be respected in the streets, and a slut in the sheets.If only guys would realise if they just stop being creepy, they’d get exactly what they want in time.They just needed to be patient and actually be interested in her rather than what was under her clothing.Then they’d probably struggle to get me off them.
Skylar loved sex, foreplay, and basically anything to do with touching. She liked it soft, rough, sweet, kinky. Honestly, anything and everything, so long as it was all fun and consensual. What was a little light choking and spanking between lovers, hmm? And she liked giving head as much as getting it.
But no, every time she trusted someone enough to have sex, they went too far without discussing it with her, or they gave her weird vibes afterwards. Or once again, maybe that was her paranoia, and her fear of the past coming to rear its mean head once more.
“Dating sucks right now,” Skylar admitted, looking over her shoulder. “You’re right, I have commitment issues, but I’m also tired of meeting jerks.”
Kaylee beamed. “Then let’s find you a green flag.”
She narrowed her eyes at the tanned blonde woman whose lip gloss was so shiny it was obvious she’d used the reflection of something to reapply it while Skylar’s back was turned.
“I think you’re the wrong person to tell me what is and isn’t a green flag.”
Her current boyfriend, Kyle, was a walking red flag, a giant dickhead, and was lucky he was hot.
Kaylee rolled her eyes. “So what if I like to wear rose-coloured glasses and pretend everyone is just a flag to be played with?” She shook her fists as if she was waving two little flags. “Come onnnnn, Skylar. You’re a workaholic and it makes me literally want to hurl. You get here before any of us and then are usually the last one to leave. And I justknowyou go home to do paperwork.”
Skylar had to snuff the desire to whistle like a deviant as she averted her gaze.And make concoctions, potions, and study witchcraft in my spare time.Or she read horny novels about monsters that went bump in the night with big pulsing dicks and gushing semen.
“I like my business,” she argued quickly. “I’m happy – isn’t that all that matters?”
Malcom snorted in disbelief from his table next to the window before trying to hide it behind a cough. He met her eyes and immediately looked away with his cheeks pinkening at being caught disagreeing with her.
Skylar threw her hands up and walked to the kitchen to check in on Hank. He immediately grunted in surprise at her stickingher head inside, and she caught him struggling to text with one hand, using a thick forefinger to stab at his phone screen.
His hair was so long it came to the tops of his shoulders, but it was neatly tied back. Even with the bald patch, with a few hairs sticking up from it, he was handsome in his late fifties. Like her, he had bright-blue eyes and black hair, but his skin was much more tanned than hers and was wrinkled by sunlight and a life that had been lived to its fullest.
With his rock band shirt on over blue jeans, he looked like he should have been in a band and not working as a chef. His food was amazing, though, and he was always pestering her to be more adventurous with her menu plan.
She didn’t want to. She just wanted her place to be a café that had a library in it. Something simple, since it was already complex on paper.
