An orange cat appears from beyond the beads before a person does. The cat is smaller than the one I’d previously met, but just as striking with emerald eyes. It meows when it sees me, brushing up against my leg, which I hope means she remembers me.
“Do you have an appointment?” comes a familiar voice above the sound of footsteps.
“No, we’re just dropping by for a tarot reading,” I say, crouching down to pet the cat, who is shedding a lot but also living for the attention.
“I don’t usually do walk-ins this late,” the woman says as she enters. I don’t look up right away, afraid of what I might find. I take in her black, heeled boots that stick out beneath a flowing crimson skirt, and urge the universe to please answer my final question. “Tigress never takes to men right away like that.” The woman’s voice comes out shocked. “You must be special.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I think I am.”
When I look up, I half expect Lucille to hug me or burst into tears, but all she does is gesture for us to follow her back to her table. The room is slightly less cluttered than I remember it being in the future timeline, yet it still has that ethereal quality to it that helped me to trust her in the first place.
Drew volunteers me to go first since he’s clearly still unsure what we’re doing here, so I shuffle the deck of cards and pass it back to Lucille, who lines up three cards facedown, just like last time. Even though I know how this works now, and I’m not desperate for crystals, I’m still jittery.
“For the past,” Lucille says, flipping the first card. It showcases a naked woman beside a small pool; the night sky shines above her. I notice it’s upside down. “The Star reversed tells us that you were stuck in a period of hopelessness. You lacked faith and you lost yourself.”
Unlike last time, Drew doesn’t hesitate to comfort me physically when he registers her jarring words. He grabs my hand and grounds me, which I appreciate. “And the present?” I ask.
“The Ace of Cups, which symbolizes a release and an outpouring of love and connection. This is a good card. You’re lucky. You’ve found emotional fulfillment.” Lucille’s eyes flit between me and Drew. I feel my cheeks grow hot. “Everything is as it should be.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I shift further into Drew, gripping his hand tighter.
I think about where I was, where I am, and how I got here. I let the past wash away and the present embrace me. I take a deep, gratifying breath.
Lucille pauses before revealing the final card. She gives me a long, hard look. A grin plays on the edges of her bright-red lips, and something akin to recognition sparks in her eyes. “Would you like to see the final card, Nolan Baker?”
At that moment, I realize that I never told her my name in this timeline…
We share a secretive, affirming smile as she overturns the last card in the reading and shows me my future.
PART SEVEN
CITRINE
Sunny days and good vibrations
Chapter Forty-Four
2030, AGAIN
I’m awoken, like I am most mornings, by a scratchy tongue on my cheek and the thumping of a tail against the old gray comforter. When I open my eyes, Milkshake’s adorable face lights up, knowing I’ll groan once, stretch twice, and then slip out of bed to feed him breakfast.
Except this morning, Drew’s taken the day off from the store, so he’s a lump of pointy joints and messy hair as he lets out a ginormous yawn that makes Milkshake yelp. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” I coo, running the back of my hand over his full, red beard. “It’s nice to have my two men home on a Saturday morning.” Simultaneously, I kiss Drew and scratch Milkshake between the ears, showing my affection the best way I know how.
It’s a big day, so I bypass the stretching and get to it. Food clangs into Milkshake’s bowl from the automatic feeder, and he scarfs it down with impressive speed. I turn on the coffeepot before grabbing a yogurt from the fridge. Sunlight spills in through the kitchen window of our modest one-bedroom apartment right above the bookstore.
It’s not the opulence I once wanted for myself by thirty, but sometimes what you want and what you need aren’t the same.
In the shower, I do a speed-through of my thirty-minute comedy set, careful not to let any wayward shampoo get in my mouth while I do. I’ve been practicing for months, perfecting my material at theHardy-Har Hideaway, but today is the day I put it to tape. I couldn’t be more happily anxious.
“Room for one more?” Drew asks, sliding the curtain back and standing there all freckly and naked and beautiful. Lucky. I feel lucky.
“Always.”
He joins me in the steam and the spray, smiles at me, and I bask in one of the many simple pleasures of living with the one you love. Intimacy never more than a step into the shower away.
Dried, dressed in a taping-appropriate outfit, and with Milkshake in his carrier, we head downstairs through Eight, Three, One Books, the romance-only bookstore Drew and I opened together almost two years ago to the day. It has echoes of the lost Bound by Mayhem Bookshop from a different dimension: the same rental space, the same dark wood, the same blood-red fainting couch. Except, now, that blood-red accent color doesn’t read like a grisly crime scene. It reads like hopeful hearts. Like love made manifest.
Likeus.
