The flute dropped to the cement floor, shattering into a thousand pieces.
“Oopsie,” Lexi cooed, one brightly painted fingernail pressed to her lips.
Lissa’s mouth opened and closed, her Monroe lip piercing clacking gently against her teeth as she stared at the shards now littered across the floor.She could almost see the last vestiges of her patience mixed in with the other sharp bits.“Lexi, we need to break up.”
Her now ex-girlfriend gaped at her for a second, then let out a small shriek of indignation and stamped a stiletto on the floor, looking less like the hot blonde Lissa had first been attracted to and more like a petulant child.The cutesy red and green dress with color-changing sequins she’d donned for the party only accentuated the image.
“You’re breaking up with me right before Christmas?”Lexi wailed.“Because of a stupid glass?”
“No,” Lissa replied through gritted teeth, the tight leash on her anger slipping a little.“I’m breaking up with you because you care more about partying than you do about me.I’ve been busting my ass at this shop for years as an apprentice, and right when I finally get to start designing my own pieces, you come along and destroy one.Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through lately?How much I’ve been struggling to keep this shop afloat?Briggs couldn’t care less if it goes under since he’s about ready to retire, but this place is my home.If it doesn’t start showing a profit soon, he’s going to shut it down.”
“So what?”Lexi said dismissively.“You can go work at another studio.”
Lissa took a step forward, wincing as glass crunched under her combat boots.She’d been with Lexi long enough that a proper breakup explanation was due, but sometimes it felt like she was talking to a two-year-old who just wanted to play in the mud.
“Do you even know how many glassblowing studios exist in Seacliff, Lex?”she asked once she reigned in her annoyance.“Two.This one and Marge’s shop.And I’d die before going to work for Marge.Which means I need to save Smooth Expressions, and I can’t do that when I spend every night making sure you stay sober enough to get home safely.I care about you, Lex.I really do, but I can barely take care of myself right now, and you need more than I can offer.”
Lexi put her hands on her hips, her chin jutting out defiantly as she scoffed.“More than you can offer?Please, Lissa.You’ve never been able to offer anything.You live in this studio lately and forget about the whole world out there.I enjoy my pottery, but I don’t make it my entire identity.Sorry if I want to have fun while I’m still young.”
Lissa sighed.She was pretty sure a few years ago she would have sounded exactly like Lexi, but she was starting to accept the party couldn’t last forever.“We’re not kids anymore, Lex,” she said, rubbing at the spot above her left eye where the stress headaches always began.“I’m turning thirty in a few months, and maybe I’m tired of bouncing from job to job.I love blowing glass, and I want to keep doing it.If that means I don’t have time for a relationship right now, then so be it.”
Lexi’s lower lip trembled as if she might start crying, and it tugged at Lissa’s heart.She knew full well Lexi often used that pouty look to get what she wanted, but there was a reason it worked.She looked so helpless Lissa couldn’t resist cuddling her in her arms.
“Look,” Lissa began, closing the distance between them to take Lexi’s hands in hers.“Maybe if this mysterious marketing campaign works and things calm down, we can try again.”Lissa waited for the sniffle and nod that usually ended their arguments, but it never came.
Lexi yanked her hands away from Lissa’s, anger flaring in her eyes.“Try again?Like you can push pause on us or something?Sorry, Liss, but I have too much life to live.Have fun dying in this sweaty studio.”
Lexi spun on her heels, wobbled for a heartbeat, and stomped back to the lobby.
Lissa stared after her for a moment before turning her back on the party.She could hear Lexi shouting for everyone to do shots, but it was no longer her concern.Somebody would make sure she got home safely.They always did.That was life in a small town like Seacliff.People looked out for one another.Lissa just couldn’t be the sole one responsible for Lexi anymore.
She should have been sad she was now staring down the barrel of a very lonely Christmas, but the only emotion left in her body was frustration.Frustration Briggs had let the studio flounder to the point they had to hire a fancy-ass Portland marketing firm to revive them.Frustration she was the only one dedicated to saving the shop most days.But mostly frustration at a world that cared more about buying cheap garbage online than supporting local artists.
Maybe she was naive to try so hard to save Smooth Expressions, but that wasn’t going to stop her.Mercer Marketing promised they had created a one-of-a-kind marketing stunt that would save their business.She didn’t love the fact they kept it secret from her and Briggs, and she didn’t love how Briggs was such a pushover he allowed it, blindly jumping onto their hype train that touted secrecy would only make it that much more exciting.They told him if anyone leaked the plan, it would be ruined, and he stupidly accepted that without question.
Well, whatever they were planning had better work.Smooth Expressions couldn’t close down.It just couldn’t.She’d moved to Seacliff five years ago, and from the moment she set foot in the town it felt like home, like a place where she belonged.Selling her cottage and relocating to another city would devastate her, because if she didn’t have Smooth Expressions, what else did she even have these days?
That depressing reminder of just how empty her life was had her snatching up the blowpipe instead of sweeping up the broken glass.The mess could wait, but thirty ornaments weren’t going to blow themselves.
The sound of “Jingle Bells” drifted through the studio, and she stuck her earbuds in to block it out.She hated giving up her favorite holiday, but it would all be worth it in the end.
It had to be.
Chapter Three
Ria
Six Months Later
“Ria,youcan’tmissanother coven meeting.They’re going to kick you out if you don’t show you’re committed.”
Ria rolled her eyes at her mother’s dramatic assessment as she placed a pinch of lemongrass in a mortar and started grinding it up.As if getting kicked out would even be the worst thing to happen to her.She only joined the Seacliff coven to make her mom happy in the first place.“Disconnected” was the word used to force her into attending that first meeting nearly six months ago.Since then, she’d only been a handful of times.The women were nice enough, a few she could even see herself being friends with, but they all looked at her like she should be something special—a powerful witch.Ria wasn’t certain she had ever felt particularly powerful, but she definitely didn’t feel it these days, that was for sure.
As the daughter of Susan Lewis, the witch next in line for High Matron, they all expected great things from her—things she couldn’t deliver.Hence the hiding.
“Can’t I wait and go next week?”Ria muttered, hunching further over the workstation in her mom’s shed.Was she embarrassed to be living at home again at age thirty?Absolutely.Did she appreciate the access to her mom’s potion-making supplies?Also absolutely.
“Ria, you’ve already squandered all but the tiniest dregs of your magic.Do you really want to become nothing but a boring old human?”
