I tried to respond. I tried to smile. But I couldn’t.
“So…” Maggie changed the subject, undoubtedly toavoid my breakdown. “Will a special blast from the past be there? Do you think big bad Laken’s returned home?”
And there went our sentimental moment.
My face dropped into a lethal deadpan. “I don’t know, I hadn’t thought about it,” I lied and turned away, knowing I’d thought about it sixty-three times in the last twelve hours. As I forced my hands to shuffle through our dresser, her stare burned on my back. “I don’t care where Laken Augustus is or what he’s doing.”
His name left a treacherous sting on my tongue. Honey Brooke was home—but once upon a time, so was he. Laken Augustus. My mortal enemy or, more accurately, the boy who’d broken my heart three years ago.
For three years, I’d replayed his dimpled, all-consuming grin in my mind. His short, dark-blond hair waving over his head. His blue eyes. And for those three years, I’d tried to imagine what I’d do if I ever saw him again.
After he vanished with nothing but a pathetic excuse of a note.
From Honey Brooke. From his parents. From me. Dramatic. But seeing as I’d never experienced many forms of love to begin with, Laken Augustus had been my shot in the dark. And when that light died out, I damned it all.
My hands trembled on the edge of the drawer I’d pulled open for no reason other than to distract myself. For every little emotion stirring inside of me, I was thankful Mags didn’t do the whole “Are you okay? I’m here for you” bullshit.
It felt like a lot—too much at once. Father leaving, megoing home, taking over, Laken’s possible presence. A painful silence filled the room, drowning us with it.
“Right.” Maggie knew. “I’ll be downstairs then.”
The second her feet crossed the doorway, I collapsed onto the floor, facing my room.
As two broke trade school dropouts, Maggie and I had settled quite easily into the upstairs apartment above the shop. Two tiny rooms with one tinier bathroom and kitchen. Our frail, oak-brown wooden planks stretched across the floor, scratched and scathed with chips and white marks from our midnight-rearranging eras. Truthfully, we were too weak to move most of it and the floor provided the evidence. And the shattered mirrors in the alley behind the store.
Vibrant memories flashed in my mind. The time during my leather pants phase when I’d worn them on a sweltering day and became stuck, cooking in them like beef jerky. Maggie helped peel them off me as I corkscrewed on the floor. The glass jar holding my dart bouquet on the dresser behind me. I’d started a tradition of stealing one dart from each game I won at the taverns and pubs.
Midnight talks about the stars and theories of our favorite fictional characters. My collection of unique glass bottles. My dusted stack of favorite books.Gods, Reece. Get yourself together and stand up.I listened.Leave, before you decide not to.Again, I listened because I knew better than to stay too long.
Downstairs, the early morning light blanketed the flowers through the windows. My free arm brushed past the dustymiller hanging over its copper vase as a mixed scent of flowers filled my nose. The scent of familiarity, comfort.
The shop would be fine without me; Maggie ran it by herself for the most part anyway. And I let her, happy to be a part of it. The lilies seemed to droop, as if their broken hearts weighed down their soft, gentle petals. But they were never my favorite flowers, so I knew they were not mourning for me.
They mourned for Maggie. The second sign I should not return home.
No, my favorites were the fillers. The baby’s breath. The wildflowers. Wild aster, rue, lemon leaf, astilbe. The flowers that didn’t belong.
Maggie shifted behind me. Her amber eyes had become one of my comforts these past years. Her thick ringlets flowed over her head underneath the folded silk bandanna she always wore.
My lip quivered; my throat stung. Goodbyes sucked.Fuck you, Father.
“I’ll be there in two weeks,” she repeated.
“Twelve days,” I corrected her because the shop’s schedule was booked until then.
Maggie scoffed, surprised I knew the schedule. “Twelve days.” Her hands cupped my face. “Don’t stay up too late. Keep your stock of green inks. Don’t pick at your nails. And please, for the love of your dearest friend, don’t forget to drink water.”
My chest rattled, but the alphabet soup in my mind didn’t form any words. Stuck somewhere between crying sad tears and crying she-knows-me-so-well tears, I didn’t find acommon ground. Not before I opened the door with a shaking hand and left her behind me.
My entire soul grunted as I tossed my suitcase into the carriage, but even as my mind reeled back from the day’s emotional roller coaster, one thought haunted it.
What the fuck was I going to do with a magical sanctuary?
CHAPTER THREE
My carriage driver was a man on his third marriage, struggling because his two exes lived within a ten-mile radius and saw each other once a week for quilting night.Small-town things.I knew because he’d beenveryopen in the few minutes that had passed since I got in.
“That’s why I chose to be a carriage driver. It keeps me gone most of the time.” He shifted, and something slithered over his shoulder. “Much simpler times when it’s just me and Lolly, here.”
