He’s still a virgin?
That doesn’t matter, and it’s not my business. My business is this bookshop, and what am I doing just standing here instead of working!
I sidestep to get out of his gravity and my hair slips through his fingers.
“I really need to start, you know, doing something reproductive—productive, just productive,” I say, flustering through the weird slip.
There’s a curious expression wrinkling his brow, like he’s not sure what just happened.
“Anyway, if you want to be useful you could do something,” I say.
“Like?” he asks.
Oh jeez, what could he do?
I look at the finished book sitting on the kitchen island next to the spell book I want to explore, then down to Oscar’s food bowl, and the half-blown-up mattress. None of these things are giving me any clarity.
“I, uh…”
Where’s my phone? I need my list.
“I could handle the dust mites,” he suggests.
“Yes! Perfect, that, please,” I say, hunting for my phone between the sheets of the deflated mattress.
There it is!
“Thank god,” I sigh with relief as I clutch the device to my chest.
Bastian quirks an eyebrow at me and turns away. “I’ll be in the bedroom, banishing magical creatures if you need me.”
“Sure thing, thank you Basty Boy,” I say.
He only grumbles in response.
I unlock my phone to see there’s a text from earlier this morning.
Renee:Hey Chicka! Saw you walking Main with some hunk…you didn’t tell me you came with a man! We’ll have to do a double date one of these nights, my hubs has been dying to talk to another gym rat.
Cait:Haha, yeah, he’s a real hunk, but just my friend.
I pause on the keys. How do I explain that just a friend is living with me, and has made a summoning circle out of my books in my apartment?
I can’t. I have no good excuse. But I definitely can’t tell her the truth.
Shoot.
Deflect…
I delete everything and start again.
Cait:Hey! Yeah we went to the Chubby Radish (so good!) since my kitchen is still a work in progress. Speaking of, know anywhere I can get some discount appliances that aren’t from the stone age?
Good enough.
I pan over to my to-do list and smile at how many things have been checked off. I keep them in there for a week just to see the progress, and this week has been pretty good, despite my mood and impending blood-fest.
I scroll down to the first unchecked item and grimace.
