Page 75 of The Blue Moon Café & 24-Hour Occult Emporium

The lights were on, but Dahlia was already under the covers. Her hair was haphazardly tucked in a pink satin bonnet, her button-up replaced with a flannel shirt. She was snoring gently, her face smooth. Like a Renaissance painting of a sleeping nymph. A beautiful, sleeping, snoring nymph. Talula’s heart squeezed with affection, all the nervous energy deserting her. She turned off the bedside lamp, slipped under the covers, and took a deep breath—soft skin, pomegranate shampoo, shea butter lotion. Talula turned on her side, away from Dahlia, and closed her eyes.

Suddenly, arms came around her middle.

Talula went still.

A nose nuzzled into the curve of her shoulder. She felt warm weight curling against her back.

“Dahlia?” Talula whispered.

But there was no answer. Just a contented sigh. Then, the deep, slow breaths of sleep. Talula didn’t know how Dahlia could be sleep-spooning her. Especially since Talula’s heart was banging around her chest like a damn racquetball. Talula tried to pry herself free, but Dahlia’s grip just tightened, grazing Talula’s breasts in a way that made her nerves flare and her core go molten.

So, Talula was stuck. In bed. With Dahlia Jones.

It was wonderful.

To be held like this, to be warm and safe, cradled by Dahlia’s sleepy body. Being this close to Dahlia felt right in ways Talula didn’t know were possible. She tried to stay awake, to memorize the feeling of Dahlia’s nose pressed against her shoulder and her arm slung over Talula’s waist. But too soon, Talula fell asleep, smiling.

19

“I should have warned you.” Dahlia’s voice cracked through Talula’s skull. “I’m a drunk snuggler!”

Talula bolted upright, still in Dahlia’s bed. Which, ordinarily, would necessitate a full five-minute freak-out as the night’s events came back to her. But the shock was somewhat subdued by the hangover headache thumping steadily behind Talula’s eyes. She needed a greasy breakfast. Or to throw up. Forever.

Dahlia was perched on the edge of the nightstand next to Talula. She looked fresh from a shower, wearing ripped jeans, Kiki’s necklace, and an orange sweatshirt with a toothy jack-o’-lantern print. She gave Talula an embarrassed grin. “Sorry I made you my personal teddy bear.”

“It’s okay,” Talula croaked. Actually, it had been amazing. But she still wasn’t sure how Dahlia wanted to play their impromptu sleepover.

“Here.” Dahlia held up a grease-spotted brown bag with the logo of a nearby diner. “It’s a breakfast sandwich. Definitely not as good as yours.” Dahlia and the sweatshirt jack-o’-lantern winked at Talula. “But it’ll do the trick.”

Talula knew that her mother kept a supply of literal hangover cure in the fridge for when her extended coven came into town, but that greasy paper bag gave Talula’s hungover self a reason to live.

As she sat up in bed, Dahlia handed her some napkins and a wax paper–wrapped sandwich. “Noosh-eh joon.”

“Khasteh nahbahshee,” Talula murmured groggily before taking a bite. Fluffy brioche. Bacon. Sausage flecked with apple and herbs. Spicy honey. Some kind of creamy aioli. A fried egg with a rich, jammy yolk. Talula was in a state of hangover rapture.

“I love this,” Talula croaked, on the verge of tears.

“Yours is better.” Dahlia plopped onto the foot of her bed. “Why doesn’t the Blue Moon sell breakfast sandwiches?”

Talula’s hangover took a back seat to the familiar surge of secret-keeping guilt. She kept this half-truth simple. “My mom wants us to focus on the occult part of the café.”

“I guess I can see that.” Dahlia handed Talula a cold bottle of water. “But is there someone else who can help you with your culinary aspirations? Like, a business partner? Your dad?”

Talula gulped down some water. “My dad’s not really in the picture.”

“Divorce?”

“They never married.” Talula set down the bottle. “Larry—my dad—he’s a reformed occultist.”

During his (very brief) pagan phase, Larry Alan Anderson had met Sara at a coven event in the city. Their one-night stand had resulted in Talula. When Sara discovered she was pregnant for the first time in her existence, she came clean to Larry about everything. The Volta. Her pseudo-celestial origins. Talula’s supposed Magical Destiny as her first-ever progeny. Everything.

And Larry was, quite frankly, wigged out. So, Sara raised Talula on her own.

“Did you get to see your dad when you were growing up?” Dahlia asked.

“Every once in a while, I’d spend a weekend at his place in the city. We’d do some father-daughter things, bowling and cookouts and stuff.”

But whenever Talula was with her father, it was clear Larry thought of her less as a daughter and more as a bizarre cultural exchange student. He was too bewildered by Talula and her mother’s “specialness” (as he put it) to really connect with her. Talula also supposed that Sara had a hard time seeing Larry as a useful co-parent. She was an all-powerful immortal sorceress, after all, and Talula was her only child. Sara wasn’t going to waste her first (and maybe only) chance at motherhood splitting holidays with a guy whose enthusiasm for the supernatural started and ended with cruise ship magicians. Plus, Larry thought cilantro was spicy. What could Talula say about that?