Page 90 of Finding Closure

And the cream puffs were amazing. For real, and it was sad that the place was dead. Did they not have any marketing or… I had enough problems of my own, and I couldn’t worry about anyone else right then.

“Oh, I need to pick up something real quick for my sister,” Lucca said when we were done. “She needs a new swimsuit.” He cleared his throat. “After Dad was pushing them at guys, they both admitted they wanted to wear something with more coverage at the summer parties. Though I told them both those guys were jerks. We all make friends and alliances.”

“Agreed. It wasn’t like they tried to crawl into bed with them or flirted. They just said hi because your dad said to be nice. They’re going way over the top with what they told me,” I grumbled, really upset for his sisters.

Which is why I went a bit overboard with the shopping. Once I got their sizes, I bought them each a few cute one-pieces… That were Louis Vuitton. No one would say shit about them wearing one-piece swimsuits when they were so expensive and designer. I also got them some Gucci activewear to throw over it and a few cute cover-ups that were designer as well.

“Thanks, cream puff,” Lucca whispered. “I’m in over my head on this.”

“I know.” I gave him a soft kiss. “But you do the same when I am too.” I smiled when he did. “And tell your sisters to brag about me taking them to the next auction with Birkins. I’ll get them each a bag. Your mom too.”

He nodded but then did a double take. “Wait, those crazy Hermes bags that are like the cost of fucking cars?”

“Sometimes,” I chuckled. “The preowned ones aren’t normally that much and where they would start, but—let them have people talking about anything else, Lucca. It’s fine. Really.”

“I love you so much,” he whispered as he gave me a huge hug.

“Me too, you cute bear,” I mumbled, feeling my cheeks flush.

He wanted me to be the hero and drop it all off, but I admitted that I didn’t know if I could handle that just yet. He was great about it and immediately had his security do it instead. I told him he could go see his family and I was fine, but he brushed it off.

And clearly, I wasn’t fine. But he needed to do a few other things and there was a restaurant he was dying to try. It was quiet, and we had a table outside on the water. It was nice and Lucca didn’t push.

The next morning, he was all over me because he heard that there had been a huge snowfall on one of the mountains in Faerie where it was winter. He was like a kid at Christmas, and there was no way I was denying him the chance to go snowboarding when he was practically giddy. So we went, and while I wasn’t all into it, the adrenaline was nice. It was fun.

But I was still sad. There was no way to just stop being sad after losing my parents and burying them.

When we were all snowboarded out, he said he’d told one of the rest stops we’d stop by because the hobgoblins were worried. So we went there. Then he had some errands we had to run and another dessert place to try.

And on and on.

Honestly, it was a bit embarrassing how long it took me to catch on to what he was doing. One minute it was snowboarding where it was winter and then kitesurfing where it was summer in Faerie which I’m not sure anyone has ever done in Faerie. But it was great. I was finally able to bring my gear to my planet and we’d ordered more since yeah, now I could.

Then he wanted to do autumn stuff and get a break from his sloth. He needed it.

Oh, and we needed to go fishing. He was dying to go fishing and see the fish in the spring that he’d heard about and blah,blah, blah. His bear was dying, and once the guys heard about it, they said we could cook it on the beach and make a day of it.

And they were all so excited that I just went along and nodded.

There were errands, and we helped make repairs on one of the temples and then harvested groves before regrowing them. Just packed days with nothing serious but a lot.

Enough to tire me out.

So yeah, it was clearly on purpose and to keep me moving instead of getting lost in my sadness. It worked, but it didn’t handle it all.

That wasn’t possible.

I also needed to remind myself of the piles of wins so it was worth the vast loss I was experiencing now. So I took off before they woke up and Lucca could jump me all around again.

I found myself at the orphanage set up for grandchildren of fairies, but I wasn’t there for one of them. No, I wanted to check on the young witch I’d healed with a miracle the gods had taught me.

Nothing shocked me more than to find her older sister already up and checking on her as well. We simply stared at each other a moment.

“How is she doing?”

“Physically, she’s better than ever,” she answered. “Mentally—she’s blaming herself for breaking up our family. It’s ridiculous, and she’ll see it’s bull, but she’s just overwhelmed.” She scrubbed her hand over her head. “Our family is fine. Our siblings are our family. That woman isn’t anything to us but…”

“You can’t force people to feel as you do,” I said for her.

---