Page 4 of Dancing for His Omega

They needed talent.

Huh.

If I still danced, I would participate. It actually sounded like fun. When I was little, I would dance in the local parades, and Easter was one of my favorites.

If only…

Chapter Four

Micah

I was buried in flowers.

With the spring festival coming up, my earlier ideas about chocolate bouquets had gone from an amusing inspiration to pure obsession. Who knew all the ways I could represent the rebirth of nature in my art.

Ever since I was a cub, I’d loved spring. Unlike natural bears, shifters didn’t hibernate, but we did slow down in winter, stay indoors more, and spend time with our den, our families. Everything was more relaxed, and we tended to drift through the season. Most of the people I knew were good with that, but I’d always grown restless and, according to my omega dad, generally driven the adults batty by the time the temperatures were rising again. And I’d counted the minutes until the flowers bloomed and grass grew green again, the trees leafed out.

Here in Oliver Creek, we didn’t have the deep snow, hard freezes, and unending cloudy skies of the northern place I was raised. But we still had cool winters, and it was only in the past couple of weeks that I traded my coat for a light jacket. In my fur, I was comfortable enough, but even Oliver Creek didn’t encourage bears on Main Street. And how hard would it be to make delicate candies with paws and claws?

Very.

I moved out of the kitchen into the front of the house and surveyed the display cases. As I’d suspected, the spring-themed items were selling best, the hand-shaped tulips completely sold out. I’d have to make more or risk disappointing my customers. The roses were nearly gone as well. I’d wrapped long skewers in green paper to make stems and created a rainbow array of blooms that had drawn in the tourists by the dozen. Red, yellow,pink, lavender, and some with more than one color to mimic some of my favorites in nature. The out-of-town visitors often ended up taking the stemless “petals” that came in a box and were much easier to travel with, but locals were keeping me busy refilling the vase displays. Next year, I would offer some for Valentine’s Day as well.

And I’d been playing with some four-leaf clovers I thought might be popular for St. Patrick’s Day. Of course, these sorts of items were not my main focus. My sales, both online and in-store, were largely the truffles and other classic types of chocolate work I’d learned in Paris, but in a town where tourism brought in so many dollars, the colorful and fun items drew people off the street and earned me many online orders after they returned home.

Even this early in spring, the sidewalks were busy with people both local and outsiders, many carrying bags from successful shopping stops. In winter, although business was slower, so was the foot traffic, and that was a nice respite. Not as good for the bottom line but the one aspect of that season that I had learned appreciate. My fellow business owners and people who lived in the area were more likely to stop by for long conversations when they did not have lines of customers checking out or filling every table at their restaurants.

One of my favorite aspects of the town’s growth was the food truck area. Every type of cuisine not represented in a brick-and-mortar location seemed to be represented there. Not a single chain or franchise, however, was. One thing the town council and the chamber of commerce were in full agreement on was their distaste for a big corporate presence. If someone wanted a chain-burger, they would have to drive out onto the highway and at least twenty miles. So far, nobody had ever indicated their interest in doing so. Why, when what we had was so much better.

My phone buzzed, and I swiped the screen to find a notification of a delivery about to arrive. My molds! While I was enjoying all the precision handwork of the flowers I had been doing, with the spring festival approaching, I was going to need a whole lot more candy than I could come up with. Also, I would be able to set a lower price point this way.

Plus…they would be darned cute.

Returning to the kitchen, I opened the back door just as a delivery truck rolled up. What I was planning to do would probably shock my old mentor in Paris, but a successful shop in my marketplace required flexibility. And since I would be doing a lot of hand painting in the molds, there would still be a level of artistry I could be proud of.

I accepted the box and carried it back up front with me since my employee was in college classes today and I didn’t like to leave the front unattended for too long. I could see the whole place from the kitchen, and shoplifting was not a big problem here, but having a friendly person in place made passersby and window-shoppers more likely to come in and make a purchase.

Opening a box of new candy supplies was always like Christmas morning, and I piled the paper cushioning on the counter as I lifted out each mold. Flowers, bunnies, butterflies, chicks, baby ducks… I probably shouldn’t have placed the order while enjoying a bottle of local wine, but which one would I not have chosen? They were each amazing in their own right, and my mind raced with decorating and display ideas.

The bell rang, announcing a customer, and I glanced up to see who entered. He was a slight man with golden eyes and hair to match. Well, more of a tawny shade, but the light outside caught blond strands and made them shine. He moved so gracefully he seemed to dance across the store.

Chapter Five

Edwin

Shay allowed me to collect myself after my second session. At first, I would have a few sessions a week and I thought after the first one, things might be fairly simple.

Boy, was I wrong.

“You can stay in my office for as long as you need,” he said, walking out. “Today was hard, but I think we discovered some things.”

We had. I no longer mourned Jacob and what we had. I realized that some of the things I cherished were blips of time, time where I thought I was the center of his world. The truth was, he had someone else, almost the entire time we were together.

I didn’t miss him. I didn’t miss the way I had to beg for his attention or ask him to put his phone down during dinners.

The way his eyes didn’t meet mine, even in the middle of rehearsals, often those where wepretendedto be in love.

“Thank you.” I did linger a few minutes, wiping away my tears and catching my breath.

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