Page 110 of As The Shifter World Turns

I didn’t bother pointing out they had a much bigger issue with unicorns only being able to mate with other unicorns—or so they thought.

“I guess.”

“I can’t tell you what to do, Ivor, but think about it some more before you give him an answer.”

40

LIKE A BAD PENNY…

Micah

“I made you lunch, love.” He held up the lunch sack. It wasn’t even really a lunch sack as much as a plastic grocery sack. “And the term might be a bit of an exaggeration.”

“Can I eat it?” He nodded. “And will it make my belly happy?” Another nod. “Then it’s absolutely perfect.” I kissed his cheek and accepted the bag.

“I see those videos on social media of mates making those fancy bento boxes for their partners and they’re adorable.” He let out a long sigh. “But they never look delicious and leftovers are much yummier.” He wasn’t wrong.

“I’d pick heating up last night’s dinner over fancy toothpick-jabbed sandwiches in a little plastic box any day of the week,” I assured him. And I would too. “What time are you and Elune stopping by today?”

We’d made big changes in our lives. Archer had given up his job and had started working part-time at the company Daire and I created. Yeah, we had a company of our own. Daire had given up the nursery job but still attended classes at his community college three mornings a week. And he kept making his gardening videos which brought in advertising money.

I’d been doing the staging for our new company, but adding gardens to our repertoire, thanks to Daire’s gift, leveled up what we could offer our customers. We now had very high-end exclusive clients who paid the really big bucks and we even had a wait list.

It blew my mind that people were scheduling their home sales around when we could get their houses where they needed to be. But then again, the whole selling a house for ten million dollars was pretty outside my realm too.

“I’m hoping to get one web page revamped during the baby’s morning nap and then bring her by after that. If the timing is good, we’ll eat lunch with you before I begin working on billing.”

I loved that owning our own business meant that every day could bebring your daughter to workday. We even had a little area set up for her in the office. “Now go, so I can get my work done and join you.” He slapped my ass playfully.

“I’m going to say—” He held up his hand, cutting me off.

“If you go in there and wake her…” Fair enough. She had just started sleeping for longer lengths of time.

“I was kidding.” Sort of. I still wanted to see her adorable face. “Video message when she’s up?”

Archer just rolled his eyes. “I could do that or get my work done here so I can bring her to the office.”

“Good-bye, mate.” I kissed him. “See you soon.”

Patch, not to be ignored, demanded his loving too in the form of a belly rub.

Why was it so hard to leave home… still? If I could spend all day, every day with them I’d choose that in a heartbeat. And really, we’d managed to get close to that with him working part time with Daire and me.

I walked across the street to meet Daire. We were driving together. He was already in his car when I arrived.

“Sorry. It’s not easy to say good-bye.” No sense pretending with Daire. He knew what a sap I was.

“I know,” he chuckled. “Grabbed us coffee from around the corner.”

“Basically, you knew I’d be late?” I took the coffee. It smelled amazing.

“Yes, but…” He picked up his phone from the dash and handed it to me. “We got a call from here. It’s… I know they aren't going to be in the right price range for us, but… let’s do this for our portfolio.”

Daire never asked me to do a project. He was always along for the ride until it came to getting his garden game on. The fact that this caught his eye had me intrigued.

I looked at the phone and he was right. The neighborhood was not high end. They wouldn’t be able to pay a fee that was worth our time, but… “A patio greenhouse.”

“What do you think? I bet we could get some decent publicity… possibly a magazine layout.” He sounded so hopeful that even if I thought it was a bad idea, I’d have said we should do it. We had enough high-paying clients that we could afford it. But he was right. The building was like a time capsule. We could do it properly.

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