Page 9 of Fated Midlife Christmas
Zoe sucked air between her teeth. “Ouch.”
“Big ouch,” Amanda confirmed. “It sucked, but I realized that I’m just not a long-distance-relationship type of person. We have to learn these things as we go through life, right?”
Kristy bobbed her head from side to side, considering. “Yeah, but just because Dale was like that doesn’t mean Lars will be.”
“I know. It’s not really about the guy. It’s about me. It’s about what I want, and I don’t want to torture myself or anyone else that way.”
“So you’re not going to spend any time with him while he’s here?” Kristy challenged. “Even with all that chemistry? Even if he might be?—”
“Don’t say it,” Amanda interrupted. “If we don’t say it out loud, then I don’t have to figure it out right now.”
“Have it your way,” Kristy shrugged.
“Thank you. Now really, we should get back to this session.” Amanda hopped off the table.
Kristy obediently lay back, and Zoe came to stand next to Amanda.
“Start by just trying to feel where her energy is currently. Don’t think about how you’re going to adjust it yet. Just notice it.”
Zoe started at Kristy’s feet, hovering her hands about an inch over Kristy’s body. She closed her eyes and wrinkled her brow. After a few minutes, she moved up a little and then back down. “I’m not feeling much.”
“I think we all kind of ruined the mood with our laughing,” Amanda admitted. “Staying in the right headspace is one of the biggest challenges of this job.”
She lifted her own hands and put them just above Kristy’s feet, closing her eyes and waiting for that familiar sensation. It was there, but it was weak. Amanda frowned and moved up toward Kristy’s knees. Now her frown deepened. Kristy usually had a lot of really strong energy, which was what made her a good candidate for training someone else.
“Damn,” Amanda said after a few minutes, opening her eyes.
“Is something wrong with me?” Kristy asked, lifting her head slightly off the table.
Amanda pushed her back down. “Plenty, but not in that way. No, I think something’s wrong withme.”
She spread her fingers over Kristy’s stomach and took several meditative breaths. Amanda tried to let go of everything and let her training take over. A lot of this job was intuitive, and she was probably thinking about it too much.
Finally, she started to feel something, but it wasn’t within Kristy. It was within herself. An energy healer didn’t give or take their own energy to help someone else. They simply aligned what that other person already had. The healers themselves, however, needed to also be aligned. Amanda definitely wasn’t.
After a minute, Amanda put her hands down. “I think we’ll just have to try this another time.”
4
“You got here just in time,”the server said as she came up to their table, adjusting her Santa hat. “We’re starting to get packed, and you never would’ve gotten a table.”
“Do you have a special going on or something?” Beck asked.
“We do! It’s half price on all our holiday-themed drinks.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a couple of skinny strips of cardstock with the drinks listed on them. “We’ve got cranberry punch, a red Manhattan, a mistletoe martini, a pumpkin spice white Russian, hot buttered rum, and spiked hot chocolate. That one’s my favorite.”
“What? No eggnog?” Kendrick asked.
The server looked over at the bar, then leaned down a bit. “We have it, but I really don’t recommend it unless you want to be re-experiencing it all day tomorrow.”
Lilith made a face. “Pumpkin spice white Russian for me, please.”
“You’re such a girl,” Ewan told her. “Just a beer will do.”
“Same,” Griffin ordered.
Beck shrugged. “I’ll try the red Manhattan. Might as well get into the season a bit.”
Kendrick stroked the edge of his jaw with the back of his hand. “I really want the eggnog, but I’ll be safe and go with the hot buttered rum instead.”
