Page 80 of The HalloQueen

“Lose yourself in finding some new product babe, do the stuff that brings you joy and we’ll handle the rest until you’re ready to decide what you want moving forward.”

“I don’t deserve you,” I sang at her.

“I know,” she sang back, “Which is why you’re coming out with me on Thursday.”

“Ugh, I don’t know how I feel about third wheeling with you and Trae.”

“What about Thomas? Didn’t he-”

“Shannon? Can you help me find this belt?” One of the kids hollered and Shannon gave me an apologetic smile before getting up to head back to them.

I spent the day half beginning the curation of next Spring’s collection and half daydreaming about how I would spend time if I didn’t have to work so damn hard for everything I had. If I stepped back from HalloQueens and focused on marketing and curating, I would have way more time in my day. Time in which I could learn how to be the best fucking green witch I could be. Mom said she blew up that bonsai tree in elementary school, I had so much to catch up on, so many trees to explode.

Could we travel? Could I go to Paris and meet the Coalition and learn more about my place in this world? Could I learn from other witches and then go back to where we were staying to a perfectly cooked dinner and a sarcastic man in a frilly apron?

Every vision I dreamed up included Thomas by my side. It was infuriating. Yes, he had come to my moms’ and apologized but it wasn’t safe to be with him. It wasn’t smart to be with him. It wasn't logical to be with him. And yet my mind fixated on the magic we created when we streamed energy between us. Now that I knew magic was a thing, I knew that the current of emotions that we could channel between each other was not normal, nor was it something we should take for granted. It was a gift from the goddesses. To imagine a life where I not only had to be dishonest about who I was but also had to live with the weight of the anxiety that I’d been shouldering…maybe he was supposed to be mine so we could work together and make the world a better place for the Others I would be responsible for.

Thomas could help me. He could make me stronger. I could learn from his past and he could, if nothing else, teach me the French I’d need to speak to the coalition. I snorted at the thought of Thomas getting progressively more irate at my butchering of his native tongue. Making the vampire angry didn’t scare me; it aroused me - an alarming amount. It was a far more appealing future than marrying Gary from accounting and having to hide my midnight margaritas for the rest of my life. I bet Thomas could learn to make a bitchin’ margarita.

“Earth to Bels! You’ve been staring at your screen for like ten minutes on the same piece of underwear, and frankly, emerald green lace isn’t that exciting.” Shannon smirked, rotating back and forth on her chair.

“Shit, sorry, I was just thinking-”

“You were thinking about the sexy Frenchman that you’ve been stupidly ignoring for weeks?”

“Yeah.” I groaned, scratching my scalp where my space buns were pulling, “just…do you ever imagine what your happily ever after would look like? Like… does it ever taunt you from behind this curtain, showing you just enough details to desire it but not enough to feel confident in your decision?”

She scoffed, “Bels, I’ve known you for a decade, you’re never sure about anything outside of your work. But, yeah, I think about what it could be, or what I want it to be. It’s changed a lot over the years. I had thought that it was Jake. I wouldn’t have married the prick and had our girls if I had ever thought he wasn’t the endgame. I’d imagined us growing old and watching the water on rocking chairs on a cabin’s porch, and having loads more kids and grandkids. I thought we’d be the family that was so huge and full of life that the amount of love we created was enough to power the rest of our lives. Like, if we loved hard enough we could get through any amount of bullshit the day would throw at us as long as we got to tumble into bed together at the end of the night. Now we fight about socks and I feel like I spend all my time undoing the shit he’s doing with the girls. I’m on crying kid duty until I’m able to let my hair down when they’re gone, and then I feel guilty about going out when I miss them so much.”

I frowned at her, “Babe, you don’t have to feel guilty for having a life outside of them.”

With a shrug and a sigh, she continued, “I know. I’m just saying Happily Ever After can look different in different stages of our lives. Now I’d settle for a burly dude that’s an ass man with a soft spot for little girls and a love of nature. That sounds nice to me. But, if my happily ever after doesn’t even include a guy, I don’t care either. I can have a happy and successful life without one, you know?”

“You just don’t want it to,” I smiled softly.

“Yeah, I don’t want it to.” She hit a few more keys on her computer and the screen went blank. “Okay guys, quitting time! Let’s get out of here.”

The new employees came out of the storeroom laughing and leaning into each other and waved to us on their way to their cars as Shan and I locked up.

“Ugh, it’s so dark. When is daylight savings starting?” She grumbled, fiddling with her keys to locate the one for her car.

“Not for a few weeks, but don’t worry, Winter will be here soon and then it will be dark at 4 pm every night anyway. Yay for seasonal depression!” I spun around in the damp parking lot, fall showers making the asphalt shimmer under the roadside lights. In a few weeks, Quaker’s Wharf had gone from too hot to handle to the perfect setting for a spooky movie with dark streets, a near-constant drizzle, and the leaves falling all around.

“Not helpful, Bels.” She leaned against her car door, jumping back and touching her now wet clothes with a grimace, then gave me a concerned look, “I know I’m a mother hen, but are you going to be okay? You can talk to me, you know that, right? I’m here for you.”

“I know, and I love you for it, but don’t worry about me, my mind is just in a million places at once.”

“I don’t want to overstep, but you were so much calmer and more at peace when you were seeing Thomas regularly.”

“That was like a week, you can’t formulate an opinion of my life with a week's worth of evidence,” I grumbled.

She put her hands up in surrender and then opened her car door, sitting inside the small sedan, “I’m just saying, time doesn’t mean shit when it’s your Happily Ever After.”

“And you think mine is Thomas?”

She shrugged, turning her engine over, “I’m not saying it’s not. I’m saying I think you should go home, drink a couple of glasses of wine and then let the poor guy apologize again while he licks you to at least four orgasms.”

I cackled, “You’re too much. I love you, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

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