Page 9 of Hotshot Mogul

“Livvie. She stomped on the bottom, just before the fai—woman with the purple hair spilled steaming liquid on her. Did you take Livvie on dates, too? She looks at you with wanting.”

He pulled at his shirt collar and swallowed hard. “Just once. She’s a selfish airhead.”

“‘Airhead’ is…?”

“Not interested in the world around her, only what is important to her.” He moved his shoulders up and down. “How about some music?”

Music, I knew. Isolde said humans could hear it all the time, at will. “Yes.”

He turned a knob and music flooded the space. “I love classic rock, but I’ll change it after this song if you want. My mother loves this song, so I listened to it a lot growing up.”

Two female voices harmonized: “I was willow last night in a dream….”

Willow? My ears rang. My vision went hazy. I gasped. Were there others like me?

He pulled the Jeep to the edge of a street, in front of a building, then stopped. “Anneliese?” He took hold of my shoulders. “Anneliese, baby.” He felt my forehead. “Talk to me, mon amour.”

Mon amour meant “my love” in French. Was he remembering?

His stunned face, drained of color, came into focus. “That’s French, right? I’ve never said that before. And I had this fucked up picture in my head…”

Desperate to calm him, as I had been during the short time we were together, I put my hand on his square jaw where a nerve twitched. His whiskers bristled. My heart hurt for him. But I had to focus on my task at hand—and not get reattached.

I snatched my hand away and pulled out of his grasp. “Nigan, why must Clynes Development take down the trees, desecrate an ancient oak tree and the life it supports?” Deer turds. I’d used his previous name.

His eyes blazed. I would have turned away, but he grabbed my hand and held it to his face, as I had done. “What did you call me?”

The truth this time, sort of… “It means ‘my friend’ in the dialect spoken in my home.”

“Anneliese…”

Knock, knock, knock. Callie stood at my window. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” I said. “I am anxious about the trees. They must not be cut down. I should have more signatures by now. I am calmer now. This day has been a bitch.”

Bruce laughed. Callie tried to hide her smile. Turds and piss. Did I get the word “bitch” right? I learned it had many meanings, some very unpleasant and insulting to females.

“Let’s carry on, shall we, before the rain?” Callie said. “It’s not far.”

We passed the rest of the way in silence. Bruce and I let our questions go, for the time being. I would play what Grenmann called the long game.

Bruce stopped on a road with rocks near my small tent. Isolde had instructed the kind fairies of the wood to procure everything I had needed. Probably best not to know how they did so.

I led them to the spot where I made my camp, near my beloved oak. Light drops of rain kissed my skin. I stood still, letting the life-sustaining wetness soak into me, as it nurtured my leaves and branches for so many earth rotations. It came down harder, so I grabbed my things and piled them into the Jeep.

“Wait here,” Bruce said. “I’ll get your tent.”

Raindrops pelted the earth in the open spots between trees as he hoisted the wet tent off the ground and into the very back of his Jeep.

He gave a thumbs-up to Callie (which I knew meant “all good”) and slid behind the wheel, looking shaken.

As we followed Callie, I asked him what was wrong. “How many nights did you sleep there?” he asked me.

I reached into the back for my blanket and wiped the rainwater from his arms, then my arms and face. “Only the night last.”

“Just last night?”

“Yes.”

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