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Apparently not.
“It isn’t fair,” she sobbed. “I can barely keep it together as it is, but the moment I see one of their smug faces…”
Tears cascaded down her face, her whole body racking with sobs.
I took the opportunity when her eyes closed to slip to her side and squat down in front of her. Clasping both her hands in mine, I teased the potion bottle out of her grip and put it on a side table.
The lack of a label caught my eye, and there was nothing special or branded about the shape of the vial, either. That didn’t bode well.
What shady character had she gotten it from?
With the potion now out of her hands, Sandra dashed forward and pulled Wendy into her arms on the love seat.
“I know, lovely, I know,” she murmured, rubbing her shoulders.
I looked back at Dad, who held fistfuls of his sleeves, squeezing the life out of the fabric. Maybe, just maybe, I could talk Ben Everhart into calming things down on his end. At least long enough for our family to recover.
“What happened here?” Allison asked as I let her and Kira in through the front door later that evening.
“Family meeting,” I said.
Kira’s face lit up as I shut the door behind them. “Can I come to the next one?”
“I’m not going to the next one, if that’s how it’s going down.”
I explained the full extent of the incident as we went up to my bedroom to change into swimsuits and strolled down to the indoor swimming pool.
That night, we were due to have our second dates at the agency, and all three of us needed to blow off some steam before we went. The last thing I wanted was to show up to a date with ‘William,’ still fraught with the day’s events.
I swam lazily around in a circle while Kira sat on the edge and Allison clung to it, kicking her legs happily.
I had suggested the pool. Water washed away all my troubles, and today of all days, I needed just that.
“Anyone getting lucky tonight?” Kira asked.
“If you’re going to live up to your boasting, then you are,” I said.
“Boasting?” Kira scoffed. “I was hopeful, that’s all. But he wanted to follow the instructions.”
“Is he really that close a match with you, then?” Allison kicked so hard, she splashed water right in my face.
“I’ll give him a few more chances.” Kira shrugged. “Well, Maeve? Going to take the plunge?”
“Following the instructions sounds good to me,” I said.
William had seemed as grateful as me to have some direction on our last date. Considering its success, I was happy to put my trust in the agency to guide us again.
My shoulders clenched, the tension radiating up to my jaw as the weird sensation from my shower the other day returned.
It rose up in me like a bubble this time, its urgency injecting panic into my core. I fixed my gaze on the water’s surface, the rhythmic lapping bringing calm to meet the chaos.
Little by little, the bubble receded.
“Boring.” Kira reached her hand into the water and splashed more at me.
Still dumbstruck, the water hit me straight in the face, but I didn’t even blink.
I needed to distract myself before I went down a mental rabbit hole trying to pull apart these weird feelings.
