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Chapter One
The bell over the door jingled and I looked up from the book I had been reading to see who'd entered Fortune's for the Unfortunate. Tyson Alexander, one of my boyfriends, owned the store, and I had a sneaking suspicion that he'd mostly bought it for me. I refused to ask him flat out because I was afraid of the answer I would get in response. Denial and avoidance were my specialties.
From his perch beside me on the counter, Binx hissed at the new arrival.
I knew it wasn't exactly normal to bring your cat to work with you every day, but Binx had insisted and my boss could give a crap less what I did, seeing as he was one of my boyfriends and all, so the little guy came along with me every day. The customers who came in never seemed to mind and thought he was cute... until he hissed at them after they tried to pet him, that is. Then they thought he was a little demon and I always ended up having to apologize for him. That never stopped me from bringing him back with me though.
Binx wouldn't take no for an answer and I knew that sounded insane since we were talking about a cat here, but it was the honest truth. Every time I left to go to work, the damn cat ran out of the cottage door before I could get it closed, and he'd be waiting at my Rover for me to get inside. He'd get in the Rover and ride to work with me without making a peep.
It was weird behavior for a cat, but then Binx was just a weird cat and I'd long since stopped questioning the things he did. Dash always acted like the things his cat did were normal, so I rolled with that and pretended for his sake that this was true.
I was good at pretending most things were normal when they absolutely were not.
"Hi! How can I help you?" I asked, before looking up to see who'd walked through the front door and made the bell jingle.
The smile on my face froze in place and I blinked several times to see if I was really seeing the person who was walking toward the front counter.
"Ariel," Marcus Cole said in a kind, gentle voice. "It's good to see you, sweetheart."
I swallowed painfully past the lump of emotions suddenly lodged in my throat.
Binx hissed angrily and I shooed the damn cat off the counter before he could swipe at Marcus with his claws. I didn't need him drawing blood, not in this shop when bleeding meant more than it normally would, and there were so many things that your blood could be used for.
The cat hopped off the counter and sashayed his way toward the shelves. His tail swished from side to side as he sauntered off, acting like he hadn't just looked feral and like he was almost ready to attack someone.
I sighed as I shook my head.
"Sorry about Binx, Marcus," I apologized quietly for the stupid cat, without looking Marcus in the eyes.
Marcus Cole and I used to have the type of relationship where I looked to him as a father figure, and not just because he'd been sleeping with my fake mother while we'd lived with him. It had more to do with the kind heart he had and the fact he'd been the first adult male in my life to show that he cared about me. Hell, not even the first adult male, but just the firstadult.Somewhere along the line things had gotten strained between the two of us though, and I wasn't entirely sure why.
I knew he was once again living in the house next door to the Alexander home, the house my mother and I had lived in with him when I'd first moved here. Quinton told me that he'd talked to Marcus about me on several occasions, updating him on what was going on in my life, and he knew pretty much everything about me and all the little things he'd missed when I thought he'd moved away. At first, it had felt nice that Marcus had been checking in on me and Quinton was the perfect person to talk to if you wanted to know anything about me, because Quinton was my ultimate stalker and he worked really hard to be good at it.
Then, after awhile, I had started to feel uncomfortable with it because although he was asking Quinton about me, Marcus never once approached me to see how I was doing or to even talk to meat all.I wanted him to check in with me about me. Not go through Quinton. I wanted to have a relationship with Marcus Cole, almost desperately so, and my feelings were getting hurt the more this went on.
And now he was here in front of me, talking to me in his gentle voice that melted my heart immediately and calling me sweetheart. The important question was why? To all of it.
He smiled at me and my chest burned. It had been so long.
"Don't worry about the cat," he said. "I bet he's like that to most men who come around you."
I frowned at him. Umm... say what?
I thought about what he said but shook my head, because I couldn't remember Binx being around another female before so I just assumed that he halfway hated everyone.
"What?" I asked in confusion.
His smile grew bigger. "Never you mind," he rushed to tell me. He hurriedly looked around the empty store before back to me and inquired, "Are you busy?"
I, too, looked around the empty store before smirking at him. "Nope." I shrugged. "Noon time is really slow around here. There's a whole crowd of old ladies who stop in during the mornings for herbs, candles, and a bunch of other weird stuff. Then there's an afternoon crowd of school kids that don't really come here for any reason other than to either make fun of stuff or pretend like witchcraft is the newest trend, and they spend their allowances on things they don't know anything about. The night crowd is where it really gets interesting though, but I don't get to work that shift very much. Julian and Dash or the twins usually work the night shift. Sometimes Ty does."
I slammed my mouth shut as soon as I realized I was rambling away because I was nervous. Another fault I had was diarrhea of the mouth and it got worse whenever I felt nervous or scared... or pretty much anything. Who was I kidding? I always blurted out things I shouldn't.
Ever heard that some things were better left unsaid? Well, I failed at it almost every time.
Marcus cleared his throat and cautiously, quietly, asked, "Can you join me for lunch then, since there are no customers and won't be for a few hours?"
His voice was hopeful but hesitant, almost as if he were scared of what my answer would be. Like he was afraid I would reject him.
