Chapter 17 Sam
H e had fucking snuck up on me, and I had no time to block out his energy or do anything to keep him from getting under my skin. Jesse Garrett’s energy felt like the excited shiver of your crush offering you his hoodie when the air gets chilly. It’s all butterflies and cool summer nights, and it was the worst .
I was so angry shuffling my deck, I almost lost control of my cards more than once and sent them flying. “Oh, how serendipitous, Samantha!” I was going to kill my aunt. She knew some of my history with Jesse, the meddling witch. I stayed behind the counter for this; it was safer with the large piece of furniture between us.
It didn’t help that Jesse’s eyes were practically lit up like a Christmas tree. I silently threw out my protection request to the universe and leveled Jesse with a stare. I really hoped I could pull some cards that would at least show him being inconvenienced.
“Okay, I don’t really know how this works. Do I just ask a question?”
“That would be the gist of it, yeah.”
“Let’s see... how will my dad feel about the new t-shirt designs?” He clearly asked it as a joke, but the amusement in his eyes died down a little.
I laid down six cards and sighed. Why did he have to make me feel bad right off the bat? He was obviously struggling with his dad’s approval.
“Well, Jesse, he will not love them any more than he loved the old ones, even though my designs will obviously be phenomenal.” I tried to lighten up the answer with that. “ But he thinks you’re doing a great job. Like, this clearly shows that he’s proud, even if he doesn’t really get you.”
“Maybe I should have started with a less loaded question?” he asked, his voice noticeably tighter.
“Sorry. Fire away.”
He waved off my apology before refocusing. I was trying to ignore any extra insight outside of the cards because I already felt too much being this close to him. I didn’t need a more intuitive connection. But his people were persistent.
“Ummm, is Heather secretly planning to stage a coup and take my job?”
I snuffed out a laugh at that. Heather Samuels was about as malicious as a butterfly, so this one should have at least lightened the mood. But the cards didn’t say what I thought they would. Not that she was going to take his job. Obviously, the store was called Garrett’s Hardware , just that there were more emotions at play than on the surface of his question. I looked up and let my eyes go out of focus. I found I could better grasp the information that way. His people were adamant that he stop looking for his way out because then a path would appear directly in front of him. And if Heather needed to step up, then, she would.
“Interesting.”
“Oh my god, is she really going to mutiny?!” he asked more loudly than before.
“Inside voice!” I admonished. “No, of course not. She’ll only take over parts of your job if you want her to. And they keep showing me taking weight off your shoulders and putting it on multiple other people to carry. And that it’s fine to do that. They show it as you holding on to all of it really tightly.”
“Who are ‘they’?” he asked, more curious than concerned.
“That’s a question for another time. You can have one more; then I need to start to clean up.”
He looked up thoughtfully. “Can I just ask a general, like, what the hell is going on type of question?”
I smiled a little because I couldn’t count how many times I’d asked exactly that.
“Sure.”
I laid down a past, present, and future spread, and my heart sank a little at the recent past. There was so much hurt there. The present showed more uncertainty than pain, but the future became brighter.
“I know this is such a cliché answer... but it’s just part of the journey. You can’t skip where you are now to get to the good part any more than you could have gotten here without going through the last year and a half of your life. But it does... get better, I mean.”
I laid down three more cards just to clarify the Two of Cups I got in the future. When up popped The Lovers, the Queen of Wands, and The Star, I felt heat rise in my chest and then immediate irritation with myself.
You cannot be jealous of the possibility of some future woman from a tarot reading. You don’t even know him anymore.
And yet, I didn’t feel the need to tell him there was a love interest that might be ‘the one’ for him if I even believed such a thing existed. That would be his punishment for ambushing me tonight.
“Just... again, this sounds so unhelpful, but let things unfold. You don’t have to search so hard for where you’re supposed to go or what you’re supposed to do because it will just kind of fall into your lap. Does that make sense?”
Jesse let out a long breath and pushed his hair out of his eyes.
“Yeah. It does. And I have to tell you that you should probably get paid at least as much as my therapist.” He shot me a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Thanks for the reading, Marsh. I’ll see you on Tuesday. With lunch.”
He winked at me before getting up and heading toward the exit. I didn’t know that anyone had ever legitimately winked at me before, or if they had, it wasn’t memorable.
Wait, did he say he had a therapist?
I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to reconcile the version of Jesse that lived in my head with the real-life one who had just left. This was a concerning development.
TRYING TO WORK ON THE Garrett Hardware logo while trying not to think about Jesse Garrett was problematic, at best. I’d gone with sort of a vintage label look that might have been found on an old milk crate back in the day, but I made the font super clean and used a more modern navy and orange color palette to pay homage to the Emberwood Dragons, which I thought Jesse would appreciate.
See? Problematic.
I had three mock-ups to show him, anyway, and my stomach was not at all experiencing turbulence at the thought of seeing him.
My phone buzzed, and I smiled when I saw Lauren’s name. She’d forgiven me for canceling our plans last week, but she’d had some sort of stylist trade show out of town over the weekend (however, this also made me realize it would be an okay idea to make a couple more friends to have as backups).
LAUREN: I’ll be there in 5. Have out wine and snacks thx.
SAM: I even bought fudge-striped cookies and marshmallows just for you.
LAUREN: You really DO love me
“I brought you swag from the trade show,” she said without so much as a greeting and plopped a gift bag down on my miniature table.
I immediately handed her a glass of Riesling and dug in. I oohed and ahhed appropriately at the expensive shampoo samples and hair masks.
“Thank you. I should probably start using hair products that aren’t from the grocery store.”
“Please, don’t tell me those things, Sam. I’ll buy you some decent stuff. Promise me you’ll pour out whatever you have.”
“Done.” I grinned, getting out cookies and marshmallows along with regular-person snacks.
“So, what did you do without me?”
“I actually finished the logo mock-ups for what's-his-name.”
“Don’t think we aren’t coming back to the fact that my brother is now nameless, but let me seeeeeee them.” I grabbed my laptop to let her scroll through the samples, and she clapped. “These are so so perfect. Jesse and my dad will both love love love them. Seriously, you’re a genius.”
I felt some pink creep into my cheeks at the compliment. “It’s just a logo. It’s fine.”
She glared at me. “And I just do hair. Except I’m fantastic at it, and I make people feel pretty, and that’s awesome. And you help businesses and brands feel pretty and get noticed. It’s the same. Anyway, do you want to talk about Jesse before you see him tomorrow? Or explain why he is now nameless to you?”
I gave in to her comparison and let it go. She really was a genius with people’s hair and always had been. “Nope,” I replied, letting the “p” pop loudly before I took another gulp of my wine.
“You’re infuriating. Okay, just tell me this then—is the problem that you see him, and it brings up negative feelings? Like, is he being an ass? Or is the problem that you see him, and it brings up not-so-negative feelings, and you don’t want to deal with that?”
“Yes.” I didn’t have it in me to sort through the things that swirled around in my brain about that man.
“Fine, I can work with that. But we can talk about something else. And make fudge-striped s’mores.” She hopped up to microwave our treats and left me to stew.
I let out a breath, grateful she was going to let it go for the moment.
After our next couple of meetings, it will be a non-issue anyway, I thought.
It wasn’t like he had to be around me after that, so all the swirly feelings could go right down the drain. There was no point in fixating on them now. At least, that’s what I’d been telling myself all week as I worked on his designs. I could exchange goods and services and not let my Taurus Mars or my Cancer Venus run away with my brain in either anger or infatuation and let it go. I could take this as a quick detour where I have to deal with it, and then I could move on. No big deal. I was fully committed to the road trip metaphor now.
“Tonight, we will go back even further in time to enjoy the classic: Clueless ,” I informed Lauren as we settled in.
“How does Paul Rudd look exactly the same as he did then?”
“Superb genes or a vampire,” I declared.
“Def-ly uh vmper” Lauren tried to get out with a mouth full of marshmallow. I just laughed and tried to forget about the inevitability of tomorrow’s lunch and whatever awkwardness that would bring.
I WAS CHECKING THE clock for the six thousandth time at the shop that morning and almost dropped my phone when it buzzed in my hand.
JESSE: Hey, I just wanted to see if a bagel sandwich is acceptable for lunch. I asked Lauren what you liked but let me know if you want something else. See you in a bit.
I had to wait at least three and a half minutes before responding, and I hid my phone in a drawer behind the counter for a reason that I didn’t even understand. I walked to the back of the store twice before finally texting back.
SAM: That sounds good thx
Inspired reply. That was absolutely worth the pacing.
I knew I was being ridiculous—I just couldn’t stop. I was momentarily grateful that I’d updated my phone several times in six years because none of his old texts popped up with this one. That was not a trip I wanted to take.
In a moment of confidence after my affirmations that morning, I’d put on a rose-colored wrap dress that hugged my waist. The ruffled hem made me feel a little like a fairy, but now that I was here, I was second-guessing all of it. I almost called Zin to bring me jeans and a t-shirt, but I didn’t think she’d get here in time, anyway. I put my hair up and took it down and then put it back up again before a customer came in to save me from myself. After ringing her up, I saw Jesse’s truck pull up outside.
Just look busy.
I concentrated on logging the sale into the notorious notebook system and was putting it back into the drawer when he walked in. Panic rose in my throat when I realized I hadn’t bothered to work on any type of shielding or grounding this morning, and his energy filled my senses... again . I cursed the goosebumps that appeared on my arms and tried to fix my face into something that read nonchalance .
“Hey,” he said, looking at me quizzically.
I assumed that meant my face was full of chalance, whatever the hell that was.
I tried smiling instead.
“Hey!” Too loud, calm the fuck down. “Um, thanks for bringing lunch. We can set up at the same spot,” I directed, gesturing to the table I’d already cleared.
Jesse got out the food, and he also set a comically large iced coffee down with my sandwich, so it could have been a worse start. I came out from behind the counter with my laptop and went to sit down, hoping we could just work while we ate and be on with our day.
“You’re wearing a dress,” Jesse said.
“Impressive detective work, Garrett.”
He let out something between a sigh and a laugh and licked his stupid lips.
“Right, sorry. You look nice.” He held my gaze for a moment too long, and I willed the heat creeping up my neck to not turn into a splotchy mess.
“Thanks,” I said quickly, swallowing. “Are you ready to see the logos?”