Chapter 33
thirty-three
The Second Chance Fantasy Begins
It’s a beautiful morning. The sun has crested the hills and is peeking through budding trees. It takes so long for spring to spring here, but I know when it does, it’ll be gorgeous.
I pull open the door to the shop and tuck in the unicorn book-end wedge to hold it open. I unfold the sidewalk sign that Renee and I did up in colorful chalk a few days ago.
Your Second Chance Fantasy Awaits You Inside!
*Opening Weekend! All books 15% off!*
Maybe there are too many exclamation points, but we were excited and it felt appropriate.
On the other side is the featured book of the day, The Tyrant King’s Bride, and a little magical projection of the physical book.
The book spins from front, to spine, to back, to gloriously designed end pages.
Bastian did the most incredible work of all there, capturing the characters’ likeness in a possessive and feral pose.
It’s going to sell today, for certain.
I run inside and grab the gold trimmed red carpet, then roll it out through the open door.
It opens with a snap next to the sign, making my cheeks hurt from how hard I’m grinning.
Within minutes, someone strolling by pokes their head in.
To my surprise, I realize it’s Aaron, and beside him is a lovely woman holding the swell of her pregnant belly.
“Welcome to Second Chance Fantasy,” I declare in a cheery tone. “I’m Cait. Is there anything I can help you find?”
Aaron beams fondly. “What a one-eighty you’ve done on the place, like magic.”
I laugh, maybe a little hysterically, and wave the comment off. “Just a lot of great helpers.”
And a little magic…
“This is my wife, Brittany,” he says, giving her a little pat to move her forward.
Wife.
Pregnant.
But Robbie…?
I squint, then shake my head. “Cait,” I say again, reaching for her hand.
She gives me a shy smile and takes the handshake.
“I’m not Robert’s mother,” she says quietly, releasing me.
“Oh, I didn’t…” I start, but I was thinking it.
Aaron rubs the back of his neck.
I clear my throat. “So, how can I help you today?”
“I know it’s a stretch given the sign out front,” Aaron says with a knowing grimace. “But, any baby books?”
“Books on parenting, or books for babies?” I ask, heading toward the children’s section.
“For babies,” Brittany says in a voice just as timid as her shy smile.
“Britt’s a big reader and wants our boy to be just like her,” he says, gripping her shoulder in a loving squeeze.
“That’s sweet,” I say as I reach the section that should be children’s books…
The colorful stack of blocks is right there as the divider, but these are the mystery books instead. Am I going crazy?
I blink and look around, trying to see if I can identify where they’ve gone off to. They’re all bright spines, most of them short and extra wide so they almost stick off the shelves.
“Problem?” Aaron asks.
“Uh, no, sorry,” I say, spotting one of the neon yellow spines of the dinosaur book. “First day jitters, you know? I got turned around is all.”
I lead them to the ramp up to the second floor where the clean romance is supposed to be. Right over the smut, like…heaven and hell? It was a good joke, but now it’s just weird.
I pull out a selection of books for children under one and hold them out to Brittany. “Anything catching your eye?”
Her shyness grows into a bright beam as she touches the covers. “These are absolutely lovely.”
Then, her face falls suddenly.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She looks up at me with a wince. “You know how children can be. He’s going to destroy this beautiful book.”
I give her my kindest reassuring grin. “It’s tougher than it looks, I promise.”
It was made with Bastian’s magic, so I know for a fact it’ll be resistant to little grubby baby hands.
“But something this nice,” she says, her scowl deepening as she looks up at Aaron. “They’re probably…expensive?”
“Nope! Not anymore than your typical outlet,” I say cheerily. “Because we’ve sourced damaged books for free, or very cheap, and fixed them ourselves, we can keep the prices reasonable.”
I flip the book over to show the low-tack sticker printed with $11.99.
“Oh my, that’s so much lower than I thought it would be,” she says with a relieved laugh. “You could be charging more!”
I shrug. “I know, but I don’t want or need to.”
If I didn’t have Bastian, I would need to charge more. But I do have him.
I have him.
She grabs the books from my hands. “Then we’ll just have to get them all.”
“Honey,” Aaron sighs.
She tsks. “What did you expect? You brought me into a bookstore with cheap books! Plus, fifteen percent off for opening weekend!”
He grumbles something that sounds like “book buying ban” but she ignores him and looks to me, her face practically split in two from her smile.
“Now, I need one for myself. I saw the one on the sign outside!”
Her energy has me just as excited, and I lead her down the ramp into the smut hall.
The featured book is sitting on the table at the end in a lovely display with another light show.
The characters dance across a hazy mezzanine with a court of dark fae looking up at them.
She’s holding a dagger to his throat, but he wears a soft, loving expression, unconcerned by her threat. It’s a great scene.
“Oh my gosh, how do you do that?” she asks, moving her hand through the illusion.
My magic scatters and comes back together, not quite light-like. Maybe I could just tell her it’s real magic? What’s the harm, really?
I open my mouth to tell her the truth but the words catch in my throat. Something in my gut tells me there would be harm. That maybe Bastian could be put at risk.
“It’s a cool projector thing we installed in the walls,” I say, quickly covering my hesitation.
“And the sign out front?” she asks, her eyes sparkling with delight.
Oh god, oh god…
“Part of the sign,” I say. “I know, it just looks like a regular chalkboard, but it was super expensive.”
“Wow, that’s so cool,” she says, grabbing The Tyrant King’s Bride from the stand. “Sorry to be taking your featured book first thing.”
“Happy to sell it,” I say, waving off her comment as I guide her toward the front, lest she start looking for the source of the magic again…
I ring them up and Aaron harumphs as he pays the bill, commenting that it was just as much as the store at the nearby city center. Brittany counters on the way out that they saved money in gas and supported a local business, and Aaron had no retort to that.
They wave goodbye at the door and Brittany stops to look at the sign one more time before Aaron tugs her off. I really need to come up with a better explanation, and maybe buy some actual projectors…
“Bastian,” I call as I walk into the back office.
He appears in a blink with a sultry smile. “Congratulations on your first sale.”
I was frustrated, but now I’m happy and feeling loved too. I give him a quick hug, then pull back and get serious again.
“Did you move the children’s books?”
“Of course. The flow is better this way,” he says.
I scowl. “The flow?”
“Of magic. There’s a balance to the power of the stories and children’s books are low energy. Their tales are shorter with less depth and meaning, so I placed them over the more emotionally charged sex books.”
I cross my arms. “But now they’re on the second floor, farther away from child eyes. I want the kids and parents to quickly see we have a wide variety to choose from.”
He mirrors my defensive stance. “This is my hoard.”
“This again,” I huff. “It’s mine, too. I should have some say in the layout.”
“They were the only books I moved because they were the most egregious flow impediment. I could’ve moved more, so in a sense, you have most of the say in the layout.”
I squint at him. “So then why were the mystery books in their place instead of the clean romance? Where did those go?”
“Ah, yes,” he says, his voice losing some of his confidence. “I did…move a few others.”
“Look, I did a lot of research on layout. We may not be optimized for sales like this.”
“Optimizing for my magical feeding is more important than sales if we’re going to survive the warlock.”
I sigh. “Both are important. Plus, you didn’t move the hanging signs or the decorative dividers so there were kids blocks with murder books. On the day of opening, and I didn’t know!”
“I…” He looks away with a frown. “Apologize.”
“For?”
His head snaps back to me. “For upsetting your morning with my very appropriate changes.”
I’m squinting again. “Your apologies suck.”
He grunts.
“Look, we can keep the books in your flow but we need to move the placards and the decorations and I’ll need to make a new sign to point to the kids’ section upstairs, but it can’t be over the smut because the children will be stomping around and screaming while the readers below are trying to get into their book.
” I groan. “There must be a better option.”
“Hello?” a voice calls from the shop.
“Shit,” I murmur and head into the hall.
Bastian grabs my arm and tugs me back. “I’m sorry I made these changes without your input. I will move them back and we can discuss a better plan tonight.”
My chest aches at the sincerity in his gaze. I cup his cheek, then kiss him tenderly.
“Thanks.”
“Anyone here?” the voice calls again.
Bastian pats my butt and disappears. I run into the shop with a bright smile.
“So sorry! Welcome to Second Chance—”
The front door closes with a bang, and locks. There are three people in the room, all in strange-looking suits that are somewhere between the nineteen hundreds and a sci-fi B movie. They have suit jackets lined with blinking lights and attachments on their forearms that look like little computers.
There’s a glow at their feet, all of it different colors. Magic, maybe? If they meant us harm, they would’ve been rebuffed by the spell at the door…
“How can I help?” I ask, trying to regain my composure.
The headman takes a step forward, waving a pen in front of him. He has a crooked nose, tan skin, dark eyes, and white-streaked black hair. He’s taller than me by a good six inches, but I’m only five-three, so…
He looks at me over the rim of his glasses, something that feels so old-timey librarian, and then grimaces.
“Where’s the dragon?”