Chapter 1 #2
And the entire strange situation was exacerbated by the fact that the very name Wise Old Crone sounded—now—like an advice column for the supernatural, possibly even by the supernatural.
He had to assume he was getting a higher proportion of letters about paranormal topics than his peers, because what had started as a trickle was now a torrential downpour of questions about curses and love spells and yearning across dimensions.
It could only be that his readers, at least some of them, assumed that the Wise Old Crone was not merely Charlie’s corny joke, but an actual mystical source of wisdom.
In fact, he had an ominous feeling that the new owners of Midnight might have even been under the mistaken impression that Wise Old Crone was a supernatural advice column.
That could certainly be where Ava’s pressure on him to “chase the niche” was coming from.
Or maybe she was just earnestly looking out for him.
It didn’t matter. He’d already tried retooling his column to address the paranormal (he’d seen how much attention Dear Prudence got for that wild letter about leprechaun inbreeding)—and he’d failed.
He’d decided that before he could write about the supernatural, he had to educate himself, so he’d sought out information.
There wasn’t a lot to find online, so he’d reached out to a few friends who’d bragged about meeting up with fae guys, and he’d even tried cold-calling any coven or other paranormal group he could find online.
But it had all been a bust—no one would talk to him.
It seemed mystical creatures weren’t eager to have the details of their personal lives splashed about online for public dissection. Which, he supposed, was fair.
But that left Charlie with a bunch of boring letters about humans, a bunch of paranormal letters he had no idea how to respond to, and a career that was circling the drain.
In his mind’s eye he could see the glowing red rectangle on his calendar for Monday: COLUMN DUE.
He felt panic crawling up his throat again and took a few deep breaths.
Ava was writing to him. you’re going to get through this. your column is awesome and so are you
Yeah, he wrote back. It’s so great the click-based model drained my bank account in a few months.
That was the worst part of the buyout and the new owners and the fucking click model: the part where he couldn’t even be mad about it.
Because if his column really was as popular as it’d been just a few years ago, he wouldn’t be in this position.
Somehow, over the last few years, his column had gone .
. . stale. He felt like he was always writing about the same problems, giving the same answers, regurgitating the same posts over and over again.
No matter how much he tried to spice up his writing, find a new angle, reinvent his point of view, it never seemed to amount to anything.
No wonder he was fading away. He’d lost his voice.
This was his fault.
A gust of cold air wafted over him as a customer walked into the shop; it had been balmy during the day, but this late at night it was chilly. Whatever Ava was writing to him, she was wavering on it; her dots popped up and then vanished, popped up and vanished again. Then: is it that bad?
His heart jumped. No, it’s fine, he lied.
let me cheer you up, she wrote back. let’s get drinks!
He winced. I’m actually not in NYC this weekend, he wrote. Visiting a friend out of town.
oh fun! when you get back then
Yeah, he wrote. When I get back.
He closed his laptop before she could respond. He’d been making excuses for a few weeks, telling people he was visiting friends or couch surfing for a while. Plenty of writers did their work on the road, after all.
It would just be too pathetic to admit the truth.
He stretched some of the stiffness out of his neck and glanced around the twee little coffee shop, which was dim and quiet past eleven p.m. When he was hunched over his laptop, he could forget where he was, the blue-white glow like a portal back to his life in New York.
But he hadn’t been able to afford rent in New York for a while now.
A few weeks ago he’d finally faced reality and sublet his place to a stranger from Craigslist, flagrantly breaking the lease; but it was better than giving the place up entirely.
At least this way he could tell himself he’d be back soon.
Then he’d packed up his things and moved back home to Brookville.
Most people didn’t expect to find a funky little town like Brookville in the middle of rural Virginia, but tourists loved it—the cobblestone streets, eclectic nightlife, and rolling mountains were an appealing package.
The coffee shop was classic Brookville: locally owned but with the polish of a chain, rainbow swag already up well in advance of Pride, posters for ukulele lessons and the local DSA on the corkboard.
B’ville was the kind of oddball small town most people found charming.
As a local, Charlie had been itching to get out of Brookville his whole life.
He hadn’t been able to turn down the free tuition that came with being the son of a University of Brookville faculty member, so it had taken him until after college.
But he had, eventually, gotten out, for a few sweet years.
Brookville was cute, sure, but New York was the center of the universe to an aspiring writer.
And now he was back, because B’ville was dirt cheap compared to New York.
He’d rented a tiny, stale-smelling apartment from a grad student who was gone for the summer, and he’d barely bothered unpacking more than his toothbrush and laptop charger.
He had no intention of being here long. He was going to get his column on track and move back to the city.
And if he didn’t, he’d just have to . . . move in with his father.
Needing to shake off that thought as quickly as possible, he got up and headed to the counter.
He got there just as another customer finished his order and moved to the side to wait for it.
As Charlie gave his order to the barista, he glanced over at the other customer.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, with tousled, touchable black hair and a sharp jawline.
A distant part of Charlie’s brain, mostly buried under all the panic and stress, went mmm.
He finished paying for his drink and moved toward the pickup spot, while the other guy shuffled away from him slightly.
He was wearing kind of a lot of clothes for summer-time, most prominently a long, well-cut jacket that fell nearly to his ankles, which Charlie had to admit did flatter his frame.
He was facing away from him, though, which stymied his efforts to check the guy out fully. He sighed and got out his phone.
There was a nagging text from Ava and nothing else of interest. He slid his phone back into his pocket, and when he looked up, he caught the other customer looking at him, though he whipped his gaze away quickly. This time, with a fuller view of his face, something pinged at Charlie—familiarity.
Did he know this guy?
Just from the quick glance he got, he was able to confirm that, yes, the guy was hot—very hot, with rugged, masculine features, though his skin was pale and his eyes a little sunken and red.
He was wearing a faded-looking sweatshirt and loose jogging pants beneath the coat; not someone who cared that much about fashion then, but honestly, with his tall, muscled frame, he didn’t have to.
It was driving Charlie nuts that he couldn’t figure out where he knew this guy from. He didn’t think he was someone he’d met in New York, but he didn’t remember him from the last time he’d lived in Brookville either.
The guy glanced at Charlie again, his eyes narrowed. It was kind of a . . . glare, almost. A sexy smolder, maybe? Or maybe Charlie was just being optimistic.
Then the barista put a coffee cup on the counter and said, “Lorenzo,” and it clicked.
“Lorenzo!” Charlie shouted unhelpfully.
Lorenzo squinted at him some more. “Charles,” he said, in a strange, almost formal tone.
“Sorry,” Charlie said, embarrassed. “I couldn’t, uh.
How are you?” It was all coming back to him now: Lorenzo had dated one of his friends, Olivia, for a few months their senior year of college.
Charlie and Olivia had been close, but he’d never gotten to know Lorenzo that well—it was more the kind of relationship where Olivia brought him to parties and everyone made stilted small talk with him and mostly just tried to ignore that he was there.
Charlie had a vague memory that Lorenzo had been kind of weird and hard to talk to, and Charlie was pretty sure he’d thought Olivia could have done better.
He was starting to lose interest in talking to him now.
“I am well,” Lorenzo was saying, somewhat stiffly. He had the same faint accent that Charlie remembered now—he must have been an exchange student from . . . somewhere. Europe? “In fact, I am thriving.” He picked up a jar labeled Artisanal Flaked Iron and tipped some of it into his coffee.
“Uh, great,” Charlie said.
“It is great,” Lorenzo said. “And I am glad to see you here, so that you can see how well I am doing since your betrayal.”
Charlie plowed into the words like a person in front of him who’d just stopped walking. “My—my what?”
“Please,” Lorenzo said scathingly. “Your feigned stupidity does not fool me.”
“Uh,” Charlie said.
“I know what you told Olivia.”
“What I told . . .” Charlie said, confused.
“That you told her to leave me,” Lorenzo bit out.