Chapter 20
AVA
Bells jingle as I push open the wooden door to the Bean Hive. The smell of coffee tickles my nose, and I breathe in deeply, inhaling the scent of my favorite form of sustenance.
“Smells delicious as always, Luna!” I singsong as I walk over to the bar where she cleans a mug.
“Hey, Ava.” Luna smiles and gets to work on my usual drink.
“How’s it going today? Busy?” I set my purse down on the bar and take a seat.
“Pretty busy. The cold drives more customers in, plus we just changed our seasonal menu.” She glides around with the grace of her vampiric self as she pours coffee. It makes me wonder how I didn’t notice before. She’s so obviously more than human. “How’s work?”
“Same old, same old.” A lock of hair falls over my shoulder, and I examine it. “Ugh, I need to refresh my pink. It’s getting duller than I like it.”
Luna places a piping hot mug of coffee in front of me with beautifully poured milk on the top.
I waft the caramel smell to my nose and practically orgasm on the spot.
Her coffee is such a unique blend. I’ve never tasted anything like it.
I love that she knows what I want without me even having to order. That’s A-plus service in my book.
“I’ve been thinking about trying something new and dyeing my hair.” She dries another mug and sets it back on the open shelves behind her. “Could I join you? Make it a girls’ night?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest.
“You want to dye your hair? But the blond is so pretty!” I whine. So much better than my natural dishwater hue.
“I’ve had it for so many years. I’m sick of it.
It doesn’t have to be an insanely drastic change.
Just something new and fresh.” Luna shrugs and goes over to help a customer at the register.
“When you’re as old as I am,” she whispers conspiratorially when she comes back, “things get boring after a while.”
It’s weird to realize that she is older than she looks—especially when she’s young compared to Valen and Zav.
“If you’re sure, then I’m totally down for it,” I reply.
“I’m so down. I’ll pick up some color when I close up, and you can just text me a good time to show up.”
A group of customers walks in, and she hurries over to help them.
I scroll on my social feed and zone out while drinking my latte. A notification pops up at the top of my screen, and I almost spit out my mouthful of coffee when I read it.
Valentine: HoAruDoi?!
Valentine: HOWAREUDOIN?
Valentine: …
Valentine: *voice message*
Holding the phone up to my ear, I press Play on the ten second voice message and hear him cursing about technology.
I picked up a phone for him this week, figuring it was a good thing to get him acclimated to.
We covered the basics, and I suppose I could’ve gotten him an old flip phone, since he doesn’t use it for much.
Valentine: How
Valentine: Are
Valentine: You
Valentine: Doing?
I giggle at the broken-up texts and stream of consciousness.
Ava: Good, how are you? I respond, my lips curled with amusement.
Eagerly awaiting his response, I stare at the screen, but his name pops up via call instead.
“Hello?”
“This cursed device is too hard to use. I didn’t want to type out another response, so I called,” he explains matter-of-factly. “Is work going well? Are you well?”
His genuine concern is adorable, and the fact that he’s checking in on me has me kicking my feet under the bar. I’m giddy like a teenage girl with a crush.
“All good here,” I reply, schooling my voice so I hopefully don’t sound too excited. “How’re you and Pom Pom holding up? Did you end up taking him for a walk like you mentioned?”
Luna smiles over at me, hearing Valen on the other line.
“Yes. He decided to pee on every plant we came across and bark at anyone who looked my way. Quite the attack dog.” I hear Pom Pom yip and Valen praises him.
“Glad you’re having familiar bonding time. Is Zav still trying to force you on a cat daddy –dog daddy playdate?”
He’s been asking every time he sees Valen, and I know my vampire isn’t amused by it.
Whoa, my vampire? Since when? Yes, you’re mates, but that’s a little possessive.
“Unfortunately,” he grumbles. “He is … persistent.”
I snort. That’s a nice way of putting it.
Zav is the relentless type. When he discovered Celine was his mate, he would show up at random places as an employee just to see her.
I wish I could say that has stopped now that they’re together, but just last week he showed up at our Pilates class as the instructor.
“Well, tonight might have to be the night you indulge him, since an unexpected girls’ night has popped up.
” I hand Luna my credit card as I prepare to leave.
Motioning to her case of croissants, I ask her to bag up a chocolate one for my sweet tooth later.
“Luna’s coming, but I’m sure Celine will want to join, which means Zav will try to crash our fun time, and I need you to keep him occupied to leave us alone. ”
He grumbles some more but agrees. He hangs up abruptly when he must accidentally end the call, which makes me smile.
“Are you sure you don’t want to dye your hair, Celine? You’d rock the deep red color, and it would add some depth,” I coax, trying to convince her to join our hair dyeing adventure. Luna showed up with a smorgasbord of colors to choose from since she didn’t know what she wanted.
Celine sits on my bed, flipping through a magazine as I coat my strands in pink. Luna sits next to me with strands of her hair already saturated and processing.
“No, thank you.” She examines the ends of her ponytail.
“I don’t want to deal with the maintenance, plus it would probably throw my dad off.
With his loss of familiarity, I don’t want to make anything more stressful for him.
” She perks up and closes the magazine. “Speaking of, you saw your family recently, didn’t you? How’d that go?”
I forgot I mentioned to Celine that I was going and haven’t filled her in. Things are different between us, what with her having Zavier and me with Valen. We just don’t have the same amount of time to catch up as we used to.
“Yeah.” I make sure to fully saturate the pieces I’m working on before moving onto the next.
“My mom found the name of the adoption agency. Obviously, I didn’t tell her anything about being a witch, but it might be a new lead.
” I finish with the back section of hair and lay it down on the ratty T-shirt I wear.
I don’t want to admit I don’t have much hope of anything working out, but at this point, any sort of lead is better than nothing.
“I hear Valen went with you.” She quirks a brow at me for leaving that part out, and I flush.
“Valen is so hot,” Luna pipes in. “He stops in for blood and is always such a gentleman. I can’t say the same for Zavier.” She side-eyes Celine.
Celine throws her hands up in surrender. “You think I have any control over Zav? That man does whatever he wants, whenever he wants.”
“Are you trying to steal my man, Luna?” I give her a look charged with fake insult, but part of me bristles at her comment. I know it’s my natural reaction with him being my mate, but I hate how out of control I feel sometimes when it comes to him.
“As if.” She scrunches her nose at the smell of the hair dye. The stench of the dye is bad enough for me, so I can’t imagine what it must be like for her with vampire senses heightening everything. “Whenever I find my person, I kind of hope he isn’t a vampire.”
“How’s that going to work?” I ask, twisting my hair up with a clip. “Don’t you want to have the same lifespan?” I’ve asked Celine something similar before, and she said she wasn’t ready to change yet, but that she fully plans to have Zav turn her into a vampire at some point.
I grab my basket of nail supplies, and the three of us make our way out to the living room to paint our nails at the coffee table. We sit in a row, Celine, me, and Luna on the end. I turn the TV on to a station that only plays music, then set the volume low so it’s merely background noise.
Celine tries to play it cool with a straight face, but she’s squirming at my question meant for Luna.
I realize belatedly that it’s something that affects her as well.
I haven’t talked to her recently about her thoughts on turning, but I know while Zav is understanding, he’s also antsy to change her.
The longer she goes being human, the more risk there is.
Luna purses her lips as she pulls out some of the bottles of polish and assesses the colors. “There are plenty of other supernatural species out there, and many of them are immortal as well.”
I gape in surprise. I feel so dumb when it comes to this supernatural world. Despite learning I’m a witch, I feel entirely separate from these things. I fear it’ll take me an eternity to learn all the things I should know.
“You want a hairy werewolf? Maybe a scaly dragon?” Celine laughs, breaking the awkward air.
“Who knows?” She shrugs, eyeing a sparkly lime green polish before she shakes her head and puts it back in the basket. “I hear shifters are packing heat, if you know what I mean.”
“How much?” I ask curiously.
Luna holds up her hands a ridiculous distance apart. I gape in shock. “You’re kidding.” It’s a statement, not a question, because there’s no way.
“That’s what I’ve heard.” She shrugs, letting her hands fall back to her lap.
“Wouldn’t you break in half?” I ask, selecting an emerald green color for my nails.
Laughing, Luna finally settles on a pastel purple. I slide the basket closer to Celine so she can make her choice. “According to my friend, no.”
Celine chooses a nude shade and sets the basket on the floor so it’s out of the way and gives us more space on the coffee table.