Chapter 10 Rosie
Rosie
Our next adventure requires more planning and a bit of a road trip, so I had penciled it in for today, the Monday after the fall festival, when both of our stores are typically closed for the day.
I made sure to work early this morning with minimal distractions to finish my inventory and restocking, along with a much-needed cleaning, to free up my afternoon and evening.
Now I’m at Jack’s with my most friendly face on, knowing I’m going to need him to be on board with my plan if he’s going to insist on coming with me today.
He’s been surprisingly at ease with all of the curveballs I’ve sent his way, from our morning treks to gather dew to chaperoning me to Jake’s bar to letting me drag him around the entire fall festival this past weekend, but our next step will challenge his previous understanding of real and fiction even more than before.
“I come bearing gifts,” I say brightly, lifting the box with cookies from Violet’s shop.
I may have made a special trip before heading here to grab a couple of her Easy-Agreement cookies to soften the blow for our next mission.
I thought about grabbing her Take My Side toffee brownies, something she’s used on me plenty, but once the effects wore off and he realized I’d used magic to get him to let me go on my own, I figured it would do more harm than good.
And as much as I would like to do all of this on my own, I haven’t hated bringing him along nearly as much as I thought I would.
“Are we getting another ingredient today?” he asks, and I nod. “Where are we going today?” He reaches into the box and grabs a cookie. Luckily for me, they look very similar to the sugar cookies he already seems to love, but with orange zest instead of lemon.
“Maybe you should eat a cookie before I tell you.” I tip my chin toward the cookie in his hand.
“Why?” he asks skeptically, and I don’t say a word.
He looks from it to me, then back at the cookie before setting it aside.
“What’s in it?” I don’t speak, and his eyes narrow before light fills them.
“Are they magic?” I groan, and his smile widens.
I never told him my sisters’ shops also hold magic, but clearly, he’s figuring that out himself. “What is it?”
“An agreement cookie. Just to, you know, take off the edge.” Jack, with his realistic views on how the world functions, despite his line of work, is going to need something to calm him down when I tell him where we’re going next.
Unfortunately, it’s the only way I can think of to grab the next item.
“The edge?”
I give him a tight smile. “I don’t know if you know this, but you’re kind of uptight.
I’m afraid that our next assignment will send you into a tailspin.
” He closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath.
“Unless, of course, you want to leave the collection of ingredients to me. That would make both of our lives so much easier, honestly. We could—”
“Absolutely not. You’re not doing this alone. We had a deal, Rosie.” I sigh, knowing that was what he was going to say, though my irritation feels forced.
“You better be careful, or I might think you like spending time with me, Jack Attack,” I say with a smile that he returns.
“It’s just Jack.”
“Hmm. Well, just Jack, the next thing we need for the potion is the tears of a vampire, so we have to go find one,” I say. He stares at me for a long moment, and I take in a deep breath, knowing a panic is imminent.
“A vampire?” he asks, his face going pale, and I do a really great job at fighting the smile that wants to break free, thank you very much.
I have to keep reminding myself that not long ago, he didn’t even believe magic existed.
Now he’s being hit over the head with the fact that there’s an entire other world he didn’t know about. “Those are real?”
“Yeah. Surprise!” I say with a wiggle of my fingers. He closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath.
“And they eat…”
“Food,” I say far too quickly to be casual.
He stares at me, and I sigh. “But their main nutrition comes from blood.” He tips his head like he’s waiting for the full story, and I roll my eyes again.
After six weeks of this, I might have to have my eyes surgically fixed.
“Human blood. It’s from blood banks, though, and humans get first dibs. Don’t worry.”
“What about when there’s a blood shortage—”
I sigh. “This is so irrelevant,” I say, throwing my hands up.
He stares at me, not giving in, and I explain, somehow knowing he’s not going to let it go without my doing so.
“It’s because the vamps are running low.
They always prioritize blood stores for human emergencies and medical procedures.
While some have personal blood sources—”
“What is a personal blood source?” His curiosity over all things magical is endearing, so I answer.
“People who are, for lack of a better word, paid and taken care of to be exclusive blood donors to vamps.” I stare at him, knowing another question will inevitably come.
“Why would they do that?” There it is.
“For one, vampires are very old and have a lot of power and, usually, a lot of money. They are very well cared for. And allegedly, it’s a very…
enjoyable experience.” He opens his mouth, and I jump to answer before he asks.
“No, I have never experienced it. Enough with the questions for now. The next potion ingredient we need to collect is vampire tears, which shouldn’t be too hard because, honestly, vampires are big crybabies. ”
“How…” Jack pauses as if not sure how to say what he’s going to say next. “How do we find a vampire? Much less a crying vampire? Are we going to make the vampire cry? Or—”
“There’s a club in Diamond Ridge for supernaturals, and I happen to know that on Monday nights, a very emotional vamp tends to come in and sit in her melancholy. I think we can stage bumping into her naturally and gather what we need.”
“When you say a club for supernaturals… you mean… ?”
I’ve learned Jack is not a take things at face value kind of guy.
He’s an evidence and information type. As much as I want to be annoyed and inconvenienced, though, I can’t seem to be.
Instead, I find it more and more endearing, and I catch myself wanting to give him whatever information he’s craving.
“All of them. Vampires, witches, shifters. I’ve met a couple of merpeople there too.”
“Merpeople? Like with tails?”
I nod and explain. “Not super often, and they don’t have tails at the club.
It has to be a super dry day outside, and they have to make sure they can trust no one is going to spill some kind of liquid on them.
” He stares at me blankly, and I go on. “They have legs when dry, but once they get a large portion of their skin wet, game over. Big ol’ fish.
” He blinks a few times, and I sigh. “I don’t know the exact details, and this is so off topic. ”
“What was the topic?”
I fight a groan and instead take a deep breath before speaking with a sweet customer service voice I typically use on men who come into my romance bookstore and ask why we don’t have an autobiography on some mediocre man who died a hundred years ago.
“We need the tears of a vampire for Phillip’s potion.”
“And the only place we can get it is this supernatural club?” I nod. “I don’t know, Rosie, I’m not really much of a club person.”
“You don’t say.” He glares at me, and I just smile. “You could just stay here and let me—”
“Fine,” he says with a groan, stuffing the cookie in his mouth as if it’s going to help with whatever he’s feeling, and really, it should. “Fine. I’ll go.”
“Great. We leave in five. It takes about an hour to get there.”
“This is kind of last-minute. What if I have plans?”
I give him a soft look. “Do you? Have plans?” A beat passes before that now familiar blush burns on his cheeks.
“No. But it would have been nice if you had asked.”
“I can go alone…” I say, my voice trailing off, though the idea of going alone no longer holds the same appeal. I’m strangely looking forward to this outing. After a moment, he grumbles.
“Stay down here. I’m going to go change.
” I nod with a smile. “Don’t…” he looks around his store as if cataloging how everything looks, just in case I cause a tornado or something.
“Don’t touch anything.” I salute him, and he stares at me for a moment longer before sighing and turning around and making his way toward the stairs.
And despite myself, I can’t help but admire his ass as he walks up the stairs.
The car ride is silent for fifteen minutes before the question he’d clearly been holding back breaks.
“So, your sister’s shop is magic?” I smile and nod. “What about Poppy’s?”
“Mayfields all have a specialty. Well, all witches do, I assume. But the Mayfields find their specialty and apply it to a business, helping the people of Heartwood Hollow. My Gammy makes tonics and potions to help people out—cough relievers and balding tonics, that kind of thing. People think it’s holistic medicine, but it’s her magic. ”
He nods, understanding now. “And your sisters?” His mind is running through things, and I’m pretty sure he’s figuring it out.
“Vi’s baked goods are spelled. Not all of them, and she only gives the spelled ones if someone needs them, but yeah. The only thing that’s always spelled is the chocolate chip cookies.”
“Feel Good Chips,” he says with understanding, and I nod.