Nash
She was reading auras. Right here. In my building, around my work crew. Christ, the woman was certifiable. Harmony held onto Willow’s arm and the insane woman fought against her, her expression drawn, her mouth dropping open, like someone had unplugged her.
The crowd around us had stopped and as Harmony dropped Willow’s arm and the little hippie approached, still looking like a circus with that multi-colored strap on her apron and the jingling bangles around her thin wrists, the heat on the back of my neck got hotter, and moved to my ears.
“Just a mistake hiring the wrong bakery, Nash,” Harmony told me, snapping to the same guy I’d seen Willow chatting with in our building lobby. “Help this… woman with her things. She’s clearly in the wrong place.”
Some of the investors entered the room, their expressions faltering when they spotted Willow and Harmony, and the crowd that seemed caught by the ruckus Willow had started.
“Will, what the hell is going on?” I asked her, stepping to her side.
Harmony touched my shoulder, leaning up to speak into my ear. “If you want me to get rid of her—”
“No,” I told her, glancing at the investors. “She’s… my neighbor.” I’d never cared about the money types, but with the two suits Duncan had introduced me to last month was Willem Mahoney. He was one of the first CEOs to start a global tech company in social engineering. He liked my stuff and I loved his. Making a connection with him, getting an investment would change my damn life.
“Nash… your aura is so bright and…” Willow’s voice carried, and a few of my interns laughed at the way she reached over my head, fanning her fingers to grab at nothing.
“Quiet, for shit’s sake…”
“I’ll handle Mahoney,” Harmony said, squeezing my arm. “If you wanna… take care of her.”
She didn’t wait for my answer. A quick nod from me and Harmony was off, stretching her arms out to greet the suits and Mahoney. I jerked my head, sending the interns away and brought Willow to the back of the room, near the kitchen.
“Nash… I’m sorry about the—”
“Do you have any idea how fucked up this all is?” I kept my voice low, calm, but I couldn’t contain the tightness around my mouth. From the way Willow stepped back I guessed I must have been glaring at her, but at the moment, I didn’t much care that I was. “This is my livelihood and you’re over there trying to read fucking auras? Around the people who work for me and the people who could potentially invest in my company?”
“I… I didn’t know this was your event.” Willow moved her chin, glancing back behind her, then right to me again. “I would have never…” But one shift of her gaze over my face and she moved her eyebrows up, like there was something in my expression that got her worked up. “Oh, honey… you’re so…”
“Mind your business.” Over her head, I spotted the way Harmony handled those men, how they responded to her. She had them laughing, had them completely forgetting about Willow’s little outburst and the drama she caused. This was her element. It was her world.
“Nash…”
I squeezed my eyes tight, rubbing my hands against the lids before I looked back at her, trying like hell to get my temper calm. “Willow, please. Just get your shit and leave.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Fuck!” I jerked a glare at her, the slip I had on my temper surprising her. She stepped back, her mouth curling like she wanted to yell, but I waved a hand to silence her. “Take your shit and get out of here. I have to salvage this.” Then, I brushed past her, nodding to the staff to clean up Willow’s mess.
“Come on, chica,” one of the servers said, but I didn’t bother looking back.
A faint, “Yeah,” followed that and I pushed back the recognition of the anger in her tone and the guilt that ate at me as I moved closer to Harmony and the men that could change my future.
Fifteen
Willow
There were baking dishes littered around my small kitchen and the entire apartment smelled like cupcakes and the sweet, decadent flavor of frosting and dark ale. Before I left for the gig, I’d attempted Irish Car Bombs again and spilled half a bottle of Guinness on my floor, the sticky mess collecting to pool into the grout line on my tile floor.
Determined to get it right, I returned home, my emotions raw and aching and I decided to try it again. No stupid cupcake recipes would beat me.
The oven had sounded ten minutes ago, five minutes after I should have opened the door. The latest batch was a burnt mess.
“Stupid Guinness,” I called to the oven and the dark brown cupcakes that had cost me ten bucks to make. They definitely wouldn’t make the cut. I pulled on the room temperature beer, letting the half-empty bottle empty down my throat. “Stupid me.”
My sofa was large and comfy; a hand-me-down piece Effie had given me when her second job as a spa owner had finally turned a profit. It seemed everyone wanted to meditate and get a facial on the same day. My friend capitalized on it. But me and the cupcakes? No. Today wasn’t a good day for my little business and I thought about my great-grandmother just then, wondering how many burned batches of cookies and brownies she had to go through to get her recipes perfected. I wondered if she’d ever been kicked out of a job or if she liked the weight of her life keeping her from concentrating on getting the job done.
At my right, on the hall table that led out of the front room, sat a picture of my great-grandparents on their wedding day. Their smiles were bright and lit up their entire faces and I glanced between that picture and my reflection in the mirror above the mantel. My face was shaped precisely like my great-grandfather’s, but my eyes, they belonged to her. I tried to smile, thinking of the cookies I’d delivered to the homeless shelter a few blocks down from our building a few days ago. The director had been kind, had thanked me over and over, and I watched myself in the mirror, gaze shifting back to my grandparents’ picture and back to the mirror as I thought of that day at the shelter. But my eyes didn’t gleam quite as bright and my smile, no matter how closely it resembled my grandfather’s, didn’t seem as wide.
I kept watching, zoning out, forgetting the shelter, forgetting that picture, and Nash’s face slipped into my conscience and stayed at the front of my mind. His mouth, his smile, that sweet, beautiful smile, the sound of his laughter and the rich, full sound of his voice.
Then the surprised embarrassment fracturing all the sweet memory of all those things. I hated how one day could take all that away.
Before I knew I’d done it, my face ached with the frown pulling down my mouth and I shot my gaze back and forth from the picture and the mirror and slouched against the billowing pillows arranged around the sofa.
Nash. He was the only thing that made my eyes sparkle like my great-grandmother’s. He was the only thought that made me look exactly like my grandfather.
Until today, that is.
I wanted to stay livid at him. He’d been such an asshole to me. So embarrassed of me for some reason I didn’t know. All because I tried to help that horrible woman.