Flutter (The Discover Series) (49 page)

“It’s lovely Maggie. I absolutely love it.”

“I got it so you could add it to the charm bracelet.” She said motioning to my wrist where my bracelet dangled loosely around my arm. “It’ll keep you safe.”

She came around the counter and took the small charm from my wrist. With a few quick maneuvers on her part, she had connected the gem to one of the empty loops on my bracelet.

“There, perfect!” She said.

I twisted my wrist and the charm swayed, catching the light with the movement and I was momentarily captivated.

“It is perfect. Thank you so much Mags!” I reached out for her, bringing her in for a tight hug.

“You’re welcome mija. I’m glad you like it.” She returned the hug before pulling me back to stare at me with a weird expression on her face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her wondering if I had something on my face.

“Nothing,” she said and blinked as if snapping out of a trance. “Nothing at all, mija.”

“Okay.”

“Well I better get going. I’m sorry that I’m making you work the day before your birthday, there is just something I really have to do tonight.”

I waved away her concerns. “No worries. I don’t mind working at all. Big date tonight?” I asked, teasing her.

She barked a laugh. “No my dating days are definitely over.” She was slipping the strap of her purse onto her shoulder.

“Over? Your breaking some lucky mans heart, Mags.”

She smiled sadly. “I had a lucky man’s heart once and now he will forever have mine.”

My heart broke at the look of longing in her eyes. “I’m sorry Maggie. I didn’t know.”

It was her turn to wave off my worries. “Don’t be. I’m not.” She patted my hands and walked
toward
the door. “You’ll do the right thing, Sara. You deserve to be happy too.”

“Thanks Maggie.”
And then she was gone.

Sighing, I walked over to the window, I could see her walking down the street and to her car, and even after she had gotten in and driven off, I stood there still staring. Not really staring at anything in particular at first, but then something caught my attention.

It was Adan.

I was pretty sure it was him.  It looked like him from here, but there was something different about him and I squinted trying to figure out what it was, but I couldn’t figure it out. Then I realized what it was. He no longer looked the part of a miserable mess. His hair was a messy display of perfection, he no longer had a shadow covering the bottom half of his face and the dark circles that had screamed no sleep were magically gone. He was even dressed differently; more formal then I was use to seeing. He wore a white dress shirt with a bright blue pull over and a dark grey pea coat and black dress pants.

He was leaning against one of the pillars that connected to the building behind him, his hands in his pockets and looking somewhat bored.  He didn’t even show much of a reaction when the black stretched limo pulled up and parked in front of him. Pushing away from the pillar, he walked up to the limo and bent over to talk to whoever was inside. After a few minutes he straightened up and took a step back and that’s when I noticed
her.
He didn’t turn in her direction, but it was obvious that she was talking to him. She wore big sunglasses and a black fedora hat that nearly covered her entire face, so attempting to tell if she was pretty or not was out of the question. She wore a button up jacket and boots that stopped at the knee. It looked like she was staring in my direction, I couldn’t tell because of the darkened sunglasses, but I figured I was probably being paranoid. Adan still had not turned
toward
her and after a few minutes he stepped forward and pulled open the door to the limo. The girl side stepped him slipping inside and he followed.

My heart was pounding and I didn’t even know why. I was confused and curious by the entire situation. I wanted to know who he had been talking to inside the limo before she had shown up, and more importantly, I wanted to know who
she
was.

The bell on the door jingled and I jumped at the sound. Turning
toward
the opening door, my heart fell a little when I saw it was Scott. Not that I was disappointed to see him, but it just reminded me of what I was eventually going to have to do.

“Hey.” I almost sounded breathless.

“Hey.” He said smiling and pulling me into a hug. “Whatcha looking at?” He said looking over my head in the direction I had just been inspecting.

I turned as much as I was allowed in his arms and noticed the limo was gone. “Nothing.” I answered turning back to him. “Just looking. What did you bring me?” I asked sniffing out the smell of something delicious and changing the subject.

“Pasta for the birthday girl.” He grabbed my arm and tugged me
toward
the table and chairs in the corner of the store. “Sit and enjoy the feast I have brought you.” He led me to the chair and I sat while he pulled out black plastic containers with clear lids that had clouded over with the steam.

“You know I’m not really the birthday girl yet.” I said smiling at him.

“If I had my way you would have been the birthday girl all week.”

“And that’s exactly why you didn’t have your way. I don’t think I could have stayed humble being spoiled for a whole week.”

“I was up to the challenge.”

I laughed. “I’m happy with just spending time with you.”

He bent over and kissed my forehead. “So am I. Now eat up.”

We started eating and he told me how his day went at work. He worked a couple of streets over at a hardware store, and unlike me, hated his job. He mostly dealt with the older crowd in
Flagstaff
and they were normally grumpy as it was, but Scott said the heat was making his job unbearable. I laughed at his unpleasant run in with a few of the regulars and how rude they had gotten over the past few weeks. It made me even more grateful for my wonderful job.

“I’m sorry you had such a bad day.” I told him when he finished his stories.

Replacing the lid to my half eaten pasta I put it in his out stretched hand and he put it back in the take out bag. I didn’t realize that nearly an hour had passed since Scott had gotten there and it was already starting to get dark outside, but the bright side was I only had another hour left before closing time.

“I just wish this heat wave would end already. Don’t you think it’s weird that it’s only hot during the day and then as soon as it gets dark it’s nice and cool?”

“I guess I haven’t really given it much thought.” I wiped down the table with one of the extra napkins and got up to throw it in the trash. “But I guess it is.”

“What’s that?” He asked catching my wrist in one of his hands and bringing it up to inspect my bracelet. He pinched the small charm between his fingers and twisted the gem around.

“A birthday present from Maggie. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“No fair, I didn’t know we were allowed to give early birthday presents.” He said with a pout and let go of my wrist.

“We’re not, but I won’t see Maggie tomorrow so she gave it to me today instead.” Turning my arm so the bottom of my wrist was facing me, I twisted the bracelet so the gem was lying in the center of my wrist. The color looked different, like it was glowing almost and again I was transfixed by it.

“You okay?” Scott asked and bent back trying to catch my eyes with his.

“Yeah.” I said looking at him.

“It’s beautiful.” He said referring to the charm.

“Yes I love it!”

He laughed. “Well I hope you’re this excited when I give you my gift.”

“Don’t be silly. You know I will love anything you give me, but I would be perfectly happy with nothing at all.”

“I know and that’s one of the reasons why I love you.”

I knew it was coming and I moved to the counter before he could draw me in for a kiss. It was hard enough having to pretend everything was okay when I knew it wasn’t and sometimes I think he could tell too, but he was insistent on not pressing the issue. He followed me to the counter and leaned on the opposite side of it.

“Are you excited about tomorrow?” He lifted his eyebrows at me.

“How can I be excited when you won’t tell me what we are doing?”

He laughed. “Right. Well I’m excited.” He was practically beaming from ear to ear and I could feel my heart breaking.

“Then I’m excited too. What time are you picking me up? Or are we staying in?” I was busying myself with putting away random things on the counter while he explained our plans.

“No, I’m picking you up. I’ll be there around 8.”

“Then I will be ready and waiting.”

“Good!” He grabbed the edge of the counter and leaned back to look at the clock on the wall. “Listen, I have to go help my dad with a few errands before it gets late, but I want to come back and help you lock up. Is that okay?”

“You don’t have to, I’ll be fine.” I told him putting away the last object of distraction.

“I know, but I want too.”

“Okay. I’ll see you back here in an hour then?”

“I’ll be here.” he said.

I made the mistake of folding my arms on the counter and leaning in, because he leaned in too, pressing his lips against mine. I didn’t make a move to deepen or even encourage a longer kiss, but I put as much effort into it as I could. He pulled back looking a little disappointed, but smiled through it.

“One hour.” He confirmed and left.

I stayed in the same position for a long time after he left just thinking about everything. I didn’t want to ruin whatever he had planned for tomorrow, but I felt guilty letting him go through all the trouble for me. I took a deep breath and moved to start my closing routine.

There was nothing I could do about it now, I would go through tomorrow night, but after that I would end it.

Just one more day.

Seventeen

It’s my party…

I probably shouldn’t have waited until the very last minute to get ready.

“Ouch, crap!” I growled after stepping on the hair clip that had fallen off my dresser in my haste to get dressed. I limped around my bed and headed for the bathroom to finish my hair.

I was in a race against time to finish by the time Scott came by to get me, which was suppose to be at eight. The countdown was less then twenty minutes and here I was in only a cami and my boy shorts still pulling curlers our of my hair. I was releasing the clips that held my hair loosely wrapped around the velvet lined metal and they spiraled down spilling onto the counter of the sink and some onto the floor, landing with a light thud as they hit the rug.

Once my hair was no longer constrained, the ends stretched straight before bouncing up and curling again. My hair was long and heavy so the best I could hope for when curling my hair was a light coil at the ends, and even those didn’t last very long unless a massive amount of hair product was applied to the before and after process. So for now, this was going to have to do. Grabbing a few bobby pins, I held them in my mouth so I could use both hands to gather a small amount of hair at the top of my head. One by one I pulled a bobby pin from between my lips and secured the hair in place, and then sprayed a good amount of hairspray to keep it in place.

I cursed when I realized I hadn’t stopped to get another bottle of cover up. I was down to the last of it in my current one, so I was scraping every last drop to cover up the different shades of purple around my eyes. I was amazed that after a day of basically sleeping straight through, I still hadn’t managed to lift some of the color or tiredness from my body. It was getting worse and I was beginning to think that the lack of sleep wasn’t the problem anymore. It was about that time to confide in Andres. My list of to-do’s was getting longer, and my ability to keep up with it was getting shorter.

I finished my make-up, adding a light layer of three different colors of cream, brown and a gold eye shadow, black eye liner and mascara that
promised
longer and fuller eyelashes. I was going to have to call BS on that one after noticing no change whatsoever. Tossing the tube of mascara onto the sink, it clattered around until rolling to a final resting place. I picked out a base shimmer to add to my pale skin, and sadly missed the sun kissed glow of my own golden sparkle that I naturally carried around until recently. After applying the fake stuff to my face and neck, I was done and ready to get dressed.

Flipping the light off in the bathroom, I kicked aside the hair clip on the floor before I could step on it again. It probably would have been easier just to pick the damn thing up, but I was positive there wasn’t five seconds to spare. Thank goodness I had already picked out what I was going to wear, so what I usually found to be the hardest task of getting ready was now the easiest, except for the fact that I still bore the same vexing marks, and my options were limited by how much skin would be shown.

Walking to the bed, I quickly dissuaded my clothes in a pile at my feet and kicked them aside. Picking up the dress I had laid out earlier, I slipped it over my head and let it shimmy into place. The halter top, left my arms bare and that was going to be a problem, but a sweater was a quick and easy fix for that. The dress was two layers. The under part was a pale-taupe color, it was made to blend with your skin, giving it a more sensual effect. The sheer over lay of the dress, was a champagne material, with a slight sparkle to it. The edges were frayed and swirled unevenly around my knees, giving it sort of a whimsical appeal.