Page 13 of Cognac Secrets
“Better ‘n Hex,” he said.
“That’s the fuckin’ truth,” I said.
“Get some fuckin’ sleep, my guy.”
“Thanks, I will,” I said, and he clapped me on the shoulder as he walked by and went on back out front.
I sighed and finished the too-sweet liquid in the bottle between my hands. There wasn’t a single hint of slick-quid salty flavor to it, which meant that my body needed it. I was pretty horribly dehydrated and out of whack. Honestly, I was surprised I hadn’t hurled. I didn’t normally get so fuckin’ lit, but yesterday had been one of those milestones that I couldn’t get out of my fuckin’ head.
No, not the anniversary of Mia’s death… a different sort of anniversary.
The anniversary of when I’d gotten down on one knee and I’d asked her to marry me – in secret, of course – but it’s funny how even after years, when you’re living life and the pain is almost all but forgotten, buried in the minutiae of the day, the hustle and flow, and then you catch the date on your phone or the corner of your computer screen, and all of a sudden it all comes flooding back. Hits you like a Mack truck, sucks you into a place and time you never wanted to go back to and rolls you completely. You all but fuckingdrownin feelings you’d all but forgotten about. The pain as fresh as the day it was inflicted…
I dragged my ass over to the couch and flopped down, staring at the stained concrete ceiling overhead, blinking slowly, slowing my breathing, and closing my eyes. Although this time, instead of haunted brown eyes, they were a vivid emerald-green with golden starbursts around the pupil and it wasn’t Mia’s face I pictured.
CHAPTERFOUR
Sandrine…
I was bored, and tired, and rather than sit around doing nothing, I opened up the shop almost two hours early.
I wasn’t expecting much business in The Quarter on a Sunday, but I had a few early birds wander through.
The phone rang about an hour before open and I answered with the shop’s custom greeting, “Mystic’s Dream, this is Sandrine speaking, how may I help you?”
“Sandy, what are you doing in so early?” Rowan’s voice was sleepy and I smiled to myself.
“Long story, boss – I was bored so I figured I might as well open her up to give myself something to do. Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to pay me extra or anything.”
Rowan scoffed on the other end of the line. “You know that’s not how it works, sweetie. You want me to come down now?”
“Oh, no – no need. It’s not that busy,” I told her. “Made a few small sales already, though. I have a feeling it’s going to be a good day.”
“Okay, well, I’ll be in at my normal time. I want to hear about this.”
I laughed a little and nodded. “You’ve got it,” I told her.
Rowan was in her late sixties, maybe early seventies, but she looked damn good despite it. Timeless, in that way that some elder witch women had. The way I really hoped to be when I got to be that age. She’d given me a chance. Had seen me, and instead of thinking to herself that I was too much work or too much or too this or that – she’d helped me.
Given me a place when I’d needed to get away from Billy, when he’d tried to pressure me into being a hooker and had ended up beating the shit out of me when I’d drawn the line.
I’d lived behind a phalanx of boxes in one of the upstairs storage rooms for weeks, saving money and looking for someplace to go. I knew that Rowan knew, but she hadn’t said a word. It had been this unspoken rule of don’t ask/don’t tell. Plausible deniability in case something bad had happened, she could claim with impunity that she hadn’t known.
It was the roughest shape that I’d ever been in, aside from when I’d first run away from my overbearing religious zealot family.
I’d made it, though. On my own for the most part, except for Rowan not firing me and ignoring the fact I was here.
Now I rented a small but whimsical attic room. and I’d been there almost a whole year, and very rarely, if ever, saw the person I lived with. They traveled extensively for work, and just wanted someone in the house while they were gone and to help offset the bills some. I paid five hundred dollars a month, which was honestly a steal, and watched their kitties – feeding them, playing with them, and I didn’t even have to clean their litter box. They had an expensive fancy one that flushed and washed the gross away and all that had to be done was changing the sanitizing solution every like three months – which Gerard, their owner, texted me and told me to do when they got a notification on the kitty litter’s app telling him to.
It was pretty cush. It was a nice place just outside The Quarter, and Rowan had made it happen. Gerard was in their early forties, gender nonbinary,verygay, and a professional performing drag queen who traveled all over the country on tour, so it worked out.
The rules were simple - I kept the place clean, didn’t bring any riff raff over, and it was all good.
Honestly, I protected my peace at Gerard’s. The only person I’d brought over was my friend Elsie who was a tall, gender nonbinary, born a boy but was just one of the girls, and had become my sister from another mister. She’d had it rough like I had, growing up in a super religious bordering on cult-like environment. We’d met at one of the bars and had started talking when we weren’t on the floor dancing. We had eventually discovered and bonded over our shared trauma. She was going to have a fit – and honestly, so might Rowan – when she found out the company that I’d kept last night.
Then again, she might not – it was always hard to tell with True. Rowan I was sure may have some misgivings but I wouldn’t know until I found out.
It seemed my good karma from the night before came back three-fold rather quickly. I was smiling ear to ear when Rowan swept through the shop’s front door, her many layered skirts and bell sleeves wafting around her as she folded up her parasol to keep the worst of the sun off her fair skin.
