Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
This is a bonus story that plays into elements in Magical Midlife Battle. It should be read after Magical Midlife Alliance.
It isn't necessary to the overall series ARC, but rather a fun little aside into the lives of the Ivy House Crew.
Edgar does not cheat in flower shows. He might use a magically enhanced serum, but anyone could do that. It's not his fault the other competitors don’t know magic exists!
But when the Ivy House crew goes to the pre-show to support him, it becomes clear that someone should've been watching Edgar much more carefully. What he's done is way worse than overgrown flora.
While Jessie is dealing with that, she gets a shock as she discovers photos of her ex with his girlfriend…turned fiancée. And while the flood of emotions can be ignored, the desire to show off Austin on social media is not.
After putting Mr. Tom in charge of the flower fiasco, she decides to take Austin on his perfect date. Her goal: to have one thing go right in her life. Just one thing!
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
ONE
Jessie
“G minus several seconds, Jessie,” Edgar said as he poked his head into my small sitting room at the back of the house. He reached in a spindly finger. “G minus several seconds. Sound the alarm. The all-clear commences tomorrow.”
He issued a thumbs up, nodded, and slowly disappeared from the doorway.
Austin, sitting beside me on the couch with his arm around me, stared at the doorway silently for a long moment. I waited patiently, holding back laughter at the bewilderment tumbling through our bonds.
“What?” he finally asked. Then, “Wait…do I want to know?”
The laughter finally bubbled out. “This is Nessa’s doing. She said ‘T minus eight minutes’ the other day. Edgar decided it was a great way to do a countdown, except he muddled it badly and kept changing letters, then the numbers were wrong too—he just went completely off the rails. Nessa thought that was hilarious, and has been teaching him other stuff.”
“The all-clear commences tomorrow?”
“He doesn’t seem to understand the things she’s teaching him. I’m just letting them roll with it. It’s like their own secret code where neither party has the decoder ring.”
He shook his head, taking a deep breath. “This place is like a circus.”
“Yeah. With drunk clowns. It keeps things interesting.”
“So…what is he actually counting down to?”
I leaned forward to grab my phone. “The flower exhibit, remember? He’s been working all week to set up his entry at the Martin County Fair.”
“Ah.” He nodded, squeezing me closer as I leaned back. “That’s tomorrow, right?”
“Yep,” I replied. “He hasn’t allowed anyone to see his design. He’s going to unveil it to us tomorrow morning, right before the judging. They’re going to keep the exhibits up for the entire week of the fair, I guess, so it should keep him out of the way while we get ready to head to Kingsley’s territory. You know he’s probably not going to want to leave his flowers.”
“Who’d you decide to bring as security?”
I wouldn’t really need security, especially with the whole house crew there, but we had a bunch of new gargoyle guardians in the territory, and Austin wanted to take them out for a test drive. Not to mention they were accustomed to escorting their cairn leader everywhere and wouldn’t understand if I didn’t bring any of them.
“Tristan, of course.” I’d only known him for a short time, and already he seemed like the most competent choice. “He’s picking a team of five.”
“Only five?”
“I mean…yeah. We’re going to a non-magical town for a flower show. We’ll have ten people from the house, including me, and two additional mages. Adding another six hardcore guardians will be plenty. More than plenty. We’re going to stand out.”
“Not the new healer?”
A healer had arrived not long ago, responding to a summons I’d sent out after the battle in the basajaunak lands. She was staying on the outskirts of O’Briens, getting a feeling for what she’d randomly and apparently thoughtlessly walked into. I was giving her time and space before we figured out if she was a good fit, although her lack of planning definitely suggested she might be one of us.
“Nah. We don’t need to expose her to Edgar’s flower obsession so soon,” I said.
He stroked his thumb against the bare skin on my arm. “I’m part of the house. Don’t I get to go?”
I pulled away to look at his face. “Do you want to go?”
A handsome smirk flitted across his lips. “Not even remotely, no. But I do want to see who Tristan chooses and how he handles the guardians.”
“He’s been exceptional in training. I can’t imagine this would be much different.”
It had only been two weeks since Tristan and the other new guardians had joined our ranks, and already they fit like cogs in a well-oiled machine. Part of that was Austin’s infallible leadership and natural ability to structure a large pack, but Tristan had helped the other guardians acclimate.