Just Another Day at the Office

by Amber Lynn

As we made our way to the grocery store I had a million questions running through my head, so I just started firing them off while I finished writing my list.

  "Since Rick was in one of my memories, does that mean he's also a phoenix?"

  "Yes. He was almost as happy as I was when I first saw you again. I'd warned him that you didn't have memories from your past lives, so thankfully he didn't blurt out anything crazy. We're all tied closely together, so we're both anxious to have the gang all back together."

  Nate wasn't kind enough to go around the block a few times, so one moment we were in the driveway and the next we were at the store.

  "Crap. I don't want this conversation interrupted. I have so many questions and I need answers to figure out how much of what you've said can be believed."

  "Don't worry, you can spend the night asking them as you prepare things for tomorrow," he said getting out of the vehicle.

  "I'm going to hold you to that. Just to warn you, I think you may have created a monster."

  "No, I fully blame your parents for you being a monster."

  Katie greeted us immediately, which dampened my inquisitive nature a little. "Hi, guys. I hear congratulations are in order. Let me see the ring." She snatched my hand, thankfully not the one Nate called dibs on with his hand, to get a look at the ring. "Oh my goodness, it's so different. I love it!" she screeched.

  I carefully extracted my hand from her grip and refrained from trying to cover my ears.

  "Hi, Katie. As I'm sure you heard, we are having a little get together at the house tomorrow and I need to get supplies. With the short notice, I didn't have time to use Tabby, so I hope it isn't a problem that we showed up with a paper grocery list again."

  "Oh, it's no problem at all. I can't wait for your party. I hear the food will be to die for. Who or what is a Tabby?" I assumed she must have forgotten to spray the calming gas, because she was going a mile a minute.

  "Tabby is the name of our fridge. Technically, it's Tabitha, but I gave her a nickname," I said as she led us over to the cash register.

  She punched in my ingredients and the conveyors fired up. When the assignment was over and I was able to shop for my own groceries again, I knew I wouldn't be sad. I liked having options for my ingredients.

  While we waited for everything to arrive, Katie jabbered on about ideas for the wedding. Even if Nate was my soulmate, and we'd had a million lifetimes together, we still weren't running to the wedding chapel. If he wanted that kind of relationship, he had some waiting ahead of him, so I only half listened to her rambling. When everything was finally totaled up, Nate paid, with exact change, so no trips to the safe, and we left, telling Katie we'd see her soon.

  Back in the car I told Nate, "That woman has way too much energy. I think there was a reason they used her as the test subject for the calming gas."

  "Tell me about it," he said, taking us back home. "I think most of the people in the town are pretty crazy. It's sad to think I want to go back to the normality of New York."

  ?"At least there, chances are you'll never meet a tenth of the other residents. How long has Rick been living there? I've been there seven years and I never ran in to him. Imagine the shock he would've had. I wonder what he would've done if he'd taken a train one day and saw me sitting there. You sat there and stared at me long enough that I thought I had something in my teeth."

  "Rick's always been a big hugger, so I imagine you would've found yourself in his arms. I'd love to have videotape of that moment. You, all shy and not liking to be touched, enveloped by a big guy like Rick. I'm pretty sure your knives would've been out threatening his man parts instantly."

  I laughed. It did make a pretty funny scene. "You know, I may need to call him tonight and tease him a little bit. Something else I find pretty funny is that according to you, I'm a bird and I had to be forced to get on a plane and fly. You'd think being in the air would be natural for me."

  "It's actually a natural response. We love to fly, but under our own capabilities. The first time I flew on a plane I was pretty edgy too, not completely crazy like you, though. I also had the advantage of knowing why I was so disturbed by being in the flying metal heap."

  Our conversation continued as we unloaded the groceries and carried them into the house. Nate tried to take the majority, but I fought to at least get one heavy sack.

  "So are you going to help me prep?" I asked as I started unloading and ordering things, so each dish's ingredients were together. In stressful times, I always turned to cooking. There was just something about it that soothed me and it'd been months since my life hadn't been stressful. It was amazing I hadn't gained fifty pounds.

  "Of course, you know we make a mean team in the kitchen." He went to the sink to wash his hands. "So what did you decide to make?"

  "I figured a lot of dips would be a good place to start. I'm doing jalape?o popper, buffalo chicken, onion, and artichoke spinach hot dips. Those I can all make up tonight and just pop them in the oven in the morning. For cold options, I think a seven-layer taco, guacamole, and a crab dip. As dippers we'll have vegetables, crackers, tortilla chips and bread. I'll make a couple fruit dips as well, so there's something sweet, but not overly sugary."

  Nate's head spun around in a circle a few times as I blurted everything out. I started unwrapping blocks of cream cheese and putting them on a plate. Almost all the dips I planned on making used the stuff, so there was a lot of cream cheese. To hurry the softening process along, I stuck the plate in the microwave on the lowest setting for a couple minutes.

  "You're making the mushrooms too, right?" Nate asked as he helpfully grabbed some of the vegetable dippers and started chopping.

  Whether Nate and I were destined to be together, we'd been able to work effortlessly together in the kitchen from the first time he visited my house for dinner, as long as you didn't include our food fights. It was one of his few redeeming qualities.

  "Yes, you'll get your mushrooms. You also get to help me make a mess of cookies and dinner rolls for the barbecue pulled pork."

  Remembering the rolls, I grabbed the bread machine from one of the cupboards. I did mention the kitchen was fully stocked, right? It was probably going to take a couple batches to make a hundred dinner rolls, so I needed to get the machine up and running immediately. I poured in the ingredients for one double batch and turned it on to let it do its thing.

  I choose the dip options because, for the most part, it was just mixing things together. I started combining ingredients and decided it was time to ask more questions.

  I began with something that was on my mind when he'd mentioned having increased brain capabilities. "So the dreams. You were causing them weren't you?"

  "That would be true. Sorry, I tend to think about you a lot, even when I'm sleeping, so they kind of broadcasted over to you."

  "You talk about all these mental abilities, why can't I do them?" I asked.

  "You can, you've just forgotten how. I think you use the ability to read emotions without even knowing it. Remember with Jimmy, how you felt he was telling you the truth about his sister? Some people might say it was just intuition, but I think it's your mind reading his emotion levels."

  "How can I relearn to do all the other things?" I didn't know that I bought his logic, but he was the expert between the two of us.

  "I'll help, of course, although there were some things you could do that weren't in my repertoire. I mentioned the seeing the future part, but you could also touch items and see the past. You really are very unique, even amongst our kind. Hopefully, opening up some levels of your brain will allow the other abilities to come forward."

  While I was sitting there stirring the ingredients for my third dip, the can of jalape?os slid across the countertop just as I went to grab it.

  I looked up at Nate and said, "Show off," then grabbed the can back. "What was your original name?"

  "Malik."

  If I'd been smart, I wouldn't have bothered speaking, and let him pick up
the questions from my mind. He claimed that was something he could do, and had proven it. The fact that he had read my mind made me wonder why he hadn't commented on the visions I had while I was awake, but delving into his capabilities was something I wanted to save for later.

  "And what does it mean?" I asked, starting in on my layers for the taco dip. I did mention these dips only had to have ingredients poured in a bowl and mixed. I could make them all in about a half an hour.

  "It means king," he said quietly.

  "Your original name means king, is there a reason for that?" I asked as I stopped layering my ingredients and looked at him.

  "Since I happened to be the first phoenix created, it was decided I would be our leader. It wasn't something I asked for, but I didn't really get a choice."

  My jaw dropped open and I stared at him, trying to decide if that bit of information was enough to wake me up from whatever dream world I'd entered.

  "You're the king of our kind? Since I'm supposedly your mate, does that make me the queen?" I wondered if I had a crown. That would be cool. I thought I'd look better in a tiara, though.

  "Of course you're the queen. The titles don't really mean a whole lot, so don't think you have subjects to order around. We live separate lives all over the world. At last count," he paused thinking for a second, "there are only about a thousand of us. When we get your mind back to what it once was, you'll be able to feel the others gently in the background."

  "I don't know if I like the idea of having other people in my mind."

  My dips were done, so I covered them in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge. I also took all the vegetables that Nate had prepared and got them ready to store.

  "They aren't really in your mind; you can just feel that they exist. It's difficult to explain when I'm sure you've got the notions you've read in books or watched on TV in the back of your mind. I don't think it's like anything I've seen the humans come up with."

  After I loaded everything in the fridge, I checked the bread machine and saw the initial mixing was all done, so I took the dough and put it in an oiled bowl to rise by the stove and poured in another batch of ingredients for the second batch.

  "If you can feel the other phoenixes in your head, how did you not know I had resurrected?" I asked as I grabbed a chair to rest for a few minutes. There were still some holes in the story that needed to be ironed out.

  "I was in phoenix form when you were reborn, but all I felt was a brand new birth. It didn't carry your usual frequency, so I didn't know it was you. When we met, I was able to pick up your new frequency and am now in tune with it. I don't have the answers for why your life reset. I'm just happy to have finally found you."

  "If what you say about frequencies is true, are you sure I'm really who you think I am? If I don't have the same setting on your radar, maybe I'm someone different."

  That would be really sad for him to get his hopes up that I was his long lost soulmate, only to find out I was someone else. Life had a tendency to be cruel like that.

  "The tingles, remember," he said, as if I could forget them. "Not only do you look just like Yara, and are getting memories back of her life, but when we touch you feel the mark of a soulmate."?

  "I guess. It's really frustrating having you know way more about my life than I do. There isn't a way to speed up the memories is there?"

  "I think we should just let them come naturally, at least for now. I don't want your system to get overloaded." He didn't say it couldn't be done, so maybe there were future options.

  "I guess I don't have much of a choice, so for now I'll live with that. Let's make up some cookies and get the dinner rolls all done; I'd like to get some sleep at some point tonight. We have an early morning ahead of us."

  "No problem, just tell me what you want me to do," he replied, like a good assistant chef.

  I gave directions and then added, "And when we do go to sleep, the pillow barrier is going to be intact."

  He laughed and we went about our final tasks for the night.

  CHAPTER 14

  Who wants to play a game? It's called 'I win'