Guys and Godmothers

by Candice Gilmer

  “Steph.” He eyeballed the drink as she added bottles he didn’t recognize into the mix. “Is that for me?”

  “Yes.” All the liquors in the drink swirled together, and it had an ominous dark blue cast to it. Not to mention, smelled about 500 proof. “Best drink in the house for forgetting.”

  Roark shook his head. “Don’t wanna forget. I’ll forget half my life.” Truer words he’d never spoken. Stephanie had always been around. And now he’d gone and screwed that up. Even if they went forward, continued to be friends, it would never be the same because there’d be this thing between them.

  And Roark could take a lot of hits to his pride, but he would not be the whiny bitch in any relationship. Not about to chase after her and beg and plead. Seriously was not going to happen.

  He’d rather lose her altogether.

  Okay, that wasn’t his first choice, but still…

  The bartender watched him. “So what do you want?”

  “To get it.”

  She raised her eyebrow, arms crossing. “Get what?”

  “Get why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why she’s fighting me.” He slammed his glass down on the bar, the noise drawing attention. Surely knowing each other since the sandbox should give him some rank in their relationship. And obviously she considered him attractive—no woman looked at any man like she looked at him without being attracted. He could still see her hungry eyes—the image practically burned into his soul.

  The bartender’s laughter jarred him from his thoughts. “What, are you a drunk?”

  “No.”

  “You sure look the part.”

  Roark waves his hand. “I’m a great guy. A catch.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe you stink. Girls are weird about smells.”

  “I do not stink.”

  “Whatever, bub. There’s a reason.” She tipped her head to the side. “Little Willie?”

  “Not hardly.”

  “You never know.” She started mixing a new drink. “Chicks are funny—I see it all the time. Want the knight but hate the attitude.”

  “So what’s my problem?”

  “You’re a guy, more than likely.”

  He rolled his eyes. “And who are you to know?”

  “Christy,” she said. “I see things. You all, you’re the same, really. Men want to be wanted. Women want to be wanted. Sometimes, when it happens, you decide you don’t want it—you want something else, because you let yourself follow your wants, and not your needs.”

  “What do I need, Oh Great Christy of the Bar?”

  She grinned and rested her forearms around the drinks. “One-time offer. Drink this.” She pushed the new drink, red this time, toward him. “And you get what no guy gets.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Understanding.”

  Roark snorted. “Probably get me drunker.”

  “Take it or leave it. This is your chance to really know what she’s thinking. Like really know.”

  “What if I don’t like it?”

  She shrugged again. “They always say to be careful what you wish for.”

  “Can’t imagine any worse.”

  She nudged the blue glass. “Forget her.” Then she nudged the red one. “Understand her. Your choice. But as soon as you pick one, I dump the other.”

  He raised his eyebrow. “Can’t have both?”

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t work that way.”

  “There’s a way?”

  She grinned. “There’s always a way with magic.”

  Roark snorted. Oh good grief, she was one of those people. Perfect. “Magic, huh?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “After this week, nothing surprises me.” Hell, it seemed enough of an explanation, as plausible as anything else. What if the drink told him it was fun, no strings attached.

  Isn’t that what every guy should want? To be unattached like that? Yet here he was, all discombobulated over a girl he’d known all his life, who wasn’t interested in him.

  In that way.

  Christy put her hands on the glasses. “I can always dump them both.”

  Not for a second did Roark believe in magic potions, but the bartender talked a good game. Maybe he was drunk. Too drunk.

  What did he have to lose, anyway? It wasn’t like the drink would make Steph actually care for him.

  He started to reach for the red drink, but one glass became three, and so did the blue one. “Wow,” he muttered as he rubbed his eyes.

  “Maybe this isn’t for you.” She started to pull them away. “I didn’t expect this to go this way. Maybe I am no better…”

  “What?” Roark asked, staring at her, trying to make sense of her babbling.

  She leaned forward. “Roark Turner.” Her voice changed to this stronger, more commanding tone.

  “Wait, how’d you…” He didn’t tell her who he was, did he? He didn’t think so. What the… “Did you—”

  “Shh.” She got even closer, those blue eyes staring at him.

  He could feel it, somewhere inside anyway, she was about to tell him some great secret. And he needed to know what it was. Not that he wanted to, but he needed to know.

  In the back of his mind, some little tiny voice of reason screamed she had hypnotized him or something, but the other part of him reminded that little part things like that only happen in the movies. People don’t actually hypnotize other people by staring at them.

  Yet he still leaned closer. “What?”

  “I’m your Fairy Godmother, Roark.”

  He pulled back, laughing. This was her big secret? She was a Fairy Godmother? For a guy? For him? Seriously? “You’re not very good. What are you, new?”

  “Actually, I’m old. Too old for this.” She stretched. Two very large wings fluttered, rolling out of her back, the same bright blue as her—

  Wait a minute.

  He stared at the wings that unfurled around her—not quite opaque—all blue and sparkly and damn, they were big. “Are those—”

  “Yes.”

  Roark glanced around. Did anyone else see this? He turned to look. Maybe he’d had way too much tonight.

  Nope, the damn things were still there. A foot taller than her head, and how far down they went, he couldn’t be sure, but they were pretty big. And blue. Don’t forget the blue. They glistened in the light, and immediately he could smell all these amazing, soft aromas around her—cookies baking, warm apple pie, and even a crisp smell of fresh air, all rolled into this perfect scent. He tipped back on the barstool, staring at the size of the wings.

  And his grip on the bar faltered.

  He started to fall back.

  Should have landed on his ass.

  Instead, Christy waved a blue stick, with little blue sparkles bursting out the end. Glitter swirled around his chair, keeping it from falling.

  “Holy hell.” He grabbed onto the bar and righted his stool. Then he tried to disperse the blue glitter with his hand, but no luck. A couple of people glanced his way.

  She waved the wand again and the blue disappeared. “Be quiet. You’re the only one who can see me.”

  “So they think I’m talking to myself? That’s just great.” Roark ran his hands through his hair, trying to look casual to the onlookers.

  “No, they see us,” Christy said. “We’re just engaged in conversation. Boring, benign conversation.

  He shook his head, closed his eyes, and looked again.

  Yep, still there. Her. The wings. The blue stick with the glitter problem.

  Had to be a dream. He’s passed out on the bar. Or worse, he was still at home, passed out on the couch and some kid’s show has come on, screwing with his dreams.

  “This seriously can’t be happening.”

&nb
sp; “Oh it’s happening.” She glanced over his shoulder, and aimed the wand, blue flying out the end. “Get out of here!”

  He spun around just in time to see a blast of the blue sparkly stuff hit a little cherub with an arrow aimed at him.

  “What the hell is that?”

  She let out a sigh. “Cupid’s minions. They are a complete pain.”

  Roark rubbed his eyes and looked again, just as the little cherub stuck its tongue out at Christy before disappearing in a puff of smoke. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing—didn’t want to. This had to be a dream. “Fairies and Cupid’s minions? Sounds like a children’s nightmare come to life.”

  Christy shrugged. “Some days, it can be.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the bar. “Magic is hard for most people to believe in.”

  “I bet,” Roark replied, picking up his glass to take a drink, but it was still empty.

  She fluttered her wings.

  He sat the glass down and gestured to the big blue wings. “Do you show those off to everyone?”

  “Not really, no. It’s frowned upon, as a matter of fact.”

  “So why do it?” He still couldn’t completely believe what he stared at, yet part of him wanted to reach out and put his fingers on them, to touch the things and see if they were real.

  “Sometimes you need to go to extremes to help out a charge.”

  “Is that what I am? Your charge?”

  She nodded. “My last one, as a matter of fact. Once I get you settled, I can retire.”

  “And what if I don’t get settled?”

  “Then it’s going to be a long time to retirement.”

  “Can you not retire until your charges are settled?”

  “Nope. We cannot leave until we know everyone gets their HEA.”

  “HEA?”

  “Happily Ever After.”

  Roark snorted. “I think you may be with me for a while, then.”

  “Let’s hope not. My husband is getting antsy.” She rolled her neck back and forth. “You’re different. Usually we are assigned to girls. Girls are—”

  “Easier?”

  “Just different. Girls tend to wallow, flip back and forth, and don’t recognize their feelings. You know what you feel, you accept it, and you do what needs to be done. More cut and dry.”

  “So I should be easier.”

  “One would think,” Christy said.

  Roark glanced at the two glasses. “And what about those?”

  “Do what I said. Like that movie, The Matrix. The red drink, you fall down the rabbit hole—except not into a computer program, but into understanding. The blue one? You wake up forgetting everything. You can go back to what you and Stephanie had before all this started, before the wedding—”

  “What about the wedding? Did something happen—” He stared at her, his eyes going wide. “Were those little Cupid-guys at the wedding?”

  She nodded. “One of them got an arrow in you before I could stop him. Horrible little monster things.” She shivered, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “So you screwed up?”

  “Not exactly. I just…”

  Roark raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I missed, that’s what I did.” She stood straight, stomping her foot, and gritted her teeth. “Happy?”

  “So none of this is real? I just… this was all part of the arrow?” Roark waved his hand in the air.

  “I got you the antidote before it got too bad,” Christy said. “If I hadn’t, you would have been confessing your love to Stephanie right there in your living room.”

  “I almost did.”

  “I know. I spilled your beer.”

  He blinked. “Uh…”

  “Well, it worked, didn’t it?” she said, crossing her arms. “You felt better the next day!”

  “Your antidote sucks, by the way.”

  She shook her head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. The antidote should have killed all the feelings that were influenced by the arrow.” She stared at the bar as she spoke, then she brought her head up, meeting his gaze. “Unless they were already there, underneath everything. The arrow only exposed it.” The grin on her face was contagious. He couldn’t help smiling too.

  At least for a second, until he realized what she was saying. “You mean, I’ve had feelings for her for a while now and am just now realizing it?”

  She nodded.

  Roark had to digest this. Sadly, when he thought about it, it made sense—in the most asinine way possible, but it did. The emotions hit him hard, like he had been shot full of them, just all of a sudden at the wedding. And while the next day, he’d felt better, a little, he still wasn’t a hundred percent—grumpy and unhappy, mostly because Stephanie had turned him down.

  Did it twice, to be honest.

  He glanced at the two glasses. “And those will change things.”

  “Yes.”

  “What if I turn down both?”

  She shrugged. “Your life.”

  “What if I take the red and it still doesn’t help?”

  “It’s only information. What you do with it remains up to you. We Fairy Godmothers have a strict rule about free will.”

  “Which is?”

  “I can’t change your free will. I can advise. I can encourage. I can thump your table with a cane—”

  “That was you?”

  She grinned. “Magic’s awesome like that. Anyway, I can even straight up tell you what I think you need to do, but it doesn’t mean you have to do it. You always have a choice. Always.”

  “So what do you think I should do?”

  “I think you and Stephanie need to really hash out what’s going on here. Because I don’t think you have a clue.”

  “Do you know?”

  “I have a clue.”

  “So can you fix this?”

  Christy shrugged again, making her wings flutter. “I can’t make anything happen. Rules, you know?”

  “Right.”

  “But I never go into any situation without getting all the necessary information. It gives me a plan of attack, some way to understand what I’m getting into.”

  “So I should drink the red.”

  “No, that’s not what I said.”

  Roark rubbed his head. “This is killing me.”

  “So have a drink.”

  Roark nodded. “Yeah, I think I will.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Monday Night

  There was not enough chocolate in the world. Stephanie stared at the now-empty bag of Dove Chocolate and debated getting up and driving to the store.

  Granted, it was almost midnight.

  She’d made midnight runs before for stuff, though usually it was crunch time on some project for a wedding, but still.

  Tonight seemed like a good reason.

  She was going to have to crank the treadmill up to “run” this week to relieve the guilt of all the chocolate, but that was later.

  Tonight, she was wallowing.

  She picked up her sherry, took a sip, and while it didn’t taste bad with the chocolate, it wasn’t quite right.

  Roark would know, she thought, grabbing her phone…and realized she couldn’t call him about this middle-of-the-night question. She’d probably never be able to call him about stuff like that again.

  “Ugh!” she cried out, throwing the empty bag of chocolate across the room. It would have been much more satisfying if the bag hit the wall and made some noise instead of fluttering to the floor like a pretty little feather.

  “Dammit!” She ran her hands through her hair. “This is why I didn’t want to get physical with Roark. Because physical changes everything!”

  She flopped on the couch. “We were fine the way we were.” The condo was dark�
��well, kinda. The light over the kitchen sink was on, but other than that, the only illumination came from the outside street lights.

  Everything was dark and shadowy, like how her heart felt. It seemed appropriate.

  On the cheap version of a mantel, over the fireplace she never lit, a picture of her mother sat.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have done it, Mom. I knew better.”

  And she could practically hear her mother’s reply. Men like Roark will never consider you more than a piece of ass, anyway. You shouldn’t ever bother with them. They don’t marry girls like you. They marry girls who have the pedigree.

  A pedigree was something Stephanie knew she’d never have—not one good enough for someone like Roark. She would never be able to mesh with that world, and she didn’t know why she would ever think to try. And she could feel it, deep down inside, that she felt much more for Roark than she’d ever admit.

  She might have thought it was love had it not hurt so damn much. Love didn’t hurt. It wasn’t supposed to. It was supposed to be all cheery and happy and butterflies and rainbows. Not this horrible ache inside not even chocolate could fill.

  She already depended on Roark too much. If she let the whole idea of love into the picture and he wound up moving on, well then, where would she be?

  Just like her mother. Alone. Desperate. Bitter.

  And that was not going to happen. Stephanie refused to allow that to come into her life—an angry spirit infested her mother like a virus which couldn’t be killed.

  Rising off the couch, she grabbed her sherry and took another sip. And about spit it across the room when there was a loud banging on her front door.

  She let out a slew of curses as she marched to the door. Pausing, she grabbed the baseball bat—coincidentally, one Roark bought her—just before the doorbell went off and scared the crap out of her.

  “Who in the hell is it?” she muttered, glancing at the sherry in her hand. Half-full. Could throw that in someone’s eyes if she had to. That, plus baseball bat.

  She was pretty safe.

  “Steph, let me in!” Roark yelled through the door.

  She relaxed, dropped the bat behind the door and undid the chain. She made herself take a few deep breaths, rocked her head back and forth, and went to a calm zone before undoing the last lock.