I hate my faerie life and i'm luvin it!!! by Tara Zlick (red white and royal blue hardcover .TXT) 📕

Chapter 1
Laurel Grant was not the kind of woman Sammi was used to
feeling much sympathy for. Five foot five, a hundred and fifteen
pounds at the most. Smooth, creamy complexion. Thick blonde
hair that was natural, except for a few highlights here and there.
Sculpted cheekbones and brow, rosebud lips. Blue eyes framed
by absurdly long eyelashes. It just wasn’t fair that one woman
should have so many advantages all to herself! And she wasn’t
even some bubble-head that Sammi could look down her nose at
and feel superior to. The nerve of some people!
Sammi smiled despite her chagrin, reminding herself that
Laurel was here because her life wasn’t all that perfect after all.
“You must be Laurel,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m
Sammi.”
Laurel smiled back—her teeth were, of course, completely
straight and snow-white—and shook Sammi’s hand. “Pleased to
meet you,” she said.
“Come on in.” Sammi opened the door wider, and Laurel
took a tentative step inside. “My office is upstairs, in my
apartment.”
Laurel took a glance around the downstairs, seeing the huge
living room that would have served well in a dormitory, as well
as the two kitchens that flanked it.
Sammi laughed at the puzzled expression on her face. “This
house is a child of the sixties,” Sammi explained as she led the
way toward the stairs. “It was built by a commune, and they had
somewhere between twelve and fifteen people living in this one
house. They needed two kitchens to feed that many mouths.”
“It’s huge!” Laurel said.
“Uh-huh. Had to be, to house that many people. Of course,
it’s quite an oddity these days.” They emerged from the staircase
onto the second floor balcony, which looked down on the living
room below. “The neighbors call this place ‘Hippie House,’”
Sammi continued, and Laurel smiled at that.
“And is the whole thing yours?”
“I own the house, but I’ve broken it into four apartments. I
certainly don’t need all this space for myself. My apartment is
over here.”
Laurel followed Sammi through one of the doors that opened
off the balcony. The door led to Sammi’s sitting room, where she did all her business. She’d decorated the room with meticulous
care, wanting to set the perfect balance of competent
professionalism and powerful mysticism.
Against one wall sat her desk, the flat-screen monitor and
black ergonomic chair looking every bit fixtures of the twentyfirst
century. Against another wall were her bookcases, custommade,
displaying everything from modern-day paperback novels
to heavy, hand-illuminated manuscripts passed down through her
family through the generations. In deference to the most ancient
of the manuscripts, she kept the lights in the room low, and the
drapes closed. Of course, the dimness also added an aura of
mystery to the room, which her clients always appreciated.
The most striking display in the room, however, was
Sammi’s collection of antique glassware, which held her potions
and tonics. The bottles and vials and tubes—ranging in size from
tiny to substantial, and in color from clear, to crimson, to
obsidian—were arrayed on a set of black-lacquered shelves.
“Please have a seat,” Sammi said, indicating the brown
velour couch that rested under two wrought-iron wall sconces.
Laurel looked around the room first, eyeing the manuscripts,
and the sconces, and finally the certificate on the wall that
proclaimed Sammi’s status as a licensed clinical social worker.
That last seemed to draw her particular attention, but after
examining the certificate, she finally took her seat on the couch.
Sammi’s own chair was of chocolate-brown wicker with
caramel-colored cushions. She kicked off her shoes as she sat,
tucking her bare feet under her skirt. The casual pose often made
new clients feel more comfortable around her. Laurel, however,
still looked brittle and nervous. Almost ready to bolt.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Sammi asked.
Laurel smiled and shook her head. “No, thank you. I’m
fine.”
“Well, let’s get started then shall we?” Laurel stiffened in her
seat, eyes going a little wide. Sammi could even see a thin veneer
of perspiration beading on her brow. “Relax, Laurel. I’m not
going to start chanting mumbo-jumbo or stirring a cauldron or
anything.”
Laurel laughed nervously. “Sorry. I’ve just . . . never done
anything like this before. I feel pretty foolish.”
“Lots of people feel foolish when they come to me the first
time. I don’t mind. I’ll do the best I can to help you, in whatever
way you feel comfortable. If it’s a potion, fine. If it’s just talking,
that’s fine too. But the best way to start out is to tell me why you
feel the need to consult a witch.”
Laurel nodded briskly, her shoulders relaxing ever so
slightly. “Okay.” She rubbed her hands together, looking at the
floor instead of at Sammi. “A friend of mine from work
suggested I should see you.” More nervous laughter. “I guess I’m
getting kind of desperate.” She looked startled at her own words.
“I’m sorry. That sounded terrible, but I meant no offense.”
“None taken,” Sammi assured her. “I’m used to people’s
skepticism, so you’re not going to hurt my feelings. Just tell me
why your friend sent you to me.”
“Last year, I broke up with the man I’d been dating ever
since I got out of college.”
Sammi heard a distinct undertone of pain in Laurel’s voice.
Obviously, she hadn’t gotten over him yet. Sammi wondered if
she knew that.
“It was kind of a messy breakup,” Laurel continued. “He’d
been promising to marry me for a long time, always having some new condition he had to meet before he would be ‘ready.’ I
finally got tired of waiting and basically told him to marry me or
else.” Her laugh was bitter. “He chose ‘or else,’ of course.”
“Sounds like good riddance to me,” Sammi said, and Laurel
looked up sharply, shoulders stiffening. Nope, definitely not over
him yet. “How long were you together?”
“A little over five years.”
“Hmm. Long time. You can’t expect to get over a man
you’ve been with for five years overnight.”
Laurel looked even more indignant. “I am so over him it’s
not even funny.”
“Uh-huh. And you’re coming to see me . . . why?”
She blushed, making herself look even more precious and
delicate. Sammi had to fight down a surge of unfair dislike. It
wasn’t Laurel’s fault that she was so pretty. “Well, uh . . .” She
squirmed uncomfortably. “I haven’t really been on a serious date
since we broke up.”
Sammi’s eyes widened at that. Laurel was the kind of
woman who habitually had men falling at her feet! Especially a
certain kind of man, the shallow, childish kind who only cared
for a woman’s appearance. Kind of like Jason. Sammi groaned
internally when she realized that Jace would probably be getting
home from work when Laurel was leaving, and he would
definitely notice her.
“It’s not that men haven’t asked me out,” Laurel hastened to
explain, catching the surprise on Sammi’s face. “It’s just that
none of them seem to be my type.”
That’s because no one who’s not the jerk you just broke up
with is going to be your type right now. But Laurel wasn’t ready
to hear that, so Sammi kept her opinion to herself for the
moment. “Tell me something about your type.”
Laurel smiled faintly. “I’m not sure what I can tell you. I
don’t have a laundry list of features I’m looking for. I just know
that the guys I know right now aren’t it.”
“And your ex-boyfriend? Was he your type?”
Her eyes turned wistful. “I don’t think so. I think that was
our problem. I really loved him, but we were just so different.
Opposites attract, I know. But they also drive each other nuts.”
Tears glittered in her eyes but did not fall. “If I had it all to do
over again, I would never let that relationship get started.”
Sammi breathed a quiet sigh. Laurel was here seeking a
magical solution, hoping Sammi could give her some kind of
charm or potion that would help her find her Mr. Right. The
problem was that no magic would help her until she got Mr.
Wrong out of her system.
“I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear,”
Sammi warned. Laurel sat up straighter, shoulders squaring and
lips pressed tightly together. “You’re not ready to date anyone
else yet. It takes time to get over a nasty breakup, and you need
to have patience with it.”
Laurel seemed to realize how uptight she looked, sitting
ramrod straight on that comfortable couch. Her posture eased
slightly. “I thought maybe you could . . . help me get over it. You
know, give me a charm. Or something.” Her cheeks were
becoming pink again, and she began playing with a loose string
that dangled from her blouse.
Sammi smiled gently. “I’m a witch, not a miracle worker.
For some things, there’s just no shortcut, and I’m afraid this is
one of them.”
“My friend, Trudy Clark, the one who sent me to you . . . She had a lot of trouble getting back on her feet after her divorce.
You gave her a charm, and she met a new man within like a
month.”
Sammi untucked her feet and leaned forward in her chair, the
wicker squeaking with her movement. “Look, I remember Trudy.
She was ready to move on; she just had this hangup about her
kids, didn’t want them to think she was replacing their father.
The charm I gave her was just a placebo. It helped her give
herself permission to look at other men.”
“Oh.”
“I saw you looking at my license.” Laurel turned slightly in
her chair to glance once more at the framed license. “I started my
career as a therapist, and I’ve kept up my license. Sometimes
when witchcraft won’t do the trick, therapy will. Only I charge
a lot less than a therapist.” She grinned, and Laurel grinned back.
“And you’re not covered under my insurance plan.”
Sammi chuckled, liking Laurel better when she wasn’t taking
herself quite so seriously. “No. Anyway, the gist of this is, I can’t
give you a charm or a potion to suddenly make you ready to
move on in your life. What I can do is give you a sympathetic
ear, and even the occasional advice, if you want it.”
Laurel made a face. “I don’t know that I can stand any more
advice. My friends at work keep trying to set me up, and keep
telling me I should date everything that breathes. My mom keeps
telling me I should give Hank another chance. I think she loved
him more than I did. My sister tells me good riddance, who needs
men anyway. But then, she’s been divorced three times already
so she has kind of a bad attitude.”
Sammi shook her head. “I’m talking about practical advice.”
Years of working with the lovelorn had made her preternaturally
perceptive, and she decided to show off those powers of
perception. “For instance, I would advise you to move out of the
apartment you and your ex used to live in.”
Laurel looked absolutely stunned. “H-how . . . How could
you possibly have known that?”
“I’m a witch, remember? I looked in my crystal ball.” She
kept a solemn expression on her face for about fifteen seconds,
then allowed herself a smile.
Laurel rolled her eyes and relaxed back into the cushions of
the couch, chuckling and looking more at ease than she had since
she’d walked in the door. “You had me going there for a
moment. But really, how did you know?”
She shrugged. “Just instinct. It’s usually