Page 6 of Buckle Up, Buttercup

Glancing around the love-filled room, I smile as I spear another bite of lasagna and shove it into my mouth. It’s good to be home.

Bluebell

“Congratulations, Bluebell,” says the bespectacled female minotaur behind the desk at the Titles & Deeds Office the morning after family dinner. She slides a stack of papers in my direction with a friendly smile. “Can’t believe you need another business to manage, but I know you’ll do right by the Buxom Bodice.”

I take the finalized sales contract with slightly trembling hands. Minerva’s right—I don’t really need another business to keep track of. I already run Buttercup Rental Agency for my parents, and I help them and my brothers with the scheduling for Tucker Greens, too. Sitting still just isn’t in my wheelhouse, so to speak.

Plus, I’ve always wanted to build something from scratch, something that’s entirely mine. Not to mention I was past ready to move off my folks’ ranch and into downtown Pine Gulch, where I can be closer to my responsibilities and get a little distance from my crazy family.

It’s not that living with a bunch of witches and one human is tiresome, but it means their work surrounds me twenty-four-seven.

“Thanks, Minerva.” I stick the paperwork under an arm. “Everything okay out at your place?” She’s my newest long-term resident, having just signed a two-year contract for one of our small cottages at the far end of Main Street.

“Still adjusting,” she says with a shrug that shimmies the gold ring through her snout. “Being single at two hundred wasn’t in the cards, but the cottage has a cute little personality, and I think we’ll get on just fine.” She winks at me. “Mead Cute Festival’s coming up soon. I’m thinking perhaps I’ll meet some young hot thang while I’m there. Whaddya think?”

I reach across the desk and squeeze her heavily bejeweled fingers. “Love life is not something I can assist with but if you need a single thing out at your property, you holler at me, alright?”

Her fuzzy brows lift, and she raises both hands as if in shock. “Oh! I nearly forgot the dadgum key, Bluebell. You’d have gotten all the way to the Buxom Bodice and not been able to get in.” She spins on her swivel chair and rummages around in a drawer I can’t see from this angle.

I consider her comment as she looks for the wayward key. Shit, I hadn’t necessarily expected to still be single at twenty-nine either, but here we are. Truly, I don’t know when I’d have time for a love life, and it’s plenty of fun watching my friends fall in love. Lotta that in Pine Gulch lately, and I’m fine being on the sidelines of it.

Who has time, anyway?

Minerva spins back around with a beautiful vintage-looking key in hand. She slides it over the countertop while she beams at me. “Go get yer girl, Bluebell Tucker.”

I should be excited. I am excited. But my to do list for today is also a million items long.

“Can I ask you somethin’?”

I bet I can guess before she even gets the question out of her mouth, and so I lift the key. “You wanna know why I have so many jobs?”

Minerva’s mouth drops open as she nods. “Yeah, girl. Tucker Greens, Buttercup Rental Agency, shifts at Whiskey Business and sometimes Lizard Lick Saloon. I swear there ain’t a business on Main I ain’t seen you in a time or two. I don’t know how you do it.”

I shove the key in my pocket with a wry laugh. “I can’t keep still. Mama says I was even that way in the womb—kicking her all day and night so she couldn’t get any sleep. Now I exist on carbs, coffee, and colored pens.”

Minerva shakes her head, the ring through her nose shimmying against her snout. “You young things have more energy than the gods, I swear. Been decades since I could roust myself for more than this one job.”

We share a laugh at that before I tell her goodbye.

Leaving the office, I head down the long hallway that houses most of Pine Gulch’s government offices. These are small, so we use an unneeded hallway in the Auction House. Pine Gulch isn’t as populated as most of the other hidden monster havens, and we don’t like a lotta…overhead. If you end up in PG, or the Gulch, as we local Gulchers call it, it’s ‘cause you wanted wide-open spaces and a little bit of lawlessness.

Outside, I turn toward Main Street’s straightaway, passing Glimmer Potions House on my left and the abandoned Keeper’s mansion on the right. Although, these days, the mansion’s a little friendlier than she used to be. I blame my friend Lemon, who seems to have broken through the prickly home’s rough exterior.

I chuckle as I muse how Lemon, she of the sparkly pink, definitely-doesn’t-fit-in-here cowboy boots came to the Gulch and immediately rocked everyone’s worlds. Now she’s practically the unofficial mayor, and there ain’t a monster in town who doesn’t know and love her.

Good thing she loves me the most. And our friend Oz. I’d call us the Three Musketeers if we lived out in the human world instead of a haven.

Main Street’s busy this time of day, gargoyles, minotaurs, pixies and various other monsters walking up and down the street in groups. Giant flower pots are full to the brim with yellow yarrow and purple wildflowers that hang over the edge like colorful waterfalls.

A woman wearing a black V-neck tee stands from behind one of the pots, smiling at me. “Hey, Bloob, you headed to the Bodice?”

I laugh at Shadow’s nickname for me. She’s a human witch like me, although we grew up in different monster towns. Lifting the ornate key, I wave it side to side with a pleased grin. “Signed, sealed, and delivered!” The beautiful pots catch my eye again as the yarrow waves in the breeze. “This your doing? Surely my brothers didn’t take it upon themselves to do up ornamental flower pots.”

Shadow huffs out a laugh, eyeing the pots with obvious love as she strokes one of the yarrow’s spiky heads. “Fully my doing; it was one of the original keeper’s projects that never got completed so I’m doing it now. I did ask Jasper if he was interested in helping. His green magic is so strong, ya know? But he said, and I quote, ‘what a ridiculous waste of time. There’s already a garden behind the shops.’” She looks at me. “Can you imagine a green witch saying that?! I know he’s prepping for his level-three mastery test, but damn.”

I sigh as sunshine filters through the haven’s protective ward above us, warming my skin after a long morning dealing with paperwork and resident requests. “Any green witch? No. Jasper? Absolutely.”

Shadow sucks at her teeth. “Well, Dain and I are back to Rainbow this week to wrap up some stuff with my job before we move back here. Mind keeping an eye on the pots? They shouldn’t need much, but I bet Jace would fix them up even if Jasper won’t.”