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My palms were sweaty. My throat was dry. Overhead, the fluorescent lights flickered on and off. I looked right, then left. They were everywhere. I was surrounded. There were just too many of them.
I looked around for help. Salvation.
“Uh- sir. Can I help you?”
I blinked and turned around to see a young woman in a bright orange shirt that didn’t go very well with faded blue pants. Her name tag read “Josephine.”
She couldn’t be out of her teens yet and was still engaging puberty in mortal combat. Despite heroic efforts with concealer on her face, plenty of pimples had cropped up.
“I don’t know what to get,” I issued at the shelves. “Not for me, obviously. My apprentice-“
I cut myself off. Josephine seemed to shrug off the word apprentice and actually smiled a little, and began to tell me more than I’d ever felt I’d needed to know about feminine hygiene products.
I picked up a box containing something called a diva cup. I skimmed through the instructions.
Insert into-
I put the package back down.
Josephine rolled her eyes at me and sighed. Probably not the best customer service, that, but I probably had it coming. She grabbed a box of tampons and pushed it into my hand.
“There you go.”
I took it and decided I wasn’t going to ask my knight in not-so-shining armor any questions.
***
I returned to my apartment half an hour later to find Molly where I’d left her. Sprawled out on my couch with two blankets wrapped around her, eyes half-shut. She glanced my way.
“Yikes, boss. Did you clear out the entire store?”
It was possible that I had gone a little crazy. I’d gotten tampons, but also some gatorade, chocolate, some aspirin and a chubby cat plushie that was far too expensive.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She still looked peaky, but she grinned at my misfortune. I chucked the plushie at her.
While she was admiring it, cooing enough at it that I could already see Mister plan its grisly demise, with Mouse potentially aiding and abetting, I walked over to the fireplace.
I threw two fresh logs on top of the embers and picked up a rice heating pad off the mantelpiece. I walked over to Molly and settled beside her, offering it out to her. She took it and slipped it under her shirt to rest over her stomach, groaning in relief.
“Thanks, Harry.”
I got back up before she caught me getting a bit embarrassed at the look she was giving me. “Want some aspirin?”
“Yeah… and some of that chocolate I saw you trying to hide away. Gimme.”
I poured a glass of cold water, popped two aspirin out of the box, and broke off a few rows of chocolate. I set them beside Molly on the coffee table and she wisely prioritized the chocolate first.
“I’ll be in the lab,” I told her.
She looked at me. “Work?”
I shrugged. “No. I just thought I’d get out of your hair. I might as well get some potions going while I’m at it.”
“Don’t,” Molly said, voice soft. “Stay. Read me something.”
I blinked. “Read?”
“Yeah. You know that thing you do with books and the words in them?”
I glared at her for a moment, but my heart wasn’t in it. She shifted awkwardly and made some room on the couch. “What do you want me to read?”
She shrugged underneath the blankets. “It doesn’t matter. I just like hearing your voice.”
If I’d been a less wizardly wizard I might’ve gotten a bit teary eyed at that. I grabbed a book at random off my shelf. When I settled back on the couch, Molly laid down a pillow in my lap and got comfortable.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” I began.
Molly chuckled below me. “Don’t I know it.”