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If she hadn’t read through all the relevant paperwork herself, Jenny wouldn’t have believed she wasn’t being pranked. The Tongue and Tail butcher shop in Port Townsend had been her father’s legacy, and having to decide whether to repair it and stay put or sell it and move to London wasn’t easy. Then, she’d gotten an email from Edwin (care of Crystal) about a building for sale down the street from the Dead Boy Detective Agency’s office, and the decision was suddenly suspiciously easy.
The building had a fully decked out butcher shop on the ground floor and a few floors of flats above with tenants already in them, but that hadn’t been the part that had weirded her out. No, the part that had weirded her out was that the building had once been owned by her father’s family, before they left for America, and that they, too, had run a butcher shop out of it. Edwin had found all the relevant documents proving the connection. She’d just gotten the insurance payout for the damage from Esther’s attack (listed on the paperwork as simply “arson”, nothing to do with witches or ghosts or psychics or demons). It was enough to cover a down payment on the new place, and she could pay it off when she sold the old place.
The final decision had come down to an itch under her skin, an urge to be anywhere but Port Townsend after everything that had happened, that grew in intensity the longer she stared at the insurance check. There had been no other offers on the place in London, so hers was accepted almost immediately. Everything fell into place far more easily than Jenny felt it should have, but for once, things were simply working out in her favor.
So it was that The New Old Tongue and Tail Butcher Shop was open for business. Niko and Crystal were its first regular customers, but word was spreading, and the girls weren’t the only regulars for long. That was the problem, really - the regulars. Or, one regular in particular, who didn’t care what other people thought of her, and almost always came in at the same time on the same day each week but never had the same thing to say twice. And she wasn’t actually the problem, per se. The problem wasn’t even that Jenny had started looking forward to her visits, started getting nervous when she was a few minutes late and relieved when it turned out she’d just come across something interesting on her way and had to stop to appreciate it. The problem, in point of fact, was that Niko had found out about her, and she and Crystal were now in the shop, conspiratorial grins on their faces.
“Whatever harebrained scheme you’re about to suggest,” Jenny said, before either girl could get a word in edgewise, “Niko, you promised me you wouldn’t get involved in my love life anymore.”
“I’m not doing anything!” Niko objected. “Besides, everyone already shot my idea down.”
Jenny looked from Niko to Crystal, already not liking where this was going. “Do I even want to know?”
“Charles got cursed last week and it made him get his shit together about Edwin,” Crystal explained. “I promise we’re not going to curse you.”
“Where are those two, anyway?” Jenny asked, hoping a topic change would make them forget about meddling in her love life. “Kind of thought you four were a package deal these days.”
“They’re working a case at a haunted zoo,” Crystal said. (Charles and Edwin were, at that very moment, being chased by the ghost of a lion that had died at the zoo and not realized it was dead. “I have a plan!” Edwin was yelling. “Your plan was buggered, we need a plan B!” Charles was yelling back. Everything was fine.) “They’re not why we’re here, though. We’re here because you have a crush.”
Jenny groaned and turned away from the girls to go back to packing up orders. “Again, Niko, you promised,” she said, gesturing with her cleaver. “And besides, I don’t have a crush. She’s just a nice person who comes in regularly and doesn’t say the exact same thing as everyone else.” She could feel a tiny smile trying to creep onto her face, and hid it by turning further away while she tried to quash it.
“You say you don’t have a crush,” Niko started, leaning on the counter, “but you knew exactly who we were talking about.”
“Yes, because I saw the look on your face when you came in last week and saw us talking,” Jenny countered. The smile wasn’t going away, so she gave up trying to hide it. “What even are you planning to do about it, anyway?”
“We thought you might feel safer if you knew more about her,” Crystal said. “Charles and Edwin could tail her home next time she comes, learn more about her, make sure she’s not stalking you, for one.” (They were hiding from the ghost lion in an alcove, Charles digging through his bag for the plan B they’d settled on. Totally fine.)
Jenny opened her mouth to tell Crystal where to shove her concern, but thinking about the idea for more than five seconds, she couldn’t actually come up with an argument against it, and instead, said, “I… will think about that one.” She paused, stared at the wall in front of her for a moment, then turned back to Crystal and Niko. “That can’t possibly be the only thing you have planned.” Niko took a breath to start explaining, but stopped when Jenny pointed a cleaver at her. “Not. You.” Niko held her hands up in surrender, and slowly, the cleaver returned to the meat.
“Truly, that was the only thing we had planned,” Crystal said, looking from Jenny to Niko and back again. “Unless you want to, like, tell us all about her and what you like about her and—“
“No. Absolutely not. I don’t even really know if I want to do anything with these feelings right now.” Jenny scrunched up her face and shoulders, wrapping up the order she’d been prepping and turning back to face the girls fully. “Look. I appreciate that you want to help, and I’ll think about hiring the boys to find out more about her. But that’s it, OK? Please leave it alone beyond that. I’m an adult, I can handle my own feelings and relationships. You don’t have to fix everything just because you’re part of a detective agency.” (The boys, speaking of, had managed to find a banishing spell in Charles’s bag, and were trying to lure the ghost lion back out in order to apply it. “Do we know where this will banish it to, exactly?” Charles had asked as he handed over the capsule containing the spell. “Its intended afterlife,” Edwin had answered, as though that explained anything. Absolutely fine.)
“We’ll keep out of it,” Crystal promised, elbowing Niko, who nodded enthusiastically. “If you do want to talk about it, we’re around, but only if you want.”
“I’m going to hold the both of you to that,” Jenny said. “Now, please get out of my shop, I’ve had more than enough weird for today.”
“Actually, while we’re here,” Niko added, cheerful again, “we do need to pick up stuff for dinner.”
(By the time the girls left The New Old Tongue and Tail, Charles and Edwin had managed to banish the ghost lion, narrowly avoiding being caught in the spell themselves. Edwin was pulling Charles out of a bush, and they were both grinning ear to ear. “The zookeeper will be pleased,” Edwin was saying. “Job officially jobbed!” Charles was saying back. See? Completely fine.)
Jenny did think about the offer. She thought about it for the rest of the day, in fact, when she wasn’t thinking about filling orders and dealing with customers. After closing time, she poured herself some wine and tried to listen to a true crime podcast instead, to take her mind off of it, but found her thoughts kept looping back around to what had happened with Maxine, and the potential to prevent a repeat of that whole situation this time. She turned off the podcast, finished her wine, and decided to go for a walk, hoping the change of scenery would help her sort her thoughts out.
On the one hand, Jenny really disliked the idea of anyone but her having a say in what she did or how she felt, particularly after Maxine. Trusting someone outside of herself to gather that information, even if they were better equipped to do so, felt too close to giving them power over her. It felt like repeating the same mistake again - letting someone else talk her into doing something, decide how she was feeling, decide the best outcome.
On the other hand, hiring Charles and Edwin to look into this new person in her life was a good idea, and Jenny knew that. Primarily, it would help her feel safer liking someone if she had some outside assurance they weren’t going to try to kill her. It would also give her more solid basis on which to decide what to do about it. By hiring them to do a specific job, she’d guarantee herself a route to shut down any advice they might try to give her about what to do.
On the third hand, every time she tried to think about doing something with the feelings she was having, she came right back to the letters Maxine had sent, and how good they’d felt when she first received them, and how doing something about it had gone so wrong. Jenny thought, idly, that she probably needed therapy, but that wouldn’t solve her immediate crisis, and so she shelved the idea for later-slash-never.
By this time, Jenny’s walk had looped around, and she was approaching The New Old Tongue and Tail again, which brought her past the Dead Boy Detective Agency. She looked in through the window out of curiosity - she hadn’t actually been inside before, despite being just down the street. Charles and Edwin had their backs to the window as they looked through some kind of filing system on the back of a closet door. Charles had his hand on the small of Edwin’s back and was gesturing wildly with his other hand about something. Edwin turned and smiled fondly at him, and said something that made Charles grin. They kissed, and kissed, and Jenny turned away and hurried past, feeling something tighten in her chest.
When she was safely back in her bedroom, she took out her phone and texted Crystal.
Jenny: OK. Fine. I’ll hire the boys to look into Ainsley.
Crystal: so her name is ainsley? ;)
Jenny: I regret this decision already.
Crystal: couldn’t help myself lol
Crystal: do you want to come here tomorrow to discuss or should i send them to the shop during open hours?
Jenny: Send them here, I guess. Tomorrow’s her usual day, so as long as they’re here before 3, they can just wait and follow her when she leaves.
Jenny: That message felt so creepy to send.
Jenny: You get what I meant.
Crystal: i get you. i’ll tell them
Jenny: Thanks.
The Dead Boy Detectives arrived promptly at 2 p.m. the next day, phasing through the door. The shop was, fortunately, empty, and Jenny did her best to shake off how weird it still was to watch two teenage boys just walk straight through something like it wasn’t there.
“Good afternoon, Jenny,” Edwin said, reaching into his jacket and taking out his notepad. “Crystal informs us that you would like to engage our services to look into a customer named Ainsley, is that correct?”
“Wow, straight to business. OK.” Jenny sighed and very intentionally rolled her shoulders back. “Yes, I want to hire you. I am… interested… in a customer named Ainsley Clark and I want to know she’s not going to go postal and try to kill me.” She glanced over their shoulders at the door, watching for anyone living coming in.
“And is there anything else you can tell us about her, other than that she is a customer here?” Edwin asked, pen poised and ready to write.
“She’s a regular, like clockwork,” Jenny answered. “Like, even a few minutes different is unusual. Like I told Crystal, today’s her day. If you stick around till 3, she’ll be here. She almost exclusively gets poultry - I even sourced pigeon for her once, that was kind of wild. Did you know people still eat pigeon?” Edwin only raised an eyebrow at the question as he wrote his notes, so Jenny continued. “She’s Scottish, I think, by her accent. I don’t think she lives too far from here, but I’m not completely sure about that.”
“Her name is also quite Scottish, so I think you are correct there,” Edwin said. He finished the note he was writing and looked back up at Jenny. “Is there anything else?”
“Nothing that would be helpful, I don’t think.” She paused, though, and gave it a second thought. “Yeah, nothing else useful. Just stupid, mushy feelings I don’t know what to do with.”
“And you want us to help you figure those out?” Charles asked, looking a little confused.
“No, I want you to find out if she’s going to turn on a dime and try to kill me,” Jenny reiterated firmly. “I can’t outsource dealing with my own feelings. I can outsource information gathering.”
“That is more than reasonable,” Edwin said, closing his notebook with a snap and tucking it and his pen back in his jacket. “We will take your case.”
Jenny felt a tiny bit of tension release from her shoulders. “Great. How do I pay you? Do you take cash, or…?”
Charles and Edwin shared a look, and Charles answered, “We figure we owe you one, or even several, after Esther blew up your old shop to get at us. It’s on the house.”
“Oh. Thank you,” Jenny said. She had to admit to herself that it was a relief, not having to figure out how to pay ghosts. After a moment, she looked at Edwin again. “Is that why you did all that research on this place? To make it up to me?”
“Partly, yes,” Edwin admitted. “Niko was the one who noticed the building was for sale and already set up as a butcher shop. She wanted to send you the listing immediately, but I thought you might want to know more about it if you were going to uproot your entire life. I noticed the family name Green on some of the older documents, and decided to dig a little more, in case it wasn’t a coincidence.”
“That was very thoughtful of you.” Jenny wasn’t used to people doing nice things for her like that, and felt the need to reroute the conversation. “You guys do know it’s not your fault Esther blew up my shop, though, right?”
“Yeah, but if we hadn’t have been there, she wouldn’t have done it,” Charles countered. “May not have been our fault, but it was because of us.”
“I guess I can’t complain if clearing your conscience means helping me,” Jenny shrugged. “Feel free to hang around till Ainsley gets here, just don’t spook any of my customers, OK? I’m not trying to run a haunted butcher shop.”
They did hang around, sitting at the table Jenny kept for people who decided to wait while she packed up bigger or more complicated orders. Charles sat backwards in one chair, arms folded over the back and chin resting on his arms, while Edwin sat properly in another, legs crossed primly. It was a fairly slow afternoon, and only two other customers came in while they waited.
Finally, at 3 p.m. on the dot, a short, fat woman came through the door, a Cheshire cat grin on her face, like coming to the butcher’s was the highlight of her week. She had dark, curly hair and green eyes, and was wearing a violently purple jumper with dark green trousers and black boots. “Jenny, I’ve found a new recipe I absolutely need to try,” she said before she even got to the counter. “Also, hi, how are you?”
“I’m good, Ainsley,” Jenny said, a smile tugging at her lips. “Seems like you’re not doing half bad yourself.”
“I’m always fantastic when I get to see you,” Ainsley confirmed. Charles and Edwin shared a look, but kept mercifully quiet. “The recipe I found - the name is French, but I can’t say French words worth a damn, it means hunter’s chicken, I think - calls for bone-in chicken. I know it’s cheaper if I get the whole bird and take it apart myself, but I still haven’t quite got that part down, would it be too much trouble for you to do it for me?”
Jenny let the smile settle on her face, halfway forgetting the boys were still there. “It’s what I’m here for,” she said. “Is there a particular one you want out of the case, or dealer’s choice?”
“The biggest one you’ve got, I’ve got a good feeling about this one, and I want plenty of leftovers!” Ainsley wasn’t even looking at the display case. She was watching Jenny, watching her hands and her arms and her shoulders. She didn’t move to sit at the table as the cleaver came out and Jenny skillfully dismembered the chicken she’d picked, didn’t even flinch at the crunch of bones breaking apart under the blade. Charles almost thought she looked hungry, but her gaze never strayed to the chicken, staying firmly on Jenny.
The butchered chicken was packed up and paid for quickly, even if hands lingered in the process. “You’ll have to tell me how it turns out when you come in next week,” Jenny said as she handed over the receipt.
“If it turns out well, I could bring you some to try,” Ainsley offered, making no move to leave. “It’s got mushrooms, some wine, herbs, shallots…”
Edwin noticed a slight twinge of panic as Jenny answered, “I’d like that, thank you.”
Ainsley grinned again, nodded, and turned to go, before stopping herself. “Oh! Sorry, one last thing - do you think you’d be able to source some quail? I came across a couple of recipes that call for it in the process of finding this one and thought they sounded interesting.”
“I think the place I found the pigeon had quail, too,” Jenny said, thinking. The panic was gone. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You are just the best,” Ainsley gushed. “Thank you so much! Alright, see you next week!” She waved as she bounced out of the shop, Cheshire cat grin firmly in place.
Charles and Edwin got up to follow her out, and on the way, Charles turned to Jenny and said, “For the record, no chance she says no if you do go for it.”
Ainsley’s flat was, in fact, nearby, in a fairly nice high rise a few blocks away. The boys followed her up the stairs to the fourth floor, only keeping a short distance behind to avoid losing her. They were, consequently, only a little ways down the hall when she unlocked her door and held it open, turning to them and looking them each in the eye in turn.
“You can’t haunt my flat permanently, but you can at least stop in for a chat,” she said, not unkindly, gesturing for them to come in. “Or do you prefer phasing through the walls? I’ve never been a ghost myself, so I’m not quite sure how it works.”
Charles and Edwin looked to each other, then back to Ainsley in disbelief. Edwin recovered himself first and said, “Going through the door is far more polite, at any rate. Thank you.” He took Charles’s hand and led the way in. It was small but cozy, and all the furniture looked comfortable and warm, even if none of it matched.
“I’m Ainsley, by the way, Ainsley Clark,” she said as they passed her. “What should I call the two of you?”
“My name is Edwin Payne, and this is Charles Rowland,” Edwin said as Ainsley closed the door and made her way past, careful not to touch them.
“So, you could see us the whole time?” Charles asked. He figured declaring she knew they were ghosts gave them an opening to be nosy.
“Of course I could,” she confirmed, bustling into the kitchen and putting the chicken away in the fridge. “Wouldn’t have been a very good familiar if I couldn’t see ghosts and demons and such.”
Their jaws dropped. This time, it was Charles who recovered first. “You’re a familiar? Is this your witch’s flat?”
“No, no, don’t be silly,” Ainsley said. She started clearing books and papers off the small kitchen table, stacking them on one of the four chairs instead. “Come sit! No, Millie wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere this dingy in a million years. Sorry, is that rude?”
“Not at all,” Edwin said, following Charles to the table. “I must say, if this is dingy, I would hate to see what manner of excess would count as comfortable.” Ainsley let slip a surprised chuckle at that.
Charles decided to ignore the bit of smugness on Edwin’s face. “I have so many questions I don’t even know where to start,” he said. “Never heard of a familiar living as a human away from their witch before.”
“How about I tell you the short version and you can ask whatever questions you have left after that?” Ainsley offered. They nodded, and she sat down across from Edwin. “OK. The short version is that Millie - my witch, Millicent Clark, of Aberdeen - turned me human to help her lure in some old lecher who’d made the mistake of bothering her instead of the local girls. Once she had her hands busy with him, I took my chance and ran away. Ever since, I’ve been figuring out how being human works, what I like, what I don’t like, and who I am without Millie.” She smiled and folded her hands in front of her, looking to Charles and Edwin, who shared a look between themselves.
“Is there any chance that Millie will try to take you back?” Edwin asked after a moment.
“Oh, she already did,” Ainsley answered. “She tracked me down as soon as she was done with the old lecher.”
“What happened?” Charles asked, leaning in.
“I begged her to let me go free, give me a chance to see and enjoy the world for myself.” Ainsley sighed and looked at her hands on the table in front of her. “I guess she’d started going soft even then, because she offered me a deal.”
“A deal?” It was Edwin’s turn to lean in, his interest piqued. “What were the terms?”
“She would let me go free for five years,” Ainsley said. “In those five years, I was to put together a life for myself independently, with no help from her whatsoever. If I could do that, she would let me go free forever to live out the rest of my days as a human.”
“And if you couldn’t?” Edwin asked. His tone was carefully level, but Charles could see the tension in his posture.
“If I failed, she would turn me back into a cat and take me home to Aberdeen. We made that deal eight years ago now.” As she finished speaking, she looked up again, a sort of proud, defiant look in her eye.
“How did Millie react to you fulfilling your end of the deal?” Edwin asked. The tension had eased out of him a little.
“I said she’d started going soft when she offered me the deal,” Ainsley said. “When she came and found me again after five years, she was almost a completely different person. She was… well, kind would be the wrong word, but she was gentler.”
Charles caught a bit of Ainsley’s meaning there - his dad seemed gentler now, too - and asked, “Gentler how?”
“She’d stopped treating the world around her as disposable,” she explained, “started seeing other people as actual people instead of playthings to be discarded when she was finished with them. She was happy for me, when she saw the little life I’d built.”
“Do you trust her to stick to the deal?” Charles asked quietly.
In response, Ainsley pulled back her left sleeve a little, revealing a tattoo of a padlock on her wrist, over her pulse point. A slight shimmer to the ink was the only giveaway that it was magical. The skin directly around the ink looked puckered, like it had been burned and scarred over in a perfect outline. “I don’t trust her, but I do trust the deal,” she said. Her smile had slipped and gone a bit sad. “She has one just like it. If either of us tries to go against the terms of the deal, it burns us both. Hasn’t so much as warmed up since the five year mark.” She tugged her sleeve back down, covering the tattoo again.
The silence stretched for a moment, before Charles blurted, “What kind of cat were you?” Edwin glared at him and looked about to chide him, but Ainsley laughed.
“I was a long haired selkirk rex,” she answered, but the boys only looked confused. “It’s a newer breed, I guess newer than you. We’ve got curly hair and round faces, and tend to be on the bigger side.”
“Just like you are now!” Charles said, grinning, and Ainsley smiled back and nodded.
“You said earlier that you were figuring out what you like,” Edwin started, hoping to get around to why they were there. “I presume that’s why you’re so interested in trying new recipes?”
“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Ainsley said. “It’s why I wear bright clothes, too - I couldn’t see nearly so many colors as a cat, so I try to wear the ones that are new to me, so I can look at them more.”
“And what about Jenny, at the butcher shop?” Charles asked, catching Edwin’s drift. “Seemed to me you like her a lot.”
A dreamy look came into Ainsley’s eyes, and she looked down at her hands again, bashful. “I like her very much,” she said. “But I heard that it was rude to ask someone out when they’re at work and can’t leave, and I don’t want to be rude, so I haven’t said anything to her about it outright.”
“Probably a good call there,” Charles said. “What do you like about her?”
“She’s so cool, and good with her hands, and she’s patient with me when I get excited about the new things I’ve tried lately.” Ainsley sighed and squeezed her hands together. “I’d go to her shop every day if I didn’t think it would make her uncomfortable.”
Charles nodded to Edwin, metaphorically passing the baton. He nodded back, and his posture straightened, a bit more formal now. “You’ve been awfully open with us, for being two ghosts you’ve only just met,” he said. “Why is that?”
“That’s easy,” Ainsley said, meeting Edwin’s gaze. “I don’t meet a lot of people who know about the supernatural at all, and you already know about witches, so I figured you’d understand about Millie. And then, once I’d started talking, I just felt comfortable with you both, and it was easy to keep going.”
“Glad to hear it,” Charles said. “Think we’re good, Edwin?”
“I do believe we are,” he responded, standing up. “Before we go, we should tell you, Jenny is our friend. She has had some experiences of late that left all of us a bit concerned, so you’ll have to forgive us for sussing you out like this.”
“She’s good people,” Charles added, standing up as well. “Magic and stuff is all a bit new to her, though, so she might take a tick to catch up, but she’s a quick study.”
“I can hardly blame you both for looking out for her,” Ainsley said graciously. “Thank you for listening, it was good to talk about everything. Do you need me to let you out, or…?”
“Do you have a mirror? We can use that to get back to Jenny’s shop without having to bother with the door,” Edwin responded.
Jenny was just finishing up with a customer when Charles and Edwin dropped out of the security mirror in the corner, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. The man gave her an odd look, and she forced a smile.
“I’m so sorry about that, I thought I heard something and it startled me. You have a good day,” she said as she handed over his receipt. As soon as he was out of the shop, she rounded on Charles and Edwin. “I have a perfectly normal mirror in the back that you can use! Why do you have to drop out of that one and scare the shit out of me?”
“Didn’t know about the one in the back, did we?” Charles said. “We’ll use it next time.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking a deep breath to calm herself. “You were gone a while. Did you find anything out?”
“Ainsley is not going to try to kill you,” Edwin said simply.
“Also, she can see us,” Charles added. “Invited us in to talk and everything.”
Jenny could feel the color draining from her face. “Does she know I sent you to spy on her?”
“We told her we are your friends,” Edwin said, “and that we are concerned for you.”
“Which is true,” Charles added. “We just left off that you asked us to look into her.”
Jenny nodded, relaxing a bit. “OK. Well. Thank you, that’s good to know,” she said, thinking a mile a minute as she spoke. “Really, I mean it, thank you. That does make me feel a bit better about her.”
“Glad we could help, mate,” Charles said. “Anything else you need?”
“I need some time to think,” Jenny replied. “You’ve done plenty. Maybe thank Crystal and Niko for me, too, for looking out for me. I really do appreciate it. I just need space to deal with things myself.”
“Of course,” Edwin said quickly. “You’re welcome to stop by the office any time. I’m sure the girls would be happy to have you over for movie night.” He and Charles turned and left, and Jenny was again alone with her thoughts.
She was grateful that it turned out to be a supremely slow day, business-wise. That meant she got to spend the rest of it filling the display case with pre-packed cuts, which left her brain free to think.
It really was a relief to have outside assurance that Ainsley was safe to like. Jenny felt a little concerned about what it meant that she could see Charles and Edwin, but Crystal and Niko could, too, and they weren’t terrifying evil witches who would blow up her shop. The big, flashy things were really unlikely, and the more she thought about them, the more she realized she wasn’t actually worried about them, she was just grasping at reasons to justify her worry.
So what was she worried about?
What was actually bothering her about the idea of asking Ainsley out?
What was the worst thing that was actually likely to happen if she got her shit together and asked?
Ainsley could say no, and stop coming to the shop every week.
As soon as she thought it, Jenny knew that was the crux of it. She didn’t want Ainsley to stop coming, didn’t want to stop seeing her. And she knew, too, that if Crystal or Niko came to her with that same fear, she’d tell them that was exactly the reason they should ask the person out, not why they shouldn’t.
Ainsley had said that she might bring over some leftovers, if her hunter’s chicken turned out well. For a moment, Jenny couldn’t decide whether it would be lucky or unlucky for her to bring them the very next day. It would be lucky, she decided. Her nerves were shifting from dread to excitement. Maybe Charles had been right, and Ainsley would say yes.
There was only one way to find out. She locked up a little early, not that anyone would have come in anyway, and for once, Jenny went to bed early, so there would be less time to worry about getting it right.
The next day seemed to creep by, each minute taking an eternity to pass.
Tasks that usually felt interminable - cleaning the counters and equipment, mopping the floors, counting out the cash in the register - suddenly took no time at all, and the hands on the clock barely moved.
Even the rush, enough people all at once to actually qualify as a rush, took almost no time. Every customer took something from the display case, or asked for something simple. There weren’t any scheduled order pickups that day, either, nothing she’d have to dig for or make sure to have ready.
Not one of her weirdos from the Dead Boy Detective Agency stopped by to cajole her into sharing more, either. They must have all gotten the point about leaving her to work through her feelings on her own after all. She almost texted Crystal, desperate for something, anything, to happen, but thought better of it.
Ainsley’s usual time came and went with no sign of her. She’d only ever been more than a few minutes late once, when some appointment had run very long. She’d been flustered that day at having her routine so badly interrupted, had stumbled over her words the whole time. Jenny guessed that coming in on a different day than usual would be a similar disruption, and maybe Ainsley’s usual time didn’t apply. The idea didn’t stop her from being on high alert for a full hour after the usual time, just in case.
It was nearly closing time when Ainsley finally came in, a large takeout container in hand, wearing a teal jumper tucked into a flowy pink skirt. There was a short line of customers, so she stood to the side, uncharacteristically quiet. Jenny did her best not to let the way her stomach swooped distract her.
After the last other customer had left, Ainsley grinned and held up the takeout container. Jenny thought she looked a little nervous herself. “It turned out really well! Should be enough in there for two meals, maybe three if you stretch it.”
“That’s actually pretty perfect,” Jenny said, coming around to the front of the counter and taking the container. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “I was wondering if you’d like to stay and share it with me. It could be our first date.”
She thought she’d seen Ainsley happy before, but as the offer settled in, she was nearly glowing. “I would love that! Lead the way!”
A few days later, Jenny started a group text with Crystal and Niko.
Jenny: Edwin tells me you have movie nights sometimes.
Crystal: edwin tells you the truth
Niko: They’re really fun! We rotate who picks the movie - it’s Charles’s turn this week!
Crystal: why do you ask?
Jenny: Would it be alright for me and Ainsley to join sometime? She’s trying to figure out what kinds of movies she likes.
Niko: YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!
Crystal: omg congrats! yes of course you can come!
Crystal: i promise to make sure niko returns to normal human volume by then
Jenny: I swear I heard you shrieking from here.
Niko: This is so great!!! Tell us everything!!!
Jenny: Ainsley will tell you plenty at movie night.
Jenny: You’ll both like her, I think.
Jenny: I know I do.