Page 3 of Love Potion No. 69

I’m certain I can convince you. Please send me your address. I’ll be there tomorrow.

Magnolia sucks in a breath. “He’s coming here? To Sacred River?”

Forcing down the spike of anger at the man’s audacity, I answer. “It would appear so.”

“Does he have any clue what he’s walking into?”

“Not even remotely.”

She chuckles. “Well. Guess we’ll have to show the perfume prince of Canada a good time.”

Quinton

I’VE GOT TO admit, it’s nice to be on the receiving end of my parents’ approval for once. And a little disconcerting, if I’m being honest. I’ve grown so used to their constant disappointment over the years that to have them actually smiling at me without cameras around feels…odd. Like a coat that’s gotten too tight.

Mom—CEO of Scentsual Enterprises Angela Henry to the rest of the world—looks positively giddy as she walks around the massive desk in her corner office. “You’re really going down there?” she asks.

Dad puts his hand on her shoulder, as if to keep her from floating away on a cloud of enthusiasm. “I think what your mother is saying is that she’s very proud of the way you’re stepping up and helping the family.” Then he widens his nostrils and sniffs as he leans towards me. “You should wear Winter when you meet the woman, however. It works better with your body’s chemistry.”

I grin, already more at ease now that Dad’s given me one of his classic unsolicited opinions. He’s not wrong about the scent—the man’s olfactory system is quite literally insured for ten million dollars—but it doesn’t mean I have to use it every day. In fact, today’s smell is brought to you by eau de Quinton. In other words, nothing but the soap I used in the gym’s shower after my workout. “Sure thing, Dad.”

“You are not to take no for an answer.” My grandmother’s soft voice belies the power she holds. Dressed in one of her standard cashmere sweater sets and slacks, she’s perched on the edge of the cream-colored couch that overlooks the small downtown of Coal’s Lake. She’s been in this corner office longer than either of my parents have been alive, and while she may have “retired” a decade ago, the old woman has taken more than a passing interest in our family’s 150thperfume empire anniversary.

“Understood, Grand-mère,” I murmur. Because what else am I going to say? The woman will string me up by my balls if I do anything else.

“Notwithstanding my shock at you having the wherewithal to find evidence that the Elysian Blossom still exists,” she continues, her watery brown eyes sharp as ever as they appraise me, “something tells me that the family you’re trying to procure it from will be a bit, shall we say, protective.”

I manage to contain my snort of derision. I have never been told no. Not when I was a kid, not those years in college with Axl and Gabriel when no one bothered to put two and two together and realize who I was, and certainly not as an adult. I’m smart, I’m charming as fuck, and honestly? I’m sexy as hell. This Clementine Rowan won’t know what hit her.

“Quinton Henry.” Grand-mère’s voice, full of reproach, cuts through my moment of self-love.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say. “But all due respect, I think I’ll be able to get the family to see reason.” Because I refuse to think about what will happen if they don’t.

Grand-mère gives a haughty sniff that tells me what she thinks of my confidence, but she’s not seen me in action.

To be fair,no onein my family has seen me in action, because I stayed out of the family business as long as possible. But I’m the last one standing, and although I delayed the inevitable, I finally joined the company a few years ago when I turned twenty-four. Grand-mère has always been extremely outspoken my entire life about my involvement in the family business, both for the good of our family and the town. So I joined, but it took another year before I really got good and interested. Now? I’m all in. And nothing will stop me from getting that flower essence for us.

“I believe in you, son,” Dad says, his wide smile and deep brown eyes full of love.

“You’ll call us when it’s done?” Mom asks.

I nod, squashing the tiniest inkling of doubt that keeps trying to take root deep in my chest. “Of course.”

After a few more pleasantries, I kiss them goodbye and drive to my tiny apartment a few miles away. My family has been in Coal’s Lake for as long as the company’s been around, and while a part of me would love to escape the confines of it and the easy access it gives the paparazzi, our family is too loyal to the town to leave. People who looked like us—Black people—weren’t generally given a lot of chances back in the late 1800s in Canada, but this small town didn’t care what we looked like. They cared that my great-great-grandfather had enough money to start a business, and what began as a small perfumery found incredible success thanks to one specific scent.

The story goes that a woman from Sacred River, a tiny town in the southern United States, visited the area and needed a place to stay for a few days. My great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandmother opened their house to her, and as thanks, the woman left them a bottle of Elysian Blossom essence. The flower is extremely rare and was known to grow only in Sacred River. Being the type of people to never let a good thing go to waste, the enterprising perfumers used the essence in a scent they called, somewhat on the nose,Blossoming Elysian. Family lore says that the bottle never seemed to empty for one hundred years, and we manufactured the scent and sold it around the world, trying and failing the entire time to recreate the essence in the lab. We stopped production when the bottle ran out, but by then our company was a household name, and thanks to my parents’ antics when they were younger, it also put a spotlight on the family itself.

When I finally stepped into the business, the paparazzi had a field day with me. Suddenly I was the “prince of perfume” and my every movement was watched. While they’ve chilled out a bit, I still get followed every now and then. It’s second nature to look around for one of them before unlocking the door to my townhouse, stepping inside, and going upstairs to pack.

With our 150thanniversary coming up next year, my job is to recreate the famous scent that’s been out of production for fifty years. No pressure or anything. Dad’s nose is blind to the particular odor of Elysian Blossom, which has always seemed highly improbable, but he and Grand-mère insist he’s unable to smell the flower’s essence in the one remaining bottle of Blossoming Elysian perfume we have.

Guess who can?

Your boy Q.

And yet, there’s something about the scent that I can’t quite put my finger on. It makes me have this nostalgic yearning for something or someone, and I’m certain that the Elysian Blossom is responsible for that precise feeling, that indecipherable pull in the chest. I’ve read the old editorials in fashion magazines and old newspapers bemoaning the perfume’s disappearance, read about the near-riots at department stores when word got out that whatever was on the shelves was all that was left, and I have no doubt the world wants it again.

So if I can bring that scent back to life, I’m not only saving my family’s legacy, I’m taking us from millionaires to billionaires. Not bad by a former slacker gamer whose friends figured he’d remain a lazy bachelor for the rest of his life.

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