Page 12 of The Paid Wife: A Lesbian Romance
too much makeup, and breasts she likely wasn’t born with.
She’d said to her friend, who looked to enjoy plastic surgery
as much as her, that the store was one of those “other” stores
that carried “out there” and “otherworldly” products.
As if rocks and crystals were from another world.
Dani thought the word they were looking for was
alternative, but she hadn’t supplied it and kept those
descriptors in her head as something to smile at. Her store was
small, with wood floors and brick walls. She’d made good use
of space and sold handmade goods—jewelry, crocheted
characters, scrunchies, headbands, scarves, soaps, preserves,
candles—in one section, and on the other she sold more of the
“otherworldly” items like crystals, tarot decks, books,
medallions, wands, CDs, and incense. The walls were totally
filled with artwork by local artisans, and the woman
wandering around her shop currently seemed the most
fascinated with that.
“Can I help you find something?” Dani asked.
The girl whipped around like she hadn’t even noticed Dani
there, then gave her a shy smile that, for some reason, made
Dani’s heartrate kick up an absurd few notches.
?
?I—yes. I saw on the door that I can get a, uh, reading done
here?”
“Yes. You can. Would you like to book a time?”
The girl, who so reminded Dani of a fresh summer day that
she immediately started calling her Summer in her head, stared
blankly at Dani. “You mean that you can’t just walk in and get
it done?”
Clearly, this was her first rodeo. She probably had a mother
