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but this one wasn’t legit, and it wasn’t from a man. And that

somehow made it something she wanted to keep private. Even

though that made no sense. She didn’t keep things private.

Things didn’t matter enough to her that she wanted to keep

them locked away like a secret. She knew she shouldn’t feel

protective of the information.

“It was fine,” Dani said, but her voice came out sounding

watered down and she had no idea why. Andi’s head came up

and her eyes narrowed. “Just family stuff.” Dani grabbed for

something behind the counter and came up with one of her

decks of tarot cards. She handled it carefully, without taking

the purple velvet bag off. She just kept it in her hands as

something to cling to, as she had so often done in the past.

“Family stuff?”

“Drama.”

“I see,” Andi muttered in the way that meant she still held

Dani under suspicion for messing with a tarot deck and trying

to scare the heck out of a client.

Dani knew she deserved every ounce of that suspicion. She

knew better and she silently apologized to the deck in her

hand, as if her apology could go further, to every deck in the

shop she might have inadvertently offended with her

childishness and crass sense of humor.

Andi was good at reading people and situations, and she

could tell she wasn’t going to get any further by pressing Dani.

“Anyway, there’s a letter in there from the landlord. I didn’t

open it, but I saw the name at the top. Maybe just see if it’s

anything instead of leaving it sitting on your desk forever.”

“I don’t do that,” Dani protested, and received a dark look

from Andi. “Okay, so maybe I’ve left a few bills unopened.