Page 10 of Screwed by the Minotaur in Hallow’s Cove (Hallow’s Cove #6)

Chapter seven

Rick

I spent the hours after Lea left the shop in a kind of fugue—moving through the familiar motions, but with a persistent afterimage burned into my vision: her hands bracing the counter, her voice trembling with anger, the way she’d looked at me as if I’d yanked the ground out from under her and was now asking why she tripped.

I bagged up orders, restocked the adhesive aisle, and repaired a couple leaky garden hoses, but all the while my mind stuttered around the simple, inescapable fact of her staying.

She hadn’t been lying about the building; I’d watched through the front window as she and Randy’s crew went after the old linoleum with a vengeance, crowbars gleaming in the light like swords in a war I’d already lost. She laughed at something Randy said and, even through the shared wall of our building, the sound hit me like a punch in the gut.

I told myself I was keeping tabs to be a good neighbor.

Maybe even to make sure she didn’t fuck up the building’s load-bearing beams.

That was a lie.

I watched because I wanted to know if she was okay. If she was still angry. If her face would go soft when the workday ended, or if I’d managed to break something I had no right to touch in the first place.

The worst part was knowing just how much of an ass I’d been.

All the old self-protective habits had kicked in, like a fire drill for my heart, and I’d painted myself into a familiar corner: a well-fortified place, sure, but bleak, echoing, and just cold enough to remind me why no one stayed very long.

By sunset, the hardware store was quiet and I let myself drift through the aisles in a daze.

I stood in the dark, empty store, and tried to remember the last time I’d felt this off-balance.

Maybe never—maybe not since I was a kid, facing down a future with no parents and a list of questions that no one wanted to bother answering.

That same feeling now—a bottomless, tilting vertigo—only this time, there was no distant grown-up promising it would get better.

There was just me and a woman who had already wormed her way under my skin in less than a day.

I made a decision. I steeled myself. Be civil. Be indifferent. She lied, so she’d get exactly what she told me she wanted: a casual fling and a wave in passing.

Back in my apartment, above my shop, I disrobed into pajama shorts, trying to shake the perfect echo of her moans in my mind. I couldn’t even distract myself with work projects, which usually drowned out anything emotional. The shop downstairs was silent, waiting for yet another new day to begin.

As I lay in bed, sleep eluded me. I kept tossing and turning, my thoughts churning.

What if I ran into her tomorrow? I wanted to act chill, be normal.

But that didn’t seem possible. It was already past midnight, and still every second with her flickered in my mind, refusing to dim.

The night stretched until dawn, dragging on with the cruel truth: I was already in way too deep, and I was drowning. #

The alarm blared, waking me up at my usual time of 7:30 am.

My whole body felt freaked out and exhausted at the same time.

Normally, 7:30 gave me plenty of time to start my day with breakfast and a shower before I had to open the shop at 9 a.m. It couldn’t hurt to sleep in a little, especially when I was this tired.

But then I remembered: Lea would be up early working on her shop with Randy and his crew.

The shower suddenly became a necessity.

As I rolled up the gates to my shop and turned on my open sign, I was somewhat relieved that Lea was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe she was the type to sleep in? There was a part of me that felt a twinge of disappointment.

Even though it was a Tuesday, it wasn’t long before I had a steady stream of customers, needing everything from equipment to mount shelves to tools to unclog their own drains.

I knew the second wouldn’t go well and even encouraged the plumbing services we had in town, but some people were insistent on doing it themselves.

It was my lunch hour when I finally took a break. I had Bryce, one of my workers, a local college student, take over while I got myself some food. I could have gone upstairs and made a sandwich, but I wanted the fresh air. And I was curious about the progress on Lea’s shop.

I headed out for lunch, trying to eye the flower shop the best I could while still heading to the diner.

The lights were on, and there were multiple people working furiously inside.

Had Lea hired a team to help get the shop ready before busy season?

I shook my head. Did it really matter? She was supposed to be a one-night stand.

Lea

By the time I made it to the flower shop the next morning, Rick’s was already bustling.

Through the big front window, I could see him at the register, head bent slightly as he rang up a customer.

He didn’t see me, thankfully. I kept my head down and slipped through the flower shop’s door, the old bell jingling softly behind me.

The scent of aged wood and leftover potpourri still clung to the place, but soon, it would smell like fresh earth and green life.

Tonight was my last night at the inn. Tomorrow, my furniture—my life—would be arriving.

Including the new bed I’d splurged on, a king-sized beast that promised me all the room I could want to sprawl out like a starfish.

It was a small but meaningful rebellion against my old twin bed back at Mom’s house, where I’d lived a little too long and slept a little too narrow.

I loved living with her, but it was time for something that felt like mine.

Most of the other furniture I’d taken from Mom’s. I wasn’t ready to deal with emptying out my childhood home. I was here to try to start fresh. Yet, there was still a voice in the back of my head telling me I could run back to the city if it didn’t work out.

A sudden clang at the back door made me jump.

Randy had arrived—with a completely different crew than the day prior.

I tried not to gape as they filed in behind him, but the part of me still adjusting to the realities of Hallow’s Cove nearly short-circuited.

First came someone who looked like a lizardman—except taller, broader, and definitely more dragon than gecko.

Shimmering scales traced over his arms and peeked from under his high-visibility vest. Then came two others—hulking, tusked, greenish—and I couldn’t tell if they were orcs or ogres or something else entirely.

Lastly, a man who looked human, but only at a glance.

His eyes were too reflective, like sunlight glinting off deep water, and his movements just a little too smooth.

I decided I’d ask Randy what they all were when we had a moment alone. I needed to figure out the right way to ask someone what kind of monster are you without sounding like a total jerk.

We’d finished the majority of the demolition the day prior—channeling all my rage and frustration about Rick had made me an excellent candidate for smashing things. Today was going to be more demo and maybe starting with fresh drywall if we made good time.

“Ready for day two?” Randy asked with a grin, handing me a hard hat with a sticker that said Monsters Do It Better on it.

I took the hard hat, suppressing a laugh. “Always. Who’s on the crew today?”

He motioned to the lizardman, who introduced himself as Gene. His handshake was strong enough to nearly pop my elbow from its socket. Gene’s voice was unexpectedly gentle for a guy with a dorsal ridge and talons. “I’ll handle structural. Randy says you want to keep the windows?”

I nodded. “If at all possible. I’ll cry if they go.”

Gene nodded approvingly. “Noted.” He scribbled something in pencil on his forearm scales, then wandered off to measure the window frames.

The two orcs got to ripping up the last of the floor and muscled all the debris out back.

The man with the deep-water eyes was apparently an electrician.

He introduced himself as Caleb, then spent the next hour tracing every wire in the shop, muttering about “pre-ADA firetraps” and “code compliance nightmares.” I liked Caleb immediately.

By noon, the crew had transformed the place.

The old counter was gone, the floors stripped to pale, promising hardwood, the windows cleared and glowing with daylight.

I’d taken a hundred photos on my phone to send to Britt, who replied in all caps: THIS IS GOING TO BE SO CUTE and then, in a second text, IM SO PROUD OF YOU.

It was a little thing, but it buoyed my spirits.

Just before lunch, I decided I would take Maisie up on her offer to meet at Cool Beans. She said she didn’t eat, but liked the vibe for working. It sounded like my kind of place.

“Hey, I’m heading out to meet someone, but you have my number, right?” I asked Randy, who was scribbling something on his clipboard while simultaneously holding a measuring tape with his teeth.

“Got it right here.” He tapped the paper. “Go make friends. We’ll take care of this.”

Cool Beans was just a few blocks away from the shop and the inn, and the spring day had that soft, golden light that made the whole town look like a postcard.

I still wasn’t used to how walkable everything was here.

No highways in sight. No traffic. Just slow, winding sidewalks lined with quaint shops and flickering lanterns.

When I arrived, I found Maisie already seated at the café table outside, her laptop open, fingers dancing across the keyboard.

It hit me how much I needed this. Friends.

A place. A real start. Britt was amazing but being here in Hallow’s Cove made me realize how much I needed a life beyond my mom’s flower shop.