Page 19 of Screwed by the Minotaur in Hallow’s Cove (Hallow’s Cove #6)

Chapter fourteen

Lea

The next few days were a whirlwind. True to his word, Rick called in a favor with Randy.

He showed up that weekend with a crew of lizardmen, gorgons, and even what appeared to be a troll.

They split up, half of them taking on the demo of the shop in town, the other half, perhaps the more careful half, started emptying out my childhood home.

I had tearfully sorted it with Rick and Britt—who had become comrades-in-arms, taking turns holding me together when I cried over a stuffed animal or a recipe box. By the time the crew came up, everything was organized by keep, donate, discard.

Britt had concocted a game plan with military precision.

She’d color-coded the boxes, made a spreadsheet on her phone, and even drafted Randy’s troll to do the heavy lifting.

There was something both hilarious and a little bit breathtaking about watching a literal mountain of a man in a neon vest gently cradle my old lava lamp as if it were a baby bird.

Rick mostly directed traffic, though every so often he’d get impatient and carry half a sofa by himself, horns nearly gouging the door frame on the way out.

The demo of the old shop was brutal but quick—like ripping off a bandage, if the bandage were forty years of shared memories and water damage.

I let myself cry, but only when no one was watching.

I figured I’d earned some dignity after the last week of public meltdowns.

The new crew swept in, and by the end of Saturday, the shop was hollowed to its bones, every trace of my mother’s handwriting and dried flower arrangements swept into the dumpsters out front.

I watched the whole thing, numb but not hopeless.

I tried to imagine what it would look like when it was all rebuilt, when bright paint and new fixtures erased the stink of mold and loss.

I could almost see it: a clean slate, blank as a sunrise.

Britt was a lifesaver. She kept the coffee coming and the snark dialed to a gentle hum. When the last shelf came down, she handed me a beer and said, “I know you’re grieving, but this is the part where you get to be a little bit excited, too.”

I wanted to believe her, so I did.

After the dust settled, I did something I wasn’t sure I’d ever have the nerve to do: I handed Britt the lease for the city shop. She stared at it for a long moment, then looked up at me, mouth open, like she thought it was a trick.

“You’re serious?” she said, voice catching.

“Dead serious.” I gave her my best attempt at a grin, even though everything inside me trembled with the risk. “I want you to have it. Or run it, at least, until you’re sick of it or I’m dead.”

She shook her head, then grabbed me in a bear hug so fierce I thought my ribs might pop.

“I’ll take care of her,” she whispered, and I realized she meant my mother, too. I let myself cry then, but only a little, and only when Britt turned away to bark orders at Randy’s crew.

By Monday, the house was stripped of everything but echoes.

Rick took the last few boxes to my car, his stride careful, not wanting to scuff the hardwood or my feelings.

I followed him room by room, touching every wall, every window, as if my fingerprints could hold it together a little longer.

When we finished, all the lights were off except for the soft glow of the porch light.

I stood on the threshold, not wanting to step out and make it final.

Rick must have seen me hesitate. He set the last box in the backseat and came up behind me, arms wrapping around my waist, chin warm against my shoulder.

“You did it,” he murmured, squeezing me gently. “You’re really doing it.”

I let myself lean back into him, just for a second. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

We stood there, pressed together, watching the dark spill through every empty window.

I tried to imagine someone else living here—different shoes in the entry, strange laughter echoing off the tile.

Instead, I saw my mother refilling the bird feeder, or reading a trashy novel in her ratty old bathrobe.

For a split second, I wanted to grab Rick and run.

Hide from the future, from the ache of closing a chapter that had started before I was even born.

But I didn’t.

I closed the door, locked it, and handed the keys over to the realtor on the porch without looking back. It was done. I’d cut the last tether, and now there was nothing to do but hope I wouldn’t float away.

The house sold faster than I expected. A bidding war broke out within twenty-four hours.

By week’s end, I had a wire transfer in my name and a congratulations email with a PDF of the signed closing docs.

My mother’s house, her life, was officially not mine anymore.

I should have felt lighter, but the grief came back in little bursts, like hiccups that refused to be soothed.

Rick headed back to Hallow’s Cove, but not before forcing me to promise—pinky promise—I would return the following day.

I spent one last night at Britt’s, nursing an entire bottle of wine on her couch and watching true crime shows until my eyes hurt.

Britt pulled a pillow over her face and groaned every time I announced a new theory about the murder, but she didn’t try to fix me or talk me out of my spiral.

She just listened and tossed popcorn at my head and let me be a mess, which was all I needed from her.

When I finally shut the TV off, it was two in the morning and I didn’t even make it to the guest bed—I passed out in a heap on the carpet, wrapped in an old afghan that smelled like every late-night sleepover from high school.

When I woke up, the world was quiet and flat. A dull headache was my only company. The closing check was still unread in my inbox, the ink on the future dry and absolute. I scrolled through my phone—there was a text from Rick, time-stamped 3:00 a.m.:

Bring coffee when you come back. And yourself. Don’t make me miss you longer than necessary.

I grinned at the screen, a ridiculous, lopsided thing that felt too big for my face. For a second, it didn’t matter that my life had been razed to the foundation. There was something waiting for me—a whole town, a whole world I hadn’t yet ruined or outgrown.

I packed the car, thanked Britt with another rib-shattering hug, and hit the road while the sun was still an idea on the horizon.

The drive out of the city was milk-smooth and quiet.

I kept waiting for the wave of panic to hit, for buyer’s remorse to set in and make me wish I’d clung tighter to the past, but it didn’t come.

Instead, every mile that rolled under my tires felt like shedding a layer of skin I didn’t need anymore.

I put on a playlist Britt made for me—mostly riot grrrl classics and pop-punk anthems—and let the music clear out the last of the ghosts.

Hallow’s Cove reappeared on the horizon like a storybook town, all mist and green and the faint memory of woodsmoke.

The main drag was as I’d left it: tidy, a little sleepy, the monster crew’s pickup trucks already parked in front of both my shop and Rick’s.

The minute I stepped out of my car, I caught a whiff of fresh paint and a hint of sawdust, a cocktail that instantly reminded me of him.

I found myself grinning like a fool as I fished the coffee carrier from my passenger seat and made my way to Rick’s shop.

He was waiting for me just inside, leaning against a shelf stacked with paint cans, arms folded over his chest like he’d been there for hours.

He looked tired but content, like a man who’d finished a long job and was proud of the mess he’d made.

I barely got through the door before he snatched the coffee from my hand and set it on the counter. “You’re early.”

“Your text said not to keep you waiting,” I shot back, trying for breezy but failing, because I wanted to touch him, and I was afraid if I started I wouldn’t stop.

He read my mind, or maybe just my body language, and closed the distance in two strides, pulling me into a hug that was all warmth and sturdy comfort.

He smelled like coffee beans and clean sweat, and the feeling of him anchoring me to the world was so good I nearly forgot how to let go.

When I finally did, he looked me up and down, eyes bright.

“You look better,” he said, and I realized I probably did—I was rested, scrubbed raw by tears but somehow shinier for it.

“Thanks to you and your demolition goons,” I replied. “Are any of them still in one piece?”

“They’re at your shop,” he said, with a smirk. “Randy made breakfast burritos. Even the lizardmen are eating them, which is a little disturbing if you know their digestive systems.”

I made a face. “I absolutely do not want to know about their digestive systems.”

He laughed, grabbed the coffees, and steered me toward the door. “Go nap, city mouse. Maybe shower, too. You smell like tears and fast food.”

I rolled my eyes, but he was right: I was beyond exhausted, a collection of nerves stapled together by too little sleep.

“I’m just going to sleep till next week,” I said, only half-joking.

“Nope,” Rick said, steering me across the street with one hand on my lower back. “You’ve got a date tonight.”

I stopped dead on the sidewalk, almost stumbling. “A date?”

He didn’t even blink. “Yup. Seven sharp. Dress nice, or don’t, but don’t wear another paint-stained shirt unless you want to break the entire aesthetic of the restaurant.”

My brain short-circuited. “There’s an aesthetic?” I tried to picture what counted as fine dining in Hallow’s Cove. “Is this one of those places with the fancy vinegar?”

He grinned but said nothing, pulling me to the door of my shop.

“Go, sleep. I’ll be here to get you at seven.”