The Everlasting Effect 💖

Chapter Seven: Denara

I never expected Arawn to catch me from falling on my ass, much less speak to me. It was like warm rays of sunshine filled my body when I heard his voice earlier.

My feelings were still there for him after so many years, and I could not deny the fact that a part of me yearned to see him with our daughter. I ran away with Rhys to avoid the chaos that would follow if Arawn knew the truth...

Thump

The book I was placing back on the shelf before I laid next to my feet, snapped me from my thoughts. It bothers me when customers don't put books back where they belong after picking them up in the bookstore...

"Hey, Mama, what has got you lost in space? For a moment, I thought I lost you." Jamie says dramatically as she plonks herself on the chair behind the counter. Jamie has been my crazy best friend that I have known since high school, and she looks like she has not aged a day.

She brushes her blonde hair back into a high ponytail and applies thick black eyeliner around her blue eyes to make them even more mysterious.

"I'm right here," I laugh half-heartedly

"Just feeling a bit off-balance today." I rushed down the next aisle of books and chestnut shelves because I knew she had already picked up on my distress with her Jamie alarm. I am suddenly being pulled back and then shoved into the chair that the blonde occupied merely moments ago.

"I don't think so. Spill your guts because I can already tell that something has happened, and even then, too, it's not the good nerves that are tingling." She places her hands on her hips and arches an eyebrow at me. I could not help it; my tears came rolling down my cheeks like a dam broke loose, and I started speaking all over and rushed.

"I saw him, and they looked like I always imagined them together. She looks just like him. Do you think he noticed? Oh no, he noticed, Jamie! What am I going to do?! He caught me too, and he spoke to me! His voice has been in my head forever, and he sounds exactly the way my brain imagines during one of those rare sexy dreams I have where he does that "Jamie suddenly has her hand across my mouth with a grimace on her face.

"Hang on, mama. Slow down before you give my brain a stroke. Let us start from the top, but first, who is he?" I take a deep breath before I look up at her, and a last tear falls down my cheek.

"Arawn. He is back, Jamie, and he was with Rhys earlier at his father's funeral."

"Oh hell, I am going to need to get a bottle of wine for this. Hang on a sec." She gives me a knowing look before she disappears behind the door that leads to the dainty kitchen at the back of the store.

What am I going to do?

If Arawn had to come seeking answers, then how would I answer him? Where would I start? Oh, hey, you know we have a daughter together, and I never told you before because you broke my heart?

He looked exactly how I remembered him, just more muscles. His eyes looked tired and wise, and his smirk had gotten cockier too. Did he notice the slight changes to me, too? Or that I am still the same girl he left all those years ago?

The sound of glasses clinking brings me back to reality, and Jaime places two glasses on the counter next to the cash register, followed by a bottle of dark red wine. I eye the bottle suspiciously because red wine is my weakness, and before I object, Jaime beats me to it with a knowing look yet again.

"Yeah, I don't think so. We deserve some girl time, and also, I put up the closed sign when I walked in earlier, so we are not getting any customers today."