Blazing Trails

Chapter 21

A/N: Holy shit, my girl is married! I just had to get that out there, she married another papi in Prince Royce. Congrats to Emeraude and her new husband!

"Hey, what are you doing here?" Annabelle asked me.

"I'm in town and had nothing planned for today, a visit was well overdue." I replied, hugging her.

"It's good to see you, boss, now that you're here I've got a few new pieces that you're gonna love."

"Sounds great."

I spent most of the day in the gallery and it felt great to be here. At first, it was painful, very painful. The plans for this gallery started when I got pregnant and then I lost the baby. I didn't want to continue but my family told me it would be a good thing. It gave me something to focus on and it helped me heal.

Anna introduced me to a few new prospects that had a lot of talent and promising futures. They were very cute and fandomy when they realized who the boss was. It was funny but they really do have talent and I see a showing soon. That all depends on production and how many pieces they may have.

"Anna, I like the last two. Crystal and Harold, they're doing good work." I told Anna when we started to close up.

"They are, first showing maybe next year?" she asked.

"We have to see what they do from here to then. Let's give them a six-month trial and after that, we can decide what to do with their pieces."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good time frame. I'll see you around."

Annabelle is honestly the best person I know. After we graduated in New York she flew out to work with me. She doesn't know yet that I have half of the galleries in her name, it's a wedding gift for her. Annabelle lives in Pensacola but has a key to my condo for whenever she has to work at the Orlando gallery.

Her fiancé came on this trip with her so she stood at a hotel. My galleries wouldn't have gotten where they are today without her. She helped me get out of a very tight spot in my life, she helped me be me again and there's no way to ever repay that enough.

Today was a good day, a very nice, productive leisure day. I definitely don't know how to do leisure and lazy. Even when I was out for the injury I was working most of the time. When I got back to my apartment I took my makeup off and sat down to watch tv.

I started to fall asleep on the sofa, watching Criminal Minds but my phone woke me up. April's entrance song was reverberating around my living room.

"What's up?" I asked when I picked up.

"Nothing, I just called you to say hi. Phil says hi too, by the way." she said.

"Hi and tell him I said hi, too." I replied. Laughing.

"Okay, bye Blaze!" she shouted, hanging up.

She's crazy most of the time but that's why I love her. Getting off of the sofa I grabbed a thick throw blanket from the linen closet and got comfortable on the sofa again. Before I could fall asleep another call came through, this time with a video call from Anoa'i.

"Hey, what's up?" I asked, smiling at him.

"I've got someone who would like to see you if that's okay. She's driving me crazy." he said with the most adorable smile ever.

"Put her on, hi Joelle!" I said as soon as her happy face appeared on the screen.

"Arianna!" she shouted, turning around to kiss her father all over his face.

"Hey sweetie, how are you?" I asked her.

"I didn't believe daddy when he said that he was friends with you so he said that he can call you and show me. Are you mad that he called you?" she asked, scrunching her nose.