The voice in my heart has always spoken Blue’s name. Always.

I finger the beaded bracelet on my wrist, just inches away from my ladybug tattoo, and one of my favorite memories plays out in my mind:

“There’s a myth that if a man and a woman see a ladybug at the same time, they’ll fall in love.”

“No… I didn’t know that.”

“We just looked at yours at the same time.”

“That doesn’t count. It’s a tattoo. It’s not a real ladybug.”

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

Did that playful conversation seal our fate? Do we ever really know when it happens? That moment where we know, that this person, is our person?

“Can we take it slow?” I ask. “And see how things go?”

“We can try, Ladybug. But I think you know there’s no such thing as slow with us.”

That might be true, but I’m going to do whatever I can to keep everything at a snail’s pace with him.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“Ooh, we’re going over there,” Ditra says as we walk from our favorite small Italian restaurant to my car.

“Where?” I follow her tipsy gaze. She had a few too many glasses of wine over dinner and I really want to get her home. Her attention is fixated on a run-down Victorian house with a big yellow neon blinking PSYCHIC sign in the window.

I grab her arm and try to pull her toward the car. “Are you crazy?” I laugh. “We’re not going in there. It’s late.”

She tugs me back. “Come on, it’ll be fun! I’ve always wanted to go, just to see what they say. The open sign is lit on the door.”

“She’s going to say ‘ooh I see a man and lots of wine and naps in your future,’ then charge you fifty bucks.”

“So what? It’ll be fun. I’ll pay for both of us.” Hooking my arm in hers, she leads me to the edge of the road and we wait for an opening in the traffic, then skip across the street.

“This place is scary,” I say, peering up at the peeling paint of the house and the crooked green shutters. “They could be running a sex trafficking ring in there and the psychic sign is just a lure.”

“I doubt it. I have a gun in my purse, if anything shifty happens, I’ll pull it out, and you run for help.”

“Great plan. I feel safer already.”

We climb the worn stone stairs, press the glowing amber doorbell, and wait. A few seconds later, an older woman with huge gold hoop earrings, an entire palette of eye shadow, and about ten gold necklaces draped around her neck answers.

“You ladies must be here for a reading,” she says.

I lean closer to Ditra and whisper in her ear. “Wow, she’s got the gift! She knows why we’re here!”

She elbows me in the gut and answers the woman. “Yes, we’d love to have a reading.”

“Come on in.” The woman swings the door open and we enter a dim parlor room. Pictures of tigers line the walls in mismatched frames. They’re all crooked and I want to straighten them all right now. We follow her through a beaded curtain into an adjacent room.

“Please have a seat,” she gestures to two old cloth chairs facing a wooden desk covered in candles, statues, tarot cards, and crystals. Cones of incense are burning on a bookshelf in the corner. Ditra and I sit while the woman lights a bundle of sage before settling into the ripped chair behind the desk. The room smells distinctly like the sweet scent that clings to almost every object in Headlines, one of my favorite local stores to buy silver jewelry and the faerie figurines that Lyric collects.

“My name is Loretta. Would you both like a reading tonight?”

“Yes,” we respond at the same time, but inside I’m wondering, shouldn’t she know the answer to that already?

“Would you like the readings in private, or together?”

Ditra and I glance at each other and then answer in unison. “Together.”

“Very good. My fee is fifty dollars per reading.”

Fifty dollars!

“Do you take credit cards?” Ditra asks, pulling out her wallet.

“I do.”

Ditra hands her a credit card. “I’m going to pay for both of us.”

“Thank you,” I whisper as Loretta runs the card. The mix of burning incense and sage is filling the room with smoke that tickles my nose, putting me in that awkward I-think-I-have-to-sneeze-but-I’m-not-sure mode.

The psychic hands the card back and eyes me as Dee signs her name on the receipt. I’m sure I’m still making a strange sneeze face.

“You’re interested, yet skeptical,” Loretta says.

I nod. “Yes.” Her comment doesn’t mean she’s reading my mind. I’m sure everyone who walks in here is interested and skeptical. Her talents still remain to be proven.

“Let’s see if we can change that,” she says. “Who wants to go first?”

“Me!” Ditra pipes up.

“Give me your hands, love.” Loretta reaches across her cluttered desk to grasp Dee’s hands in hers.