Living in the grand city of Los Angeles gave Remington-Bria Cruz the false hope that she'd never have to cross paths with the extremely offensive, but unfairly gorgeous Auden Shaw again. He'd made her freshman year of high school a living hell. Ther...
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Glenda was a fairy godmother. She was a short woman with luscious chocolate hair that reached halfway down her back. Her face was suntanned but light enough that you could still see the freckles lining her nose and the tops of her cheeks. She was small, barely reaching Remington's nose, which put her around five feet tall, but she more than made up for her lack of height in the way she commanded the room.
She was a fairy. Not because she had a magical wand that could turn pumpkins into carriages and scraps into beautiful ballgowns. She certainly didn't carry around fairy dust. No. Her magic was her hands and how she could take old, worn things and make them into something lovely.
Like the gnome Remington had been glaring at for the past three minutes. Normally, she'd be terrified of a human sized gnome with features that made him seem like he was just waiting for her to walk by a little too close to grab her. But Elvin wasn't blinking and the red painted on overalls he wore with little patches at the knees made him look like something out of a fairytale. Cute, ethereal, and the complete opposite of the stoic man cave theme Shaw and her brother had going on at their place.
She really wished she had the upper arm strength to drag Elvin home with her. The sore muscles would be totally worth the furious confusion that would greet her when she walked through the front door with yet another interior design piece no one had asked for.
Glenda waved her over to the register where Rogelio and his silver beard had just reappeared after taking his thirty minute lunch break. In his hands was a toasty pretzel that made her stomach grumble loudly as she approached, reminding her that it had been five hours since she'd last eaten what could hardly be considered a nutritious meal. She pasted a smile on her face and wrapped her arms across her middle in an attempt to get her stomach to shut up.
A futile attempt, obviously. Remington coughed at the look of horror and amusement that came over Glenda's face when her stomach proved to have the pipes of a rockstar. "Sorry. She's a little rude," she offered by way of an explanation.
"She?" Rogelio asked, his bushy salt and pepper eyebrows coming together at the center of his forehead in a frown.
It was better they realize now that she was a trainwreck. Nodding, she glared pointedly down at her stomach. "Pancita Cruz. She's a bit of a vocal drama queen."
She could almost hear the questions spinning in the poor man's head as he blinked at her. You named your stomach? Yes, she had. She always named the things she decided were important to her. And though her stomach was way too loud for her sometimes, Remington had learned early on that she couldn't ignore Pancita.
"You're an odd little bird, aren't you?" Glenda asked, but her gray eyes didn't have that closed off, guarded look Remi had come to expect from most people.
See? Remi thought. A fairy godmother in the flesh. There was no judgment in the way the older woman watched her, no false warmth in the way she smiled and nodded towards the hidden door that blended into the wooden wall behind the curtain of fairy lights. "I can tone it down, if you want," she said quickly. Bargaining like she always did when she knew she was being too much.
