protect your head and maybe your heart too

final boss

Video games are fucking misleading. There is no 'final boss'. There is a l w a y s a higher power. My agent group were the strongest agents in the firm. Above us were the bosses. Above them were the basic levels of the government. And so on.

My point is, you're gonna run across a couple 'final bosses'. Just remember agency training and roll with the punches.

It's September. Again.

Business in the flower shop has gone down, we've seen less of triple H, and the plastics moved back home.

Life felt boring.

But in a good way.

Like I could stop and take a breath.

In the past few months, it felt hard to keep my head above water. Wave after wave of bad news and triple H stress crashed down on me relentlessly.

It's like, you don't realize you're drowning till there is no more oxygen. But I had found my oxygen, and I was okay.

Recently I've only been to three places. The flower shop, at the theater supporting Damian, or my bed. Today was no exception.

I walked around the flower shop, humming along to the pop song on the store's speakers. It was a slow day, but I busied myself by helping the few customers and straightening up displays.

But there's only so much futzing you can do with wilting flowers before you get bored.

I was in the rose section, fixing the display for the umpteenth time as the front bell jingled. I looked up to see Cady walking in.

"Hey guys! How's my two favorite people doing?" She asks.

"Slow day, but getting paid." Aaron calls from the back room.

I nod in agreement before spotting a wilted rose in the display. I plucked it out and set it on the counter beside me before rearranging the display to compensate for missing a flower.

"Wow you really must be bored." Cady says picking up the old rose. It's only wrinkly at its tips, but I needed something to do.

Cady holds out the rose to me in a dramatic way. "A rose for the fairest lady I see."

I take the flower and grin. "You go handing out roses to all the married women?"

"Only the cute ones." She says with a wink.

Aaron coughs from behind us. "Buy something or get out, you're distracting the workers."

Cady grins. "Bye love, bye Aaron. Even though you're no fun."

"Ta ta roomie. See you later!" Aaron waves. "And remind Shane that he's on dinner!"

Cady just waves before walking away.

I meet Aaron behind the cash register. It's almost the end of my shift, so we both stand behind the counter chatting.

Suddenly my phone is buzzing with a text from karen.

Red circle emoji, water gun emoji, running man emoji, scared emoji, flower emoji.

"What?" I mumble to myself.

Red circle emoji.... Heather C?

I don't have time to worry about the rest of the message because the bell to the shop rings.

The way the shoppe is layed out, you can't see the register from the door, but we have a camera that shows us who is at the door from the register.

And there's Heather Chandler in all her glory.

Agent instincts kick in and I duck under the counter.