Bloom (ARBAON #2)

Chapter One

Writer's note—

Here is the long awaited sequel. I hope you guys like it. Idk I'm feeling kind of nervous. The first book has almost 40k reads now, I doubt this one will get this much. But, this is still a story I want to tell.

I feel like the time line in the last  story is a bit hard to follow.  But basically, this story picks up about four months after the end of the first story and it's been just over half a year since Derrick and Mike broke up. I need to re-read the first story because I feel like I've forgotten a bunch of details. Excuse me in case there are inconsistencies.

And thank you guys again for reading. ❤️
—RM

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I woke up late that morning, with something heavy sitting on my chest. It felt like apprehension but when I opened my eyes it was Sol staring down at me like I'd done something wrong.

I narrowed my eyes as my dark maine coon cat took her leisurely time getting off of me. Her maine was grey, brown and white, framing her midnight black fur. Sol pattered down my body and sat on my feet, kneading the blanket before circling around and lying down.

My Maine coon cat was now the size of a medium dog. It turned out she was still a kitten when I got her and she'd grown bigger over the past four months. She'd also grown somewhat more sociable. If you could call the occasional meow and Sol using the middle of my bed as her nap headquarters as sociable. The one thing was that she had begun to find my tattoos interesting, pawing at the vines as they furled and unfurled across my body.

I got up off of the bed, stretching up from the balls of my feet feeling my magic crackling in my veins. While I showered, brushed my teeth and detangled my hair I thought about the last four months. I'd been exercising my magical endurance, meeting three times a week with Dr. Ky Nguyen, my magical therapist, in order to better control my abilities.

I'd learned I was an emotional warlock and it wasn't that I had to stop feeling but I needed to be aware of my emotions. Nowadays, I balanced my magic output by constructing elaborate cat toys for Sol, doing magic imbued tattoos and lately I'd been teaching magic to my tiny friend, Roe. Her sixth birthday had come and she'd humbly requested magic lessons. I never thought I'd be a good teacher but Roe and her messy mop of blond hair had squirmed their way into my heart so I was trying my best.

Nowadays, I worked at my tattoo shop DC Ink every other day. Ever since the store had taken off we'd become exclusive, mainly dealing with expensive or celebrity clientele. Although, we'd promised our old crowd reasonable prices if they wanted to come back for more tattoos, we were moving in a more classy direction. The differentiation between new and old customers was an ID card we'd distributed. Gold for old customers and black for new customers. 

I checked the time. "Fucking shit." All the time I was spending thinking about things was going to make me even more late. I used my magic to open my closet, letting my shirts and jeans fly out so I could mix and match what it was I wanted to wear. Ultimately, I would end up wearing jeans and a t-shirt but the question was which jeans and which t-shirt?

Sol wandered over to me pawing at my calf. She meowed noisily, whiskers skittering from side to side.

"Not now, Sol." I said, still contemplating an outfit choice.

Sol only got noisier, beginning to whine. She would paw at me, wander out of the room and then come back inside, looking back at me as if I should be following her. I sighed loudly, putting on jeans and a black shirt.

"You know, Sol? This sense of entitlement you're developing is honestly something else. I think we talked about this. Just because you tell me to do something doesn't mean I'm going to do it." Annoyed, I still followed her out into my living room.