Barely an hour later, Kennedy unlocked the door to her apartment, dropped her backpack in front of the hall closet, and faceplanted onto the couch.

"Tough day in the math mines, darling?" called Chandra from the kitchen.

"So. Much. Incense. I'm never going to be able to wear these clothes again. I'd burn them, but then I'd have to smell incense smoke all over again."

"Get off the couch, then! I'm making tea. Fancy a cup?"

"The blandest stuff you can find. And some Tylenol, if we've got any," Kennedy called, unable to bring herself to leave the couch now that she was down, odor transfer be damned.

A few moments later, Chandra settled onto the couch in front of Kennedy's nose. Kennedy looked up and saw two mugs and a bottle of pills on the coffee table.

"You're a lifesaver. Thanks, Chandra."

"No problem. You look like you need it. And, wow, you do smell."

With some difficulty, Kennedy gulped a couple headache tablets with her hot tea, which was so bland it was nearly tasteless.

"What is this?" Kennedy asked.

"White tea. I hope you appreciate it. It's the most expensive stuff in my stash."

"Really? It tastes like hot water that walked past a tea bag."

Chandra gave Kennedy a withering look. "Philistine."

As mild as it was, the tea helped wash the lingering taste of incense out of Kennedy's mouth.

"I'm going to go change my clothes. Have the lighter fluid ready when I get back, would you?"

Chandra started to laughingly protest, but Kennedy was already in her room before the end of the sentence. Kennedy not only stripped to the skin but, sniffing at the end of her ponytail, decided to shower as well.

She was just emerging from her bedroom, clean and fresh in new clothes, when she heard Chandra say, "Well, hello," in a tone Kennedy had only heard her use when discussing her favorite male movie stars and the odd player on the school hockey team.

Kennedy stood in the short hallway and peeked around the corner into the living room. Her heart thumped in her chest. Charlie stood in her doorway and was currently charming the heck out of Chandra, who was beaming sickeningly at him. Kennedy was surprised by the tang of jealousy in her mouth. She didn't like the taste. Charlie wasn't hers to control any more than she was his, and Chandra wouldn't make a move on a guy that Kennedy had a recent history with even if she was single. Still, it wouldn't hurt to remind her.

"Hey, Chandra. Is that Ricky at the door?" Kennedy called as she walked into the room.

Chandra wrapped a finger around a strand of long, black hair. "Who?"

"Ricky. Thursday is date night, isn't it?"

Chandra gasped. "Yes!" She turned back to the door. "It was very nice to meet you, Charlie," she said, before sauntering to her bedroom to get ready for her date.

"Hey, buttercup," Charlie said to Kennedy once they were alone in the room.

"Buttercup?" Kennedy shook her head.

"No? With your hair, and all?"

"Too pastoral. Makes me sound like a jersey cow."

"Duly noted. Sorry to drop in, but I wanted to talk to you in person. Can I come in for a minute?"

Their light teasing aside, Charlie's sudden appearance made Kennedy nervous. Her plan had been to cut him loose so that she could see people more suitable to her sensibilities and life goals. But those all seemed ridiculous compared to Charlie, leaning with effortless casual grace against her door-frame, looking like sex on a stick in his snug long-sleeved tee-shirt tucked into the narrow waistband of his broken-in jeans. Her resolve was weakening even though he had yet to say a word about their current predicament.

Kennedy straightened her spine and lifted her chin, hoping that if she looked like she was in control of herself, she'd be more likely to hold her earlier resolve. As soon as she did, she remembered her initial concerns about Charlie. Time to get some honest answers to the question that had been burning in the back of her mind since the moment they'd met. His answers would go a long way towards helping her decide what to do about the ovary-bursting conundrum that was Charlie.

"Come on in."

Kennedy showed Charlie to the couch. She made sure to sit a few inches outside his reach at a distance that said 'conversation' rather than a distant 'anger' or a close 'do me'.

"So I hate to ask, but how do you know where I live?" Kennedy asked.

"Your email signature has all your contact information."

"Oh. Right. I should maybe change that."

"Do you want me to go?"

"No, that's not what I meant. You're the first one to show up on my doorstep, but what's to stop someone I don't want to see from turning up?"

"So you do want to see me?" Charlie asked, leaning his head back and regarding Kennedy with approval.

"I like you, Charlie. There's some stuff I need to sort out, though. Some questions that I have."

"That's what I'm here for. Ask me anything."

Kennedy fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, then mustered her courage, and asked, "Do you honestly believe that you can see the future?"

Charlie blinked, then laughed. "That's your big question? Not, 'why did I live with my mother for so long?' Or, 'why am I still single when I'm obviously such a catch?' Or 'why do I drive such a P.O.S.?' "

"It's important to me. It indicates how you see the world, and how you react to it. I have a very clear view on this subject, which I'll tell you after you answer."

"Don't want to mess with the data before it's collected?"

"Quit stalling and answer me, please."

Charlie leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his hands together. "Short answer? No. I don't believe I can see the future."

Tension evaporated from Kennedy's body. It was a good start, although she sensed a 'but' coming.

Charlie continued. "But I've seen some things that are more than a little hard to explain. The tarot cards, though, most often they're conversation pieces. They let people explore what they already believe. Sometimes it's easier to work through a problem if you can externalize it, pretend that someone else is giving you the answer you already know. Or want. A lot of people come hoping for a particular answer and nearly always get it."

"Do you...assist them in seeing what they want to see?" Kennedy asked as neutrally as she could

Charlie's mouth went hard. "In other words, am I lying to them? No. What the cards say, I'll say. But if someone comes in with a strong desire for the cards to reveal a bright future, I'll play up the bright part of the reading, sure. There's good and bad in nearly every spread. Few things are absolute."

"What about the rest of it? The stuff in your shop, the crystals and dreamcatchers and books on past lives?"

"If someone believes a dreamcatcher works to stop bad dreams, then it works. If someone believes that crystals can help balance their energy, then they will. As for working with past lives, it's like the tarot cards. Who's to say it's true or not?"

Kennedy wanted to say that she had volunteered to say whether it was true or not, but let Charlie keep speaking. She wanted to hear more of what he had to say more than she wanted to argue about it.

"And if someone finds that connecting with an alternate form of spirituality helps them work with various aspects of their personality, and maybe makes their day easier, then all the power to them."

"So you don't consider yourself to be a psychic?"

"No. I've had a couple dreams that preceded actual events, and I've had a couple of moments of sudden understanding that didn't come from anywhere in particular, but I'm a reader, not a psychic. And if we're laying all our cards on the table here, so to speak, you should know that I do intuitive counseling, too."

"What is that? I've never heard of it."

"I work one-on-one with people and we talk about where they are in their lives, where they want to be, and how they can get there. I'm not psychic, but I'm pretty good at reading people. I usually can tell when they're dancing around the thing they really want -- or don't want -- to say, and I'm sensitive to the feelings of others. There's sometimes crying involved." He mumbled his last words and stared at the carpet as he spoke.

"Well," Kennedy said, "That doesn't sound so bad. The woo-woo factor is still a little high for my taste, but it sounds like you're sensible about it."

It was a relief to hear that none of Charlie's beliefs sounded like a deal-breaker to her so far. Some of what he did still sounded pretty 'out there' to her. She wondered whether she could live with it for a while.

"Some of my clients take it extremely seriously, and have had things happen that I can't explain. I accept and respect their beliefs and their experiences." Charlie spoke with conviction and a bit of chastisement in his voice, though his last line sounded rehearsed, like he'd heard or said it many times before.

"I guess I haven't been terribly respectful of the kinds of people who go to your shop," Kennedy said. She was starting to understand how important, what had he called it, alternate spirituality? was to him, and how disrespectful she'd been every step of the way.

"They're not just people in my shop. They're my customers. They're how I make my living. It's the only life I've ever known, really. I've tried to be accepting of your beliefs and I would like to ask the same of you."

"Customers, exactly! I have one more hard question for you." Kenned took a deep breath. This was the heart of her trouble with Charlie's line of work, the question that would make or break this entire conversation. She closed her eyes for a half-second, the opened her mouth.