"There she is!" Charlotte shouted over the booming atmosphere of the club, pointing to Maggie as she weaved her way through the crowd.

"What took you so long? You were gone for like twenty minutes!" Amelie asked when Maggie finally arrived and slammed the three tequila shots she'd been holding onto the sticky black table.

"Oh I got so distracted, I'm sorry! The bartender served me right away, of course, but then there were these two super hot guys there and I just couldn't leave without talking to them." She gestured towards the bar, but Amelie could not make out anyone looking their way through the crush of bodies.

"Did you invite them over here?" She asked.

"Of course! They'll be over in five," Maggie replied, grinning.

"Aren't you seeing Jake?" Amelie asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Oh slutever we're not exclusive. Besides, it's fun to flirt," she replied, rolling her eyes.

Amelie smiled back at her friend, who was notorious for finding a new boy every night and never holding onto one. The fact that Jake had stayed on the side for over a month was extraordinary. She wondered if maybe, Maggie liked him more than she was letting on.

"Mags, how are things with Jake going?" Amelie asked.

Maggie looked at the ceiling and put her hand on her hip. "I don't want to talk about it."

"But, I thought you were starting to like him. Are you going to become exclusive?" Amelie probed.

"I don't do exclusive. You know that."

"But why?" Amelie said.

"Jake seems like a great guy, he could be the exception to the rule." Charlotte chimed in, giggling.

Maggie huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Being exclusive gives them too much power. I am my own woman." She annunciated every word of the last sentence.

"But-" Amelie began.

"Okay! We are here to celebrate my first big-girl job in the consulting world, people!" Charlotte shot into the conversation, pushing the other girls' drinks into their hands. "Pay attention to me!"

Amelie shook her head. This was a fight for another day. Or for never. Amelie often thought back to that day at Maggie's house when they were twelve. That truth she knew and left untouched for years to save their friendship. It was against her nature to brush things under the rug like that, but she was terrified that if she acknowledged it outside of small, carefully-worded words of concern, Maggie would shut her out her forever.

"You're right," she yelled, smiling. She raised her shot glass.

"A toast! To Charlotte, may she kick Cleveland's butt and look good doing it!"

The girls clinked their shots and downed them in one gulp.

"Let's go grab those boys and dance!" yelled Charlotte.

They made their way to the dance floor and Amelie slung her arm around Charlotte's waist. "I'm going to miss you, hun. Who is going to keep me sane during my lunch breaks? I need you there to remind me that I'm not the crazy one in that office."

"You won't miss me that much! Besides, our wallets need a break from eating out every day." Amelie nodded at that. "And, you'll still see me on the weekends! My first day back, in three weeks, I'm all yours."

"Okay, good. I'll hold you to that!" She unwise her hand and stretched it out to her friend. Charlotte grabbed her hand and shook it vigorously.

Amelie grinned and said, "I'm starting to make a list immediately of all the things you missed while I was gone. Be prepared for an entire day of listening to me gripe about Cathy," she paused, contemplating whether to tell Charlotte about Adrien. Maggie had moved enough ahead that she wouldn't be able to overhear them in the loud club. "And maybe a few details about this new boy I've been seeing. He's pretty wonderful so far."

Charlotte gasped and jumped back an inch. "I knew it! You've been distracted for weeks now!" She looked ahead at Maggie, who had now reached the mysterious Bar Boys. "Did you not want to tell her?"

"Not really. I knew she might judge me for getting giddy over a boy I just met and I didn't want to go there. Adrien and I aren't even really seeing each other. We haven't kissed yet..."

"But it's probably going there soon. Say no more. That is so exciting! I can't wait to hear all about it! Text me if anything huge happens, okay?"

Amelie nodded and they pushed through the mob to find Maggie.

_____________

Cassie hurtled the bulging kettle bell above their heads, stopping it just feet from the roof of the converted warehouse. Then the weight slowly drifted back down to the ground like a leaf might dance off a tree.

"It's like I imagine I am each atom in the kettle bell and my sole desire is to move up," she explained, gesturing an "up" motion with both of her hands.

"Now you try." Cassie pulled out a three-pound kettle bell that Amelie could probably lift with her pinkie finger.

"I'm just going to look constipated," Amelie responded gruffly.

"Keep up your spirits. You just started at this. You'll get there!" Damien cheered.

She concentrated on the weight, threw all of her energy into that piece of metal, and...nothing. She tried again. Still nothing.

Deflated, she put down the weight. "Thanks for trying, guys. I'll keep trying, I just need a break right now. Then I might try for a bit on my own."

"No problem, Amelie. Let us know if you need anything," Cassie said, smiling kindly.

Amelie walked to the other end of the gym where Adrien was literally making waves in a pool of water. He smiled when he saw her approaching and tilted his head signaling for her to come over.

He was standing next to the smallest of the small pools and Amelie sat down, cross-legged next to him. "Adrien," she whined, "what if I'm meant to perpetually be able to feel magic but it will always be just out of reach? That's almost worse than never feeling it at all."

He frowned and leaned down to ruffle her hair a bit. "What do you want to do right now. If you had magic, what would you do?"

She put her hands on the ground behind her and leaned back into them, contemplating.

She smiled. "I would lift you into the air and place you on one of those platforms. Then I would lift myself so I was up there with you and you weren't alone."

The moment she finished speaking she felt a huge gust of wind. So strong that she felt herself being propelled upward. She looked at Adrien, appalled. "I...I thought that would be impossible!"

He grinned and she floated off the ground. "I can't lift a person. It's too much of a complicated mess of liquids and solids, but I can manipulate the air around you!" It felt less like she was flying and more like she was being lifted on a sort of plank made out of air. She stretched out her legs in front of her and folded her arms behind her head, to look like she was lounging in air.

He chortled with laughter and she landed as softly as possible on the platform. He Dove to meet her up there and was soon once again standing over her while she sat. She felt like a petulant child.

"If you ever want some magic done, I'm at your service, madam," he said, reaching his hand down towards her. "You don't need to keep learning if it's too hard. Magic should be fun for you. The rest of us have been doing it our whole lives. And we were never given a choice of whether or not we wanted to learn it."

She grabbed his outstretched hand and let him pull her up. She used the momentum to fall into him in a hug. His arms immediately wrapped around her waist.

"Thank you," she said into his shoulder. "I know I haven't been easy to teach. And I know teaching isn't your thing." She pulled back, her hands still resting on the sides of his chest. "I really appreciate it. This is important to me and I love that you recognize that. I'm going to keep trying."

She noticed briefly his face twitch in what she might have thought was annoyance, but the look was gone in milliseconds. "Of course."

He floated Amelie back down and she walked over to the biggest pool for some time alone with her thoughts.

She waved her hands over the water, thinking of the crystalline droplets she had first seen floating around her at fourteen. She closed her eyes, letting the memory of that first flirt with magic overcome her. She just wanted magic to sing to her the way math did. Nothing had ever come so hard to her before.

That thought sparked an idea for her. All she had been doing was trying. Pushing the magic out of her rather than letting it flow...like a dance. Or like a melody.

What if she tried to find the flow between herself and the water. The connecting threads of magic that could be lit up if she let the magic flow freely. Rather than pushing the magic out of her.

The water rippled. She gasped.

Turning around, she covertly snuck a glance around the gym and verified that no one had noticed her outburst. She turned back to the water and concentrated on flowing. The water rippled once again, this time too large to be caused by any coincidence.

She silently stood up and walked over to the smallest vacant pool. After glancing over her shoulder to make sure she had no audience she poured energy into the water from the thin thread she could swear she now felt between it and her body. The water started circling in a gentle whirlpool.

"Adrien," she whispered. Ready to show someone.

She heard no answer. She didn't want to turn around in case the whirlpool stopped.

"Adrien," she said again, this time in a calm, but quiet voice, as if he were a foot in front of her. He still did not come. She sighed and looked down at her beautiful pool.

"Don't you dare cut that thread while I'm gone," she said to the whirlpool.

She turned around and turned to face Adrien, standing a mere three feet behind her with the widest grin on his beautiful face.

"Did you see?" she whispered.

"You did it," he whispered back to her. A wild smile bloomed on her face and he ran to her. He grabbed her at the top of her legs and lifted off the ground, pulling her into his chest. They started spinning and she laughed with glee.

When he finally put her down he asked to see it again. She obliged and, to her surprise, was able to cause the whirlpool once again. the third time she showed the whole gym and was rewarded with a boring round of applause that caused her face to go red.

She and Adrien were side by side as they walked out of the gym that night.

"I'm really proud of you, Am," he said.

"Thanks. There is no way I could have done it without you. So, again, thank you," Amelie said.

"You're welcome."

"Well I'm going to head home. I'm pretty tired after going out Tuesday night. I'm getting too old to do that and still get up for work."

"Okay," he replied, looking at the ground suddenly. "I was going to ask if you were interested in grabbing dinner, but maybe another night...Goodnight." He started to turn away.

"What about tomorrow?" she blurted out. She hated the site of him walking away.

He turned. "Tomorrow? Okay, yeah. Tomorrow it is!"