Chapter 37: Strictly Business

"I want to do this alone," Delaney announces when she and Ian arrive at their destination.

"I'm sorry-what?" is Ian's rather perplexed response.

"I want to do this job by myself. I want to prove myself to you."

"Let me get this straight - this is my job, in a place I've been casing for months. I'm a professional, and you're barely experienced. And you want to do it alone?"

"I know, it sounds crazy," Delaney admits, "But I need to do this. And you've got nothing to lose. If I fuck up, set off an alarm or something, you can bug out and no one will know."

"Well, I'd lose a month's worth of planning and preparation..." Ian points out, but knows he's losing this argument, "All right, if this is what you've got to do. They get a shipment of new stones every Thursday, and they don't start setting them until Monday.  They'll be in crates in the back office. Don't bother with the the stuff in the store itself, just grab the unset stones from the office, understood?"

Delaney smiles, but doesn't let her relief show on her face. The potions her uncle gave her are her secret, her edge in this business, and it wouldn't do to have Ian see her use them. Not yet anyway, not until she's established herself.

She climbs over the wall onto the trash bins near the shop's employee entrance.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Ian asks, not at all sure letting her do this is the right thing to do.

"Just wait for me here," Delaney says before she hops off the bin and heads for the door.

Ian hears the tinkling of breaking glass as he clambers up the wall after her, and mutters something but non-professionals. She's going to ruin this job, he realizes, and it's his own fault. But when he gets up onto the bin, he sees nothing but a hazy cloud of smoke. Delaney got in quick, he thinks, and whatever that sound was, it wasn't the sound of a window being busted. He looks around the scene and it's like no one was here at all, no broken windows, the door firmly shut.

"Sitting on a garbage bin in the fucking pouring rain, waiting on some chick," Ian mutters to himself. "At least I'll get my cut when she's done," he comforts himself. He doesn't usually let girls manipulate him this way, he thinks. "Get on the ball, Ian," he instructs himself, "Take charge, or you'll end up whipped like Pie Man."

 

They bring her haul back to his apartment for the night; in the morning he'll take it in to the boss.

"I admit, you did good," Ian says, "You were in and out of there like a ghost."

A flash of lightning brightens the sky, followed quickly by a tremendous crack of thunder. "It's really coming down now," Ian observes, looking out his window at the sodden street below his apartment, "Maybe you should chill here for awhile before you head back home." Delaney had rode in on her bike, and the drive home would be an uncomfortably wet one if she left now.

"If you don't mind, I'm going to get out of these wet clothes," she purrs behind him.

"I could stand to be a bit drier, myself," Ian answers, taking his clothes off she removes hers. Delaney gets down on the couch with him, straddling him. "Listen, sweetheart," he whispers, "You and me, we're strictly business, you understand? You're Horner's girl."

"Strictly business," Delaney agrees.

She's never been with anyone but Jack, and Delaney is surprised to discover how much it matters. She misses him, she realizes, his hands, the way he touches her, his voice and the sweet things he whispers n her ear when he makes love to her. With some effort, she puts Jack out of her mind so she can experience this moment, this man.

"So, you'll be introducing me to your boss, won't you?" Delaney purrs, rolling on top of him.

"Oh, sweetheart, you didn't sleep with me just to get me to introduce to King Cole, did you?" Ian laughs.

Delaney pouts, and denies his accusation. "I wanted to be with you," she protests.

Ian laughs again. "I've lied to plenty of girls in my time, I suppose I can handle being lied to by one. But I know whose girl you are. We're strictly business, remember?"

"You will introduce me to your boss, right?" Delaney insists.

"Hell, yes. You are my find, and you'll be playing on my team. You and me and Pie Man," Ian says. He turns his head to look out the window, "It's letting up. Best you head on out of here, now. I'll call you when the boss wants to see you."

"Shadow," Iola calls, turning to him as she gets into her nightgown.

"Mmm?" he murmurs, barely looking up from his book.

"It's our first night together," Iola says, patting the pillow before she rests against it.

"Our first night together after spending a day in bed with each other," Shadow laughs gently, putting his book aside.

"Still, it's something to celebrate, isn't it?" he adds.

When Delaney gets home, the house is still, everyone asleep. Or at least, in bed, she thinks wistfully, hearing the muffled groans and giggles coming from Shadow's room. They must have been at it all day. Another sound from the nursery tells her that Jace was awake, so she lets him out of his crib and plays with him. "I did my first job tonight," she tells him proudly, knowing he has no idea what she's talking about, "I did really good." But she feels really bad.

They haven't even had breakfast yet, and Iola's mother has already phoned. "She wants to get together with us to plan the wedding," Iola announces nervously.

Shadow embraces her, showing her she has nothing to worry about. No overbearing mother-in-law will put him off her. "Let's have coffee with them before the graduation ceremony," he suggests.

They meet her parents at the Happy Sunset cafe and go over Shadow's plans. Noelle is little surprised by the effort and planning Shadow has already put into this event, like he was the bride rather than the groom. All Iola has to say is how nervous she is about standing up in public like that.

After coffee the couple heads out to City Hall for graduation, where they met up with Delaney, who has Jace on her arm.

"Cassidy and Jesse are already inside," she tells them, "You know they got married last night?"

After the ceremony, Farrell spends some time with Aurora. She's doing well in her career, she assures him, and she's adopted a little ginger kitten named Kim. Though she's played down her witchitude to focus on science and medicine, she has to admit she likes having a feline familiar around.

Besides wedding planning, Shadow has been busy preparing a future for himself and his bride, and purchased the magic shop next to Le cirque Park.

Here, Shadow can mix and sell potions right on the spot. The non-hallucinogenic potions, anyway.

While Iola tells fortunes. It's not the best use of her gifts, perhaps, but peeking into the futures of the townspeople is good exercise for her mind. She bought a trick crystal ball like the one from the Spooky Day festival. It does nothing to help her gift, but the show os lights and effects does make people feel like they've gotten their money's worth. If she was doing more than making simple glimpses into the near future, it might be too distracting for Iola, but getting past the noise will help keep her sharp.

After graduation, Delaney and Cassidy spend some time at the Spring Festival together.

"I'm surprised you got married so quickly," Delaney says.

"There wasn't much point in waiting," Cassidy replies, "We were already getting very settled in together, so we decided to make it official. How long before Jack is out of jail? Have you heard?"

Delaney winces at the mention of Jack's name. "It should be soon. His lawyer checks in with me regularly."

"I should apologize to you," Cassidy says, "I was wrong about Jack. We all were. I think you'll be happy together."

Delaney's smile is wan as she accepts her sister's apology. "Jack has always been an angel to me." she says, knowing the same could not be said of her.

________________________________________

The Generation Roll is couple +1, 5 kids (gah! again!). Careers are Alchemist, Fortune Teller (Mystic), and Criminal(Thief). The Alchemist I took as an Expansion Gift, but Fortune Teller was a genuine roll.

Iola is employed at the gypsy caravan, but you'll never see that in a screenshot or hear mention of it. Telling fortunes on the crystal ball does actually improve her job performance a little. She hasn't even done a days work yet, but her progress got pushed up a little just from spending an afternoon in the shop telling fortunes to anyone that came in. It doesn't make any money for her.

Shadow has been selling potions since he was teen, and is already level 9 in the career. Though he has the set up to work at home, I liked the idea of them keeping a shop together. 

Delaney is also officially employed in the Criminal career, but still hasn't done a days work, with Love Day and then Graduation day giving her time off. Jack is in the criminal career, too, and is Delaney's boss. When she took the job, I go the pop up saying her boss was Jack Horner and it never hurts to have a good relationship with the boss. I guess sleeping with him doesn't hurt, either.

The goal is Social Bunny, and Misc Fun is Live Your Trait. As heir, Shadow will be handling both of those. The trait I'm using is Bookworm. Shadow reads every day, and talks about books to at least one person. As a child he used to get lots of book related wishes, but not so much lately. He's getting more alchemy related wishes, and romancing Iola wishes than anything else. I'm also using Bookworm in conjunction with the social bunny goal. Once a week, Shadow will host a book club meeting at the cafe. The wedding planning scene with the Hawksquills was a trial run using that venue and ani's 'Have Coffee with Me' mod. I'll need to work out a couple of routing issues, but it looks good to go as a venue for a weekly bookclub meeting. The club will consist of Sims he knows that have Bookworm or Genius traits, including Farrell, Ariel and Noelle, Aurora, Cassidy and Jesse.

The venue is Happy Sunset Pub by armiel. I changed it from a bar to a hangout, and got rid of the bar, dance floor and foosball to make it more of a coffee shop. I also added the pizza oven deal from MV in case I want to serve food.

Here's a bonus pic of Shadow reading, with Mist sleeping next to him. I probably won't show a lot of Shadow living his trait very often, as it's just this, sitting and reading.