A Little Time

Roy had meant to leave before anyone woke up. That had been the plan, anyway. Get dressed quietly, slip out of the house, and be halfway to work before Jessica or any of the others had even opened their eyes. Ava included.

Unfortunately, Roy had failed to account for one fairly important detail: Ava, it turned out, was an early-morning runner.

He'd gotten up quietly, quickly gotten ready, and thought his plan had worked perfectly until the moment she walked into the kitchen. And for one terrible second, Roy had been convinced the wish was about to activate again.

Panic had come first. A sharp, instinctive jolt that made his stomach tighten as he looked across the kitchen at Jessica's daughter. He'd been waiting for something to happen. The hairs on his arms. That strange sensation that reality had momentarily slipped sideways. Some impossible alteration to the room, or to Ava, or to himself.

Nothing.

The kitchen remained exactly as it had been. Morning light came through the windows. The refrigerator hummed. Ava stood there in her running clothes, looking as surprised to see him as he was to see her. Even the coffee in his mug remained stubbornly, reassuringly ordinary.

No lightning.

No magical fireworks.

No sudden declaration of eternal love.

Roy had almost laughed from relief.

"Morning," he'd managed.

Ava had replied, and somehow the morning had simply continued. That had been enough to convince Roy that he had escaped disaster, at least for the moment. Whatever rules governed the wish, running into Ava hadn't apparently been enough to trigger anything. Maybe once a woman was freed from the magic, she was freed forever. It seemed so, at least for Ava.

And thank God for that.

Having Jessica as his girlfriend was one thing. Having both Jessica and Ava as girlfriends would have been something else entirely. It wasn't that he disliked Ava. Quite the opposite. She was bright, friendly and surprisingly easy to talk to. Roy had liked her from the beginning, in the uncomplicated way a forty-year-old man could like his girlfriend's daughter. She was a good kid.

A good young woman, he reminded himself, although that distinction didn't make the memory of her, in the car, bobbing her head up and down on his lap, any less horrifying.

No. Whatever the wish had planned, Ava did not need to become part of it again.

Roy took another sip of coffee and focused on his breakfast. Across the table, Ava picked at her avocado toast while occasionally glancing his way. The awkwardness was obvious, but at least it was ordinary awkwardness. Normal, human awkwardness was something Roy had learned to treasure. For once, nothing supernatural was happening. That felt like a vacation.

He hurried through the rest of his eggs, finished his coffee and began thinking about what came next. Two questions had been sitting in the back of his mind since he woke up.

Would Jessica be permanent? He hoped so. He certainly felt as deeply about her as he did about his other permanent girlfriends, and if that made any difference, he believed she'd be sticking around. But it was the other question that was really hounding him.

Who was next?

The wish had already introduced him to an astonishing range of women. Different ages. Different personalities. Different careers. Different lives. Some had been people he barely knew. Others had been complete strangers. For a while that morning he had been worried that it might be Ava, once again, who would fall under the wish's spell and leave him in the impossible position of having to be the boyfriend of both a mother and a daughter.. Thankfully, as evidenced by how disinterested she was with him that morning, Ava was free to live her life without Roy's influence.

There had been one consistent factor, though.

Him.

Every one of them had fallen completely in love with Roy. Every one of them had wanted him, needed him, or somehow decided that he was the most important person in their world. Even Agnes, his horrible neighbour, had thought that being with Roy was the best possible thing for her.

At least until the magic was finished with them.

Roy still wasn't sure how to feel about that, but he had begun to feel resigned that there was nothing he could do about it. The fact that their feelings weren't fake didn't make the situation any easier, though. If anything, it made it worse. They had genuinely experienced those emotions. They had genuinely wanted him. The magic had simply been responsible for creating circumstances none of them had chosen.

And Roy had been the one left standing in the middle of it. Except for the women who had stayed. Closing his eyes for a moment, Roy pictured them.

Elaine.

Michelle.

Zara.

Jessica.

Four completely different women, all somehow part of his life now. No, that was an understatement. Not just part of his life, but intertwined with his life. He needed them like a plant needed water and sunshine. Imagining going back to his life before the wish had become unthinkable.

A year ago, Roy had been lonely. Not dramatically lonely. Not the kind of lonely that made people write sad poetry or stare moodily out windows while rain ran down the glass.

Just... lonely.

He'd had friends. He'd had work. He'd had a perfectly functional life. Something had simply been missing, something he hadn't known was missing, but he'd felt it anyway.

Now there were women who wanted to see him when they woke up. Women who worried about him. Women who laughed with him, argued with him, kissed him, leaned against him and expected him to be there tomorrow.

And Roy loved them.

The realization had stopped feeling frightening some time ago. It was simply true. He loved Elaine's warmth and patience. Michelle's determination and stubborn optimism. Zara's enthusiasm, which could turn a five-minute conversation about almost anything into a forty-minute lecture that somehow left Roy smiling. Jessica's intelligence, confidence and willingness to let him see the vulnerable side she rarely showed anyone else.

Losing any one of them would hurt. Losing all of them would leave a hole in his life that he wasn't sure he could even describe.

Less.

That was the only word that came to him. Life without them would be less. Like he'd been walking around for forty years on half a battery without ever realizing it, and somehow these women had plugged him into a charger.

The metaphor was ridiculous. It was also accurate.

Roy opened his eyes.

Love, however, wasn't the only thing he had to worry about. There was still work. At least for now. That thought brought the warmth of the previous one crashing back down.

Tom.

The threats.

The blackmail.

The possibility that everything Roy had built at work could disappear because one man had decided to fabricate evidence and put a noose around his career. Roy had spent enough time thinking about it that the problem had begun to feel almost impossible to solve. He couldn't simply expose Tom without evidence. He couldn't simply walk into his boss's office and announce that a coworker had manipulated documents and framed him without being able to prove it.

And if Tom went public first...

Roy didn't even want to think about what would happen. That was why he'd gotten up so early.

But now a new idea had come to him during the night, somewhere between sleeping and waking. It wasn't a good idea. Roy knew that immediately. Unfortunately, knowing something was a bad idea had never stopped it from being an idea.

What if the wish could be used strategically?

So far, the magic had been chaotic. Powerful, but chaotic. Roy hadn't chosen the women it affected. He hadn't selected the circumstances. Sometimes he'd barely even understood what was happening until reality had already rearranged itself around him.

But what if there was a way to influence it? Not control it completely. He wasn't stupid enough to believe that. Just... steer it. If Roy could somehow make sure the wish activated at the right time, around the right person, he might be able to turn its strange power into something useful.

The thought made him uncomfortable.

Very uncomfortable.

Suppose, for example, he could get to work before it activated. Suppose he encountered someone useful. Someone with influence. Someone who knew what was happening inside the company. Someone who could help him deal with Tom. The wish had already demonstrated that it could alter relationships, memories and entire histories. Could it help Roy build an ally? Or was that simply another way of saying use an innocent woman because magic had made her available?

Roy stared down at the last few crumbs on his plate. That was the problem. He already hated the fact that the wish removed consent from the women it affected. Even when the resulting relationship became genuine, even when Roy cared about them deeply, the beginning of those relationships had been fundamentally unfair.

The women didn't know what had happened. They didn't know their lives had been changed. They didn't know that their feelings had been imposed upon them.

Roy had been trying to live with that. Trying to do better. Trying to make sure that whatever the magic had done, the people involved weren't hurt any more than necessary. Now he was considering deliberately pointing that magic at someone because it might help him save his job.

That felt like crossing another line.

Then again, Roy thought bitterly, his life had become a collection of lines he'd crossed while trying to find one he could live with. He hadn't asked for any of this. That was still true. He hadn't asked to become the centre of some bizarre magical relationship machine. He hadn't asked to have his life rewritten. He hadn't asked to fall in love with four women. He hadn't asked to be blackmailed by Tom.

But none of that changed where he was now.

If he could find a way to survive this mess, didn't he have some obligation to take it? And if the wish was going to keep doing whatever the hell it wanted anyway, maybe Roy had a responsibility to learn how to use what he'd been given.

The thought still made him feel guilty. He wasn't sure whether that was a sign of conscience or simply evidence that he was getting very good at rationalizing things. Probably both.

Roy pushed his chair back. A few minutes later, he was standing near the front door, pulling on his shoes.

"I've got to get to work early," he said. He kept his voice quiet and friendly. "Hopefully I'll see you later, kiddo. Tell your mom I said goodbye."

"Sure," she answered with a smile, her cheeks flushed, probably still from the run.

Roy opened the door. Then he paused, waiting to see if the wish somehow would activate the moment he exposed himself to the outside.

Nothing happened. No strange sensation. No magical shift. No sudden announcement from whatever cosmic force had decided his life needed to become an ongoing romantic disaster. Roy silently thanked every deity he could think of.

He stepped outside. The cool morning air felt good against his face. For the first time since waking up, Roy felt as though he had a clear objective. Get to work. Keep his head down. Figure out what was happening with Tom.

And, somehow, learn whether the wish could be influenced.

Maybe he'd get lucky. Maybe the magic wouldn't activate until he was safely inside the office. Maybe he could actually make it through his commute without meeting another woman whose entire life was suddenly rearranged around him.

Roy reached his car and unlocked it. The thought made him smile despite himself. Maybe that morning would be different.

He climbed behind the wheel, started the engine and pulled away from the house. Roy didn't want magic. He wanted time. Just a little time to solve one problem before the universe gave him another.

Maybe, if he was lucky, it would give him his commute.

Maybe.