Aries Rising Read Free

city, I knew that the weather could do an about-face in an instant. At any moment, the fog could roll in and change everything.
    The boots I wore were a gift from Paige, who had insisted they would make me look taller—and, yes, maybe a little older. The vehicle I had driven here was my dad’s ugly Chevy paint van he used to deliver his artwork to galleries and page proofs to his advertising clients. I parked it in a garage about a half-block away where no one could possibly see me. Then I started walking down Powell.
    Between two large, bushy trees, I spotted the burgundy-and-gold awning of Washington Square Bar and Grill. Those
bay windows, trimmed in white, against a yellow background, looked as if they belonged in a Victorian home. The building where CRUSH was located must be straight ahead.
    “Logan. Over here.”
    Thank goodness. There was Jaffa wrapped in the same navy scarf he’d lived in during our summer workshop. I was so happy to see him, his frizzy hair even wilder in the warm breeze, I could have hugged him.
    Except that Jaffa wasn’t a hugger. He was a focused, kind-of-weird Aquarius. He grinned just then as if he were a mad scientist, and I a bug under his microscope.
    “I told you we’d get approval from your school, didn’t I?”
    “You did. I’m so happy.” I didn’t mention that my Capricorn journalism teacher wasn’t.
    “You’ll like Stacy,” he said. “She’s very ambitious and dedicated, the same as you. If you get along as well as I think you’re going to, perhaps you might try for something more than an internship.”
    “Something more?” I asked.
    “An astrology column, for instance.” He gave me a pleased-with-himself grin and stopped to examine some flowers from a sidewalk vendor. “I need to send something to my wife.”
    I was still thinking about the astrology column and remembering my no-astrology promise to Snider.
    “I don’t think you can ship those,” I told him. “What’s your wife’s Sun sign?”
    “Aries.” He continued to eye the flowers. Good combination.
The Fire sign wife was running the relationship while he was trying to save the world.
    “Maybe you should just call her,” I said. “She’d probably like to know that you’re thinking about her. Aries women often want to be the center of their loved one’s life.”
    “Great idea. Actually, she gets upset when I don’t call often enough. Thanks for reminding me.” He turned away from the flowers. “You are going to be a fine astrology writer, and this is where we’re going to try to make it happen.”
    My mind exploded with reasons why I couldn’t go after more than I already had. Snider would be angry and end my internship. That was at the top of the list. Right along with how I could possibly write an astrology column for a national magazine.
    “Don’t you think I should prove myself as an intern before I ask for a column?”
    Jaffa stopped before a building of weathered bricks. “Remember this, Logan. Everything in life is action or distraction.”
    “Action or distraction?”
    “If it’s not moving you forward, it’s distraction, regardless of how noble or how interesting it appears at the time.”
    “But what if CRUSH already has an astrology columnist?”
    “Do you know where I would be if I had worried about what if ?” He gave me that same weird grin I remembered from class when he was trying to drive a point home.
    “Sure,” I said. “But you’re Henry Jaffa.”
    “I wasn’t always.”

    Good point . I started to say that I appreciated his confidence in me, but just then an elegant girl in a sapphire-blue jacket stepped out of a taxi at the curb in front of us.
    “Henry.” She ran to us and took both of Jaffa’s hands in hers.
    Her thick black hair was pulled straight back, no bangs, just those dark eyes that dominated her face. I tried to guess her age. Late twenties. Jaffa must be right about her ambition and dedication. Her skin was pale as porcelain, her lip