Susan completed her college paper in record time. She freely admitted that it was a bit sloppy and she would rewrite it over the next two days to clean it up. After Crystal was put to bed and Nat went to bed as well, Susan rode me so hard that she almost threw her back out.

“Ow ow ow ow ow.” Susan whispered as she laid down on her belly.

I switched out one of my rings and used a diagnostic spell on her as I rubbed her back. “It's all right. You just strained the muscle.”

“I've never... ow... done that before.” Susan whispered.

“I've only had one woman ever ride me harder than that... and when she came, she popped right off of me, flew through the air, and fell to the floor.”

Susan gave me an incredulous look for a second, saw I wasn't joking, then she burst out laughing. I covered her mouth to let her laugh and her eyes looked like she was going to laugh for a few minutes. I switched out the diagnostic ring for several minor healing rings and kept rubbing her back as I used them on her.

“Mmm.” Susan moaned as her pain eased. “Hmmm mumm.”

“You're welcome.” I whispered and moved my hand to kiss her.

Susan fell asleep not long after that, both exhausted and happy, so I switched out half of my rings for the Memory Manipulation ones and went to Nat's room. I gave her another week's memories, which took all night, then I went to the kitchen to make breakfast for everyone after equipping clean jeans and a red t-shirt.

We all ate together and Nat had a huge smile on her face that she couldn't hide or stop. We were finally getting into the main part of our time together in the other world and she was experiencing our friendship from how it was before. She was enjoying it as much as I had at the time and she finally had an inkling as to why I was so desperate to have her back in my life.

“I can drop you off at college if you want.” I said to Susan and she shook her head.

“Kathy's my normal ride. We share a lot of classes, even though she's not taking the same course choices as I am.” Susan said and stood up. “I better get changed. She'll be here just after you leave to take Crystal to school.”

“I'll do that.” Nat said and stood herself. “Damon, when I come back, we have to discuss where to set up making those pendants.”

“Not a problem. I've already got a space picked out and you might like it.”

“You better not tell me it's the small room in my apartment.” Nat said with a bit of a glare.

“Okay, I won't tell you.” I said with a grin and she barked a laugh.

“I'm using it for storage, so find somewhere else.” Nat said and took Crystal to get changed.

“Do you need a hand?” I asked Susan and she shook her head.

“I need to shower and actually get changed.” Susan said and bent down to give me a kiss. “Have fun actually working today.”

“Hey, I worked a lot while I was away.” I said in my defense.

“All I saw were photos of you having fun.” Susan grinned at me and walked over to the large closet in the hallway to grab an outfit. “It's so nice that you go through all the trouble to put the teddy bear into nearly every shot.”

“He's in every shot, actually.”

“No, he... damn, now I have to look at them all again.” Susan said with a pout and I winked at her. She went into the bathroom and took a shower while I cleaned up the kitchen and removed the remains of breakfast.

Nat and Crystal came out and they both looked nice.

“Aww, thank you.” I said and and walked over to them. I knelt and gave Crystal a kiss on the cheek. “You always make me a little bit happier when you dress up for me.”

Crystal's face was a little red and she glanced up at Nat.

“Yes, that counts for Nat, too.” I said and stood as I made an exaggerated kissing face.

“Off! Off!” Nat laughed and held me away with a hand on my chest. “You can give that to Susan.”

“Give me what?” Susan asked as she came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her head.

“This!” I exclaimed and swept her into my arms, turned her around as if we were dancing, then I stuck out my tongue and gave her cheek a big long lick.

“EWW!” Susan exclaimed and then she, Nat, and Crystal laughed.

“We better go.” Nat said and I handed her my keys. “We still haven't gone car shopping.”

“Do you have any idea what you want?” I asked and she shook her head. “You can browse some makes and models while I set up the new equipment.”

Nat nodded and Crystal waved as they left the apartment.

“You really are new old friends.” Susan said and took the towel off of her head. She finished drying her hair and brushed it out.

“Yeah, almost from the first moment we met.” I said and held my hand out for the brush. “We joke and carry on as if we've known each other since we were kids.”

Susan gave it to me and turned around to let me brush the back of her hair. I made quick work of it and handed the brush back. She gave me a quick kiss as thanks and then she went to the kitchen table and packed up her college things. There was a knock on the door just as she finished packing her bag and I went to the door and opened it.

Kathy caught her breath when she saw me. “Damon.”

“Good morning, Kathy.” I said and waved her inside. She hesitated for a few seconds and then slowly walked inside past me.

“I just have to grab my phone.” Susan said and hung the bag on her shoulder and walked across the living room to the Murphy bed.

“I still can't believe you're sleeping on that thing inside a penthouse apartment.” Kathy waved at the bed.

“It's pretty comfortable, actually.” Susan said and lifted the end of it. The bed flipped right up and slid into the cabinet with barely a thump. “Of course, a certain someone tired me out first.”

“I wasn't the one that almost threw their back out.” I countered and gave her a kiss. “Have fun crunching numbers and making analysises... no, analysi? What's the plural of analysis?”

“I think it's just analysis.” Susan said and gave my chest a quick caress. “See you later.”

I gave her another kiss and walked the two of them over to the door. “Don't be surprised if this place changes a little when you come back this afternoon.”

“You better not set up industrial equipment in the living room! I sleep here!” Susan fake gasped and then she laughed. “I'm just kidding. You can do whatever you want and I'll deal with it if I have to.”

That made me chuckle. “I'm not that insensitive of others, my dear. See you later.”

Susan gave me another kiss and she left with Kathy.

I had about half an hour before Nat came back, which meant I only had a short amount of time to make it look like I cut a door into the wall. I worked in construction, so I knew what it would look like when I did that and knew where to look for the materials I needed. I went downstairs and looked into the large dumpsters for the building. They hadn't been emptied yet and I found the one with the remains of what used to be Diane's apartment in it.

I grabbed a few pieces of drywall and scrap door molding, which had to be replaced in that apartment, and I went back upstairs. I went to the spot with the sliding wall and cancelled the concealing spell, then opened the wall and quickly made it look like I had just cut the doorway. I put out the appropriate tools needed and even crumpled some of the drywall up and sprinkled it in spots for authenticity and wiped it on my jeans.

I stepped inside the large room and stored the few pieces of equipment and the tables that I had left inside, including the small forge, and the place was now completely bare. It was perfect and I stepped back out and popped the hinges off the door and set it aside, as if I was just going to mount it. I finished just in time, because Nat opened the door and gasped when she saw what I was doing.

“What the hell, Damon! You can't just... you... is that another room?” Nat asked, her curiosity about what it revealed had overridden her indignation that I would cut into the structure of a building.

“Yes, and before you keep freaking out about it, my old construction company redid the whole building before I moved in.” I said as an explanation. “I was a single guy and I had this huge open space and had no idea what to do with it all, so I cut it off and made a normal sized apartment in the remaining space.”

Nat peered inside as I mounted the door back onto the hinges. “You knew this was here the whole time and didn't say anything?”

I chuckled. “The knowledge wouldn't help you at all, would it? Plus, you just started living here. I didn't think that the huge apartment I already had wasn't going to be enough for me. I really didn't.”

Nat laughed and it echoed in the space. “Okay, this place needs some things, like paint on the walls and...”

I let her ramble on about what she needed to do to make it a nice work space and I stood there with crossed arms until she was done. “Is that all? Are you sure?”

Nat gave me a stern look and saw my teasing smile. “You've already got the tables and things we need, don't you?”

“Uh huh.” I said and popped them into place. “I also have my enchanting equipment and the small forge I use.” I put them back onto the workbench, as well as the large enchanted steel plate. “We can set up the new equipment over there.” I pointed to the far side of the room. “It's the farthest point away from the forge's heat, assuming you need that for your painting and photo transfers and things.”

“I still want to do what I said.” Nat said as I started setting out all of the things we bought.

“I know having a completely untapped space is driving you nuts, so when we come back from our weekend trip, I'll leave you in here completely alone for a couple days and I'll store everything again.”

Nat gave me a huge teeth baring smile. “It's a deal!”

“I didn't really have a choice.” I said and used a thumb to point out through the still open door. “Go browse some cars while I figure out how to set all this crap up properly.”

Nat snorted a laugh and put a hand on my arm. “I'd rather help you struggle, since I'll be using most of this crap myself.”

“Hey, you asked for this.” I said and opened the first cardboard box with the heat transfer machine. I passed her the inch thick manual. “Have fun figuring that out.”

“Bastard.” Nat laughed and I started unpacking it as she read up on the instructions and told me how to assemble the thing.

We spent the better part of the entire morning setting up and calibrating the equipment, that was a hell of a lot harder than it should have been. I had assumed, quite wrongly, that buying 'complete' equipment was better for a quick startup. Neither Nat nor I realized that nearly everything needed to be assembled and also taken apart for regular cleaning and maintenance.

We took a break for lunch and went out to eat, grabbed food for everyone for supper as well, then went back home to work. We had several hours before we had to pick Crystal up and we worked the entire time. We struggled at first, as we tried to figure out what to do first, then what order to do them in, and how we were going to handle the different kinds of pendants we needed to make.

When we were done, we had fifty pendants completed. Ten were hand painted by Nat and they were the first ones we did, twenty were left blank for heat transfers of other pictures and were the easiest to set up, and twenty were heat pressed with the picture Nat had made previously and we printed off. They and the painted ones were sealed with the thin protective layer and looked nice and glossy.

“I can't believe that all worked.” Nat said as she looked at the expensive velvet cases that I had bought from Cherise at the jewellery store to display them.

“We're just getting started.” I said and put an arm over her shoulder. “We better shower and change to go get Crystal.”

Nat nodded and we left the room. I closed and locked the door, just in case, then we washed and changed before leaving the apartment. Now that we had the process down to be so efficient, we would be able to produce a lot of pendants every day, even during the limited time we had while Crystal was in school.

That was perfect, because I had learned my lesson and I was never going to give up spending as much time with my new family as I could.