Chapter 5 #3
Calder let himself out, and as Adam brushed his teeth and got ready for bed, he tried not to let himself think thoughts that were too wild.
Yeah, things had gone completely wrong for his parents, and he didn’t even want to think about what had happened to Aunt Susan.
But Adam wasn’t talking about a familiar bond.
He didn’t have to worry about that. For the first time, it really felt like there was an alternative, something other than unhappiness or loneliness.
Thanks to Calder, Adam had a chance when he’d previously been resigned that would never happen.
Adam was busier than ever between his extra-long hours and trying to make time for Calder.
He was also happier than ever. As much as he resented Valentine’s Day for the time it was taking away from Calder, he was a little closer than he’d ever been to understanding why people liked a day dedicated to love and romance.
His previous relationships had clearly not had the…
the investment or the interest that made him want to give someone cake and cookies and flowers and chocolate and…
Yeah, Adam probably needed to get a grip.
And the good thing about being a baker was that he could give Calder those things every day of the year.
He didn’t have to concentrate on one holiday where he’d been working flat-out and busy making food for others.
(But there was still that little bit of him that definitely wanted to do something special for Calder.
Because it was a day where love was commemorated, and it suddenly seemed important to commemorate it with Calder.)
But Calder had accepted everything about Adam, including how busy he was around Valentine’s Day, and Adam knew without asking that Calder would prefer that Adam had one less task on his plate and that he gave Calder a cake the next day or the next week or the next month.
And Adam was definitely ready to do that.
It would give him time to plan and experiment and come up with something especially delicious.
Because there was no doubt that Calder deserved all the best things.
It was still a lot, though, to the point that Adam was running even later than he’d expected in his long day.
It was more than a week to Valentine’s Day, but it was looming ominously.
He was speeding home at a brisk walk because the wait for a ride share had seemed too long, and at least if he was walking, he was doing something.
Because Calder was going to be waiting for him—Adam had already texted six times when he kept being delayed and then when he finally got away.
Despite the worries that Adam still found hard to shake, Calder had been as calm and understanding as he always was.
Adam still didn’t want to keep him waiting longer than he had to—not least because he wanted to see him.
Jogging or running were not good ideas for Adam in general, but power walking wasn’t so bad.
He just needed to watch where he was putting his feet, where all the people were, and if there were any obstacles around him, and it was usually fine.
An unbreakable charm didn’t work on people, unfortunately, but he’d mastered a variety of low-level charms that could mend scrapes and bruises.
He had improved since childhood and didn’t break as many bones anymore, thank goodness.
It seemed worth a bit of risk to get to spend more time with Calder. He was definitely getting spoiled as he grew so used to the man being in his life. He wanted to spend every moment with him, and he wondered if it was too early to start talking about moving in together.
It was definitely too early. Wasn’t it? They hadn’t known each other very long, and Adam had only admitted they were dating a few days ago.
It was ludicrous, and yet… everything in Adam told him it was the right thing to do.
He could only imagine how his father would react.
But Adam was being sensible about this in so many ways, really he was.
He’d given the man time to get to know him, to see how clumsy he was.
He was only a few blocks from home now, and he increased his pace.
While he’d always seen his clumsiness wear on people over time, it wasn’t universally true.
Simon, Maggie, Evie, and Joseph saw him nearly every day and had learned to cope with him as he was.
His dad accepted him as he was. So it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility that Calder would, too.
As foreign as it was, Calder filled Adam with hope in so many ways, and that buoyed him even through the exhaustion of Valentine’s Day prep.
Unfortunately, it didn’t help with his focus, which he didn’t realize until the car horn blared and he froze, halfway through the street, not having noticed the light change. The car bore down on him, and he couldn’t move, couldn’t—
The world blurred, and the car sped by with the driver leaning on the horn. Adam was gasping for breath, shaky and confused, and it took him a long time to realize that he was wrapped in… tentacles?
They were dark gray on top, lighter gray on the underside, which was also ringed with suckers. They couldn’t be anything but tentacles. But that meant—
“It’s all right. You’re all right, Adam.”
Adam looked up into Calder’s face. He stumbled away from him, senses reeling, and the…
tentacles—there was really no other word for them—let him go with what felt like reluctance.
And then it was just Calder standing there, except he had tentacles sprouting from his upper body, three on either side, two longer than the others, so that he had a total of ten limbs when he should only have four.
They’d come through his shirt without his shirt being damaged. Because magic was weird. And if Adam concentrated on that, he didn’t have to think about the fact that—
“You’re a shifter,” he said numbly.
The tentacles recoiled a little. Calder’s face could have been carved from marble. “Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me!” Adam accused.
“No,” Calder agreed.
Adam’s chest was heaving. He took a step away and stumbled. Calder reached for him, and Adam yanked away.
“Don’t touch me!”
Calder’s face went even more expressionless. “Adam—”
“Don’t—I can’t—I have to go.”
And this time, Calder let Adam push past him and rush up to his apartment. He didn’t stop moving until he’d locked the door behind himself, and then he leaned back against the wood and slid to the floor, pulling his knees up to his chest.
A shifter. And Adam had been envisioning a future where they could be together.
His phone buzzed, and he yanked it out of his pocket and switched it off. He couldn’t deal with anything right now.
What was he going to do?
As soon as Simon caught sight of him the next morning, he gaped.
“Gods and goddesses, what happened to you?”
“Didn’t sleep well,” Adam mumbled.
He had scarcely slept at all, and he’d spent all morning dropping ingredients and burning baked goods.
Simon plucked the bowl out of his hands, set it on the counter, and turned Adam to face him. He put his hands on Adam’s shoulders and stared him down despite the fact that he was a good four inches shorter than Adam was.
“Nope. What’s going on?”
Adam huffed a breath, but the words spilled out. He needed to tell someone. “Calder lied to me.”
Simon’s eyes grew huge and then narrowed sharply. “What did he do? Does he already have a partner? Is he bonded? If you bake it, I’m sure I can poison a cake—”
Adam let out a sharp crack of laughter that didn’t sound quite right.
“No, no, nothing like that. He’s not seeing anyone else. He’s a shifter.”
“And?”
“I can’t be with a shifter!” Adam practically wailed.
Simon blinked at him. “Why not?”
Adam spluttered. “Because I can’t!” He hadn’t ever had to explain this before. His father had been there with him, and Adam hadn’t trusted anyone else enough to explain. He didn’t want to explain now. Swallowing, he said, “Not after what happened with my mom and my aunt!”
Simon’s expression softened a little, but there was still some sharpness there. “I’m sorry if shifters hurt you and your family, but let me ask you this: if witches had done whatever shifters did to your family, would you be avoiding all witches?”
Hotly, Adam started, “No, of course not—”
He was brought up short. Of course he wouldn’t, because that would be ludicrous. That would be prejudiced, and Adam wasn’t prejudiced. He’d just grown up hearing about how shifters were to blame for what had happened to his mom and Aunt Susan… and he hadn’t really thought about it.
“Shit,” he said, shoulders slumping.
“Are your mom and your aunt why you didn’t want to get a familiar or bond?” Simon asked more gently.
“Yeah.”
“But were you maybe thinking about a future with Calder?”
“Yeah.”
“And then you found out he was a shifter and flipped out?”
Adam hunched lower. “Yeah.”
They talked for a while longer, and Adam realized how much he’d let the past influence what had happened with Calder, and how he’d judged the man based on things that had nothing to do with him. He felt worse and worse the more they talked.
Eventually, Simon patted his shoulder, saying, “We can fix this.”
Could they? Calder had been nothing but accepting of everything about Adam, and Adam had failed at the first test.