Chapter 7 Adam #2
As they snuggled up in bed together with Calder’s tentacles wrapped around him, Adam mumbled, “You’re the best. I love you.”
He fell asleep even as he felt lips press softly against the back of his neck.
“I love you, too.”
Sunday was a much more reasonable day at Divine Confections.
They were still open, because despite all of Adam’s complaining about the labeling of one day as the day of love and candy, enough people forgot or weren’t available on the 14th that they were still playing catch-up on the 15th.
They had a minor discount on a few of their sweets, though Adam didn’t really do day-olds.
If there were leftovers, he put a stasis charm on them!
Maggie made sure they all got out at a reasonable time.
“I could really have used some help,” Adam said, despite having not intended to bring it up yet.
She patted him on the shoulder. “We can definitely look into it in the spring and come up with a better plan now that you have something better to do.”
On the cusp of protesting, Adam realized that he had been grateful for all the extra work in the past. It had filled his time, and it was something he loved. But now everything was different.
Well, he still loved the baking. But also… Calder.
“Thanks, Maggie.”
Calder escorted him home again, something that Adam was fast becoming addicted to.
Adam had thought they might do more, but Calder insisted that they just cuddle and have an early night. Truthfully, Adam was still exhausted.
“Besides,” Calder said, pressing a soft kiss to his lips, “I’ve got plans for you tomorrow.”
Adam couldn’t wait!
And despite the fact that he’d long-ago trained his body to expect its 3:30 am wake-up call, he was apparently tired enough to sleep in all the way until eight.
Calder brought him breakfast in bed, because he was amazing.
(Now that he’d survived Valentine’s Day, Adam was going to need to up his game and take better care of Calder.
It wasn’t fair that all of this fell on Calder, although he always said he was very happy to do it.)
Adam thought maybe they were going to get to play around in bed after breakfast, but Calder smacked a kiss onto his lips and then chivvied him out of bed. Apparently, they had somewhere to be. As always, Calder told him to dress comfortably, in this case for being outside.
Adam followed Calder down to the Port of Long Beach, where it turned out they were taking a harbor boat tour so that they could see, amongst other things, the Angel’s Gate Lighthouse.
Calder made sure Adam climbed smoothly onto the tour boat, and he kept his arm wrapped around Adam’s waist once they picked a side of the boat to lean against.
“Do you get seasick?” Calder asked once the boat was underway. “I should have asked you that before.”
The water was a bit choppy, though the waves weren’t terrible in the harbor. Adam could see how they got much larger past the breakwater.
“I think I’m okay.”
Truthfully, Adam hadn’t been on boats very often.
Angel’s Gate Lighthouse was set on a concrete pad at the end of the breakwater, tall but somehow squat against the vastness of the ocean beyond it. The breakwater was long and skinny and led to Cabrillo Beach Pier and Jetty.
The lighthouse was white with a distinctive black top and vertical black stripes.
From land, the closest you could get to the lighthouse was the pier.
The breakwater was too dangerous to walk on, which was entirely obvious from the water crashing over it now.
They could get much closer on the boat, though even approaching the entrance to the harbor made the boat rock that much more in the waves.
A few people hurried inside looking a little green.
Calder looked like he was in his element, easily braced against the movement of the deck.
Adam, thankfully, didn’t feel queasy, and he felt completely safe in Calder’s arms.
The tour guide was telling them facts about the lighthouse and the harbor, but Calder was sharing his own stories in a low voice next to Adam. Apparently, in 1939, the lighthouse had withstood a five-day storm that had absolutely battered it but left it only slightly less upright.
“You should have seen those waves,” Calder told him with a chuckle. “They were spectacular. Of course, a little boat like this would never have survived.”
“Hold on,” Adam said, confused.
Calder made it sound like he’d been there.
Shifters didn’t always look their age by normal people standards.
Even witches lived longer than normal people, though shifters could have a good seventy years on them.
It hadn’t occurred to him to ask Calder how old he was.
Was he approaching a century and past shifter middle-age?
It didn’t matter, not really. While Adam sometimes felt like his clumsiness meant he was trapped in witch adolescence no matter what age he was, he was actually in his thirties.
And he didn’t suppose knowing that Calder had lived even longer than he thought made any difference.
The man seemed, inexplicably, to want him, and that was more than enough for Adam.
But it did make him realize that there was a lot more he needed to learn about Calder.
And then a high-pitched scream pierced the air, thin against the wind that was helping create those waves that were giving them this choppy ride.
Calder’s gaze snapped out to the ocean, and Adam looked, too.
On the breakwater, waves smashed into a cluster of a half dozen small human forms and swept them mercilessly into the ocean.
With a small splash—way smaller than Adam would have thought for a man of his size—Calder was gone. Adam blinked a few times, verifying that the man wasn’t standing next to him but had indeed dived into the ocean in the middle of February.
His heart was hammering, and there was a ringing sound in his ears.
Squid, Adam reminded himself. He was a squid.
Adam was really regretting now that he hadn’t suggested sooner that he get to see Calder in his natural form.
His preliminary research had informed him that squid came in vastly differing sizes, from less than an inch to the giant and colossal squid that could be nearly forty feet long.
Thanks to magic, conservation of mass wasn’t a thing for shifters.
Although it was unlikely that Calder was tiny, what were the chances that he was one of the really big ones?
Even if he was, could he rescue multiple people? Adam had heard of the risk that drowning victims would drown their rescuer because they were so panicked. How could Calder possibly save them all?
The water churned around the breakwater, frothing wildly even on the land side. And then—then—
Ho-ly shit.
Adam clapped a hand to his mouth to prevent a hysterical giggle from escaping. He definitely didn’t need to worry that Calder was a tiny squid.
A massive head had broken the surface of the ocean, water cascading everywhere as enormous tentacles heaved out of the water, each wrapped around a child. He wasn’t a giant or colossal squid.
Calder was a kraken.