Chapter 19
19
Nicole
T he buzzing sound of the alarm pierced my sleep. I had been dreaming, hadn’t I? It was an interesting dream. Fun, sweet, but also a little scary…
With my eyes still closed, I searched with my hand on the nightstand for my phone, then shut the annoying alarm off.
I had an hour to get ready and make it to the studio for the final round of the cake decorating challenge.
And then, I remembered…
I sat up in bed, blankly staring at the wall in my hotel room.
Gul, his house, and Purgatory were all gone.
The duck with the fancy collar was gone too.
And so was Invi.
I was back in my world, just like I had wanted. Despite losing the race, Invi had still found a way to fulfill his promise to me. I returned early enough to make it to the challenge on time. I didn’t let Jess down. Nothing was ruined. We still had our chance.
Yet I got out of bed with a heavy heart.
I got dressed and made my way through the gray, late-autumn morning to the TV studio, then walked backstage where Jess already waited for me.
“Have you seen Geoff?” she asked in lieu of greeting.
“No. Why? He isn’t here?”
“No,” she groaned in distress. “I can’t find him, and I can’t get hold of him. He isn’t answering his phone.”
“Maybe he’s just running late?”
“Without even a call to warn us?” She threw her hands up in the air. “Ughh, I knew I shouldn’t have hired him. He’s way overqualified for this job. But he was so funny and charming. We clicked so well, and I thought…” She just stood there, dropping her shoulders in disappointment. “I thought it’d be a joy to work with someone like him.”
“I’m sure there is an explanation. Maybe he just slept in, forgot his phone, and is on the way here already?” I made up excuses for Geoff at lightning speed for no reason other than to comfort Jess.
“But we have no time to wait for him.” She sighed. “And the team needs to have three people or we’ll be disqualified.”
“Jess.” Corinne, one of the challenge organizers rushed to us. “I have your third member registered, I just need your signature to confirm the replacement.” She thrust her tablet to Jess for an electronic signature.
“What replacement?” Jess blinked at her in confusion.
Her mouth fell open as she stared at the man walking toward us.
My breath hitched, and my heart leaped so high, I feared it’d choke me.
“Morning, Jessica,” Invi greeted her while giving me the most adoring smile.
I froze as if struck by lightning. I’d been afraid to hope to see him again. But there he was, conveniently shaped and sized like a human man again. Dressed in a pair of black dress pants, a button-down shirt, and an olive-green, impeccably tailored leather jacket. With his fancy tousled hair style and meticulously trimmed facial hair, he looked more handsome than ever, and suddenly, I didn’t know what to do.
Since chronologically, it’d been only a few hours since he had first approached me in the club last night, did it mean we should be acting like practically strangers? Was I supposed to greet him as a mere acquaintance?
Thankfully, Invi solved the dilemma for me.
Not breaking our eye contact, he sauntered closer.
“My dearest Nicole,” he murmured, with the brightest, happiest grin before cupping my face and giving me a long, tender kiss.
And just like that, all awkwardness melted away. The memories rushed in instead—the time we had spent together and the intimacy we had built. It didn’t matter where it happened or what shape he was in. He was Invi. And he was mine.
“Did you steal the ring again?” I asked between his kisses, sinking my fingers into his very human hair on the back of his head.
“No. Didn’t need to. Avar was in a generous mood when he heard about you.”
“Um…” Jess cleared her throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but we’re running out of time here.”
Invi turned to her but kept me at his side in a one-armed hug.
“Invi? Is it?” Jess offered him a hand to shake, but he brought it to his lips for a chaise, old-fashioned kiss.
“It’s nice to see you again, Jessica,” he said politely.
“Do you know anything about cake decorating?” she asked.
“I’m very good with pastries and other desserts. I also practiced working with fondant before coming here.”
“You did, really?” I smiled.
He winked at me. “You know I can learn and perfect any skill, especially if faced with competition.”
“Well.” Jess sighed, running a hand over her blonde hair that was swept up into a high bun this morning. “We don’t really have a choice. You’re in.” She gestured to Corinne for the tablet, then quickly scribbled her signature to formally accept Invi on our team.
While we donned our coats and aprons and before the cameras started rolling, Jess quickly explained the concept of our cake design to Invi.
“The theme of the challenge is Make Believe or Escape From Reality . So, we’re making a fairytale princess castle with a moat and a rose garden. We’re only allowed to have three layers of cake, but we have a wafer tower. That’s where the princess is going—on the balcony close to the top of the tower.”
“I’d like to put a swan in the moat,” I added. “But that’s only if we have any time left. Usually, the time is pretty tight in these contests. That’s actually the most stressful part about this whole thing,” I admitted. “I hate the rush and the tension even more than losing.”
“I’ve learned recently,” Invi said, “that there is more than one way to win. Still, you shouldn’t go into a competition thinking only about losing.” He flashed us one of his swoon-worthy smiles. “Let’s win this thing.”
The show started. The cameras were on. The host and the judges moved between our and Aidan’s work areas.
Focusing on our cake, I couldn’t help stealing glances at Aidan’s worktable. His team’s design quickly shaped up, and it was stunning. Their Escape From Reality concept had a futuristic flair, with the cityscape of tall skyscrapers and lights depicted through neon fondant and pulled-sugar details.
The design was sleek and unique. The judges seemed intrigued, clicking their tongues and spending quite a bit of time on analyzing the details.
“Fuck,” Jess cursed under her breath, standing over an open box with the parts of the cake we were allowed to bring to the show. “One of the wafer tubes for the tower is cracked. We can’t use it.” She gently lifted the other one out of the box. “The spare one survived, but we have to get it right from the first try. No do-overs if we mess up.”
There was no time to mess up, anyway. But we had practiced it before and knew what to do. As Jess carefully positioned the tower in the right place with Invi helping her, I rolled out and stamped the white fondant. Together, we covered the tower with the fondant to be painted with pink and gold bricks.
I held my breath as Jess carefully cut an opening for the balcony door in the tower. At that moment, one of the camera crew tripped over a cable and bumped into Jess from behind.
“Watch out!” I screamed a belated warning.
Invi caught the crewman under his arm, stopping him from falling into our cake, but Jess’s arm jerked. Her knife slipped, cutting a chunk out of the cake underneath the tower. The delicate wafer structure cracked in the middle. Its top part crashed, taking some of our carefully constructed castle with it.
With a strangled cry of utter despair, Jess threw her hands up into the air and froze.
I stared at our ruined cake in disbelief, hoping it was all just in my head and the cake was still fine somehow.
“I’m sorry,” the crewman mumbled. “I’m so, so sorry, guys.”
It felt like every sound and all activity in the room was suddenly suspended. The show host rushed to us, drawn to the disaster like a shark to a sinking boat.
“It looks like our team here experienced a devastating setback,” he crooned with glee, frantically gesturing for the cameras to zoom in on our misfortune. “Unbelievable, simply unbelievable,” he kept repeating in a manufactured anguish. “Will they ever be able to recover?” He took a dramatic pause, before shouting with an increased enthusiasm, “Stay tuned after this commercial break!”
A signal sounded, announcing the break and a brief time off cameras for us. All three judges joined the host at our counter, wondering if we were even planning to proceed.
From across the room, Aidan raised a bushy eyebrow under his pretentious, crisp-white chef hat. Amusement mixed with pity in his expression, despite his best efforts to school it into something more sympathetic for the cameras. Then he must have realized that our failure meant he almost certainly won the challenge, and glee spread on his face unconstrained.
“We’re fucked,” Jess exhaled, staring blankly at our ruined creation.
“We can fix it,” Invi suggested optimistically. “How badly is the spare wafer tube damaged? Can we hold it together with the fondant? Or glue it with the butter cream? Then, we can take off the top cake layer. The cake will be a little smaller, but?—”
“It’s no use.” Jess shook her head, devastated. “A smaller, patched up cake will never win the challenge. We lost, no matter what we do now. I’m so sorry, guys,” she sniffled. “It’s all my fault. The cake is ruined.”
“Ruined? Or…” I scratched behind my ear, slowly walking around the table with the cake.
Ruins didn’t always mean failure. More often than not, they had their own kind of beauty. Even such an evil entity like a mortal sin had a good side. If envy could be turned into a healthy motivation for self-improvement, maybe our cake could still be turned into a winning design too?
“What if we don’t fix it?” I asked, as new possibilities emerged to me from the wreckage of the cake.
“Do you want to give up?” the host asked, shoving the microphone in Jess’s face.
She sighed, hugging herself. “Might as well.”
“We can’t just give up,” Invi protested. “Now without at least trying.”
“Trying for what?” Jess asked uncertainly.
“For something new.” I carefully removed some of the fallen pieces of the tower, leaving a few on the cake, like crumbled mortar. “We’ll change the design. Look.” I grabbed the knife from Jess and cut deeper the gorge in the damaged layer, turning it from the neatly landscaped castle grounds into something that could be decorated like a crevasse in a pile of rubble overgrown with ivy and shrubs. “It’s no longer a princess’s castle, but the haunted ruins of it.”
“Haunted?” Jess scrunched her brow with a skeptic expression.
“Very, very haunted,” I repeated in a deep, sinister voice. “Its crumbling walls are overgrown with ivy and moss. Instead of the rose bushes, there are weeping willows in the shadows, draped in cobwebs. And the moat…” I paused, thinking about what to do with all that painted fondant and caramelized sugar water we had already put in. Taking it out now would only waste precious time.
“It’s not a moat, but a swamp,” Invi announced brightly. “With duckweed and calla lilies. Black calla lilies,” he added, matching my foreboding voice from earlier. “The magical, sinister kind.”
“Because there is more than one way to escape reality ,” I concluded, raising a finger. “And fairy tales aren’t always pink or covered in glitter.”
“We’ll need to change the colors then.” Jess cupped her chin, looking more intrigued than devastated now.
“Most of these things can be just painted over, with green for moss and mold, or with gray and black for decay.”
“The princess can be the water nymph? Or the forest witch?” Jess had perked up.
Our combined enthusiasm for the new design was steadily growing now.
I hadn’t even noticed when we got back on air until the host bellowed into his microphone, “They’re not giving up, ladies and gentlemen! It looks like the team has come up with an idea to salvage their creation. But will it work? What will they do? How will it turn out at the end?”
I did my best to tune him out, focusing on bringing the new design to life.
“She’ll be a witch,” I determined, putting a long string of ivy into the princess’s hair. “ Or a swamp princess. ” I smiled, painting her pink skirts with streaks of black and green.
Jess was already busy with transforming the jagged edges of the broken tower into crumpled bricks and mortar. And Invi started rolling out tiny pieces of black fondant for the delicate funnels of calla lilies.
I hoped the judges would find our new design far more unique than the old one. After all, a haunted swamp didn’t appear on fancy cakes nearly as often as princess’ castles. But somehow, it didn’t even matter what everybody else thought about it at the moment. I felt inspired and eager to bring it to life. I even stopped stealing glances at Aidan’s cake, too absorbed into working on our own.
“Ten minutes left,” someone counted down the time.
“Is the witch going on the ruins of the tower?” Jess asked, holding our fully transformed princess.
“No.” I stopped her. “She should be by the water. She likes it there. I think water is where she gets her magical powers from.”
“Or,” Invi murmured. “She is the one who breathes life and magic into the entire place, including the swamp.”
His lips brushed by my temple, sending a warm flock of goosebumps down my arms.
“And what’s this?” Jess blinked her long eyelashes at the fondant figurine Invi placed on the glassy surface of our swamp covered in duckweed.
“A duck,” he announced proudly. “I know you wanted a swan,” he said to me apologetically. “But I’m much better at depicting ducks, as it turned out.”
“Do we need a duck?” Jess shook her head, hesitantly. “It doesn’t fit with our overall…” she waved her hand over the cake, “the dark, haunted, gothic kind of theme. Ducks are fun and whimsical. Cartoonish even.”
“Oh, they can be very sinister,” he disagreed. “Especially if you’re late to feed them, even when they’re ghost ducks that don’t need food.”
“ Ghost ducks?” Jess stared at him as if he completely lost his mind.
“Here.” I plucked a few feathers up on the duck’s head and wings, giving it a ruffled appearance, then blotted a couple of dark spots on its back. “It’s a zombie duck now. And it fits right in with our dark, sinister swamp.”
The chime announcing the end of the final round of the challenge rang over Invi’s deep laughter as he pulled me in for a kiss.
“Zombie duck,” he chuckled. “I love it.”
Jess shook her head again but left the zombie duck on the cake since we weren’t allowed to add or take anything after the signal.
Tension drained out of me, leaving me propped against Invi’s hard body.
“Well, for better or for worse, it’s over now,” I exhaled.
The judges were each given a slice of our and Aiden’s cakes. The crew quickly shooed us out of our work areas, for the judges to have full access to examine our creations.
We had some time to kill now, until the judges would have made their decision.
“Are you thirsty?” Invi asked Jess and me. “Can I bring you some water?”
Jess nodded. “Please.”
I didn’t even know where to get water in this place. But Invi sauntered off confidently, as a man on a mission who knew what he was doing.
Jess followed him with her eyes as did I.
“You guys are really into each other,” she noted. It wasn’t a question. We clearly made it pretty obvious.
Before I could reply, however, a loud “Babe!” sounded from the audience.
During the break, many people left their seats, trying to get closer to the cakes for a better look. From one of the top rows, a man jogged down the stairs in a confident swagger.
“Shaun.” Jess smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. The expression in them was troubled.
Maybe it wasn’t the best time for me to speak to her now. Maybe I should wait until after the challenge. But I couldn’t help the feeling that I shouldn’t have waited at all. I had kept silent for days to spare my friend’s feelings, but now, I couldn’t stand to keep the truth away from her any longer, not even for another moment, because lying by omission was still lying, even if it was done with the best intentions.
Before Shaun came close to hear us, before he got another chance to place his lying lips on my best friend’s mouth, I spoke up.
“Jess, he’s been cheating on you,” I blurted out the words that had been burning on my tongue ever since I’d found out about the cheating son of a bitch myself.
Her breath tripped, but she didn’t seem as shocked as I would’ve expected.
“Did you know?” I asked.
“Well…” She rubbed her throat as if trying to help her words pass through a lump lodged inside. “People talk. It doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“Not just any people, Jess.” I took her hand in mine, with her fingers feeling as cold as icicles. “I’m not repeating any rumors by someone else here, though there are many. But he propositioned to me last week.”
“You?” Tearing her eyes away from the lying asshole coming our way, she stared at me with a pained expression.
“He was shocked that a ‘fat, ugly chick’ like me turned down someone like him because he gets lots of “hot ones” whenever he wants. He also said he was confident I’d never tell you because I’m too kind and I love you too much to hurt you. Those were his exact words, Jess. And for a while, I was afraid to tell you because I didn’t want to upset you. But I think you’ll be hurt much, much worse if you stay with him. He’s bad news. And you deserve so much better.”
“Babe!” Shaun leaped from the bottom stair of the first row of seating and ran to us. “You look fantastic on TV. I told you, you were born for this. I bet there’ll be lots of offers coming our way now. We’ll be rich! Anyone who sees this ass?—”
He swung his hand to give her a slap on the rump, but she caught his wrist before his palm touched her body.
“We need to talk,” she said, visibly composed, but I could tell by the trembling of her fingers and the hard set of her jaw that she was hurting inside, and it was because of what I had said.
Doubt slithered into my chest, bringing along a bitter taste of regret.
Maybe I should’ve taken my time with this?
Maybe things would’ve still worked out between Jess and Shaun, somehow?
Maybe he could’ve changed?
“Talk about what, babe?” He seemed confused, batting his eyelashes at her innocently.
As she turned toward the glass doors out of the studio, however, he shed his innocent expression like a wolf would slip out of a sheep’s clothing. The glare he tossed my way was filled with hatred but also with a hint of surprise. He had honestly believed that I wouldn’t tell her.
Shaun had thought that my kindness was my weakness, that it would stop me from telling the truth to my friend. And now, I realized that my reluctance to be honest with her actually was making me the accomplice to his lies.
All my doubt disappeared, as did the regret. I was no longer sorry that I spoke up. I was glad I did. My only regret was that I hadn’t done it sooner.
“Nicole!” Geoff hurried to us from a side entrance for the crew. “I’m so sorry! Did I miss it?”
He looked devastated in more ways than one. His shirt wasn’t tucked in properly. His pants were missing a belt. And his bright orange hair hadn’t seen a brush or a comb today.
Invi arrived with two bottles of water for Jess and me. Spotting Geoff, he positioned himself between me and him.
“Are you alright?” I asked Geoff as he propped his hands on his knees, bending over to catch his breath.
“I tried…” he squeezed between the short, shallow gasps for air. “I tried to make it here this morning, but I…” He scraped a hand down his face, making me worry in earnest.
“Geoff, what happened?” I placed a hand on his shoulder.
With a low growl, Invi moved even closer, trying to wedge an arm between Geoff and me.
“Invi.” I brushed him off. “I need to find out what’s going on. We’re okay, Geoff. We found a temporary replacement. But where have you been?”
“I…” Geoff began again. “I was locked in a utility closet in the hotel.”
“Locked?” I struggled to understand. “Why?”
Geoff spread his arms wide. “I don’t know! I was returning to my room last night when some asshole shoved me in the closet from behind, then locked the door. I had nothing but a bathrobe on and no food or drink other than some ice and a bottle of sparkling wine…”
The events of the last night started to finally come together like pieces of some weird puzzle.
“Did you, by chance, knock on my door last night?” I asked.
“ Your door?” He moved his eyes from me to Invi, then back again. “Then… Are you…”
“Invi is my boyfriend, yes,” I confirmed to a very obvious delight of my mortal sin, whose lips stretched into a triumphant smile and whose cheeks warmed with giddy blush.
I smiled too. It was new to me to see a man so happy from just being called my boyfriend—new and nice.
“And Jess?” Geoff turned his head looking around. “Where is she?”
Of course, it all made sense now. Our red-headed Romeo here had mixed up the rooms and knocked on the wrong door last night. Though, he’d probably have just as little chance with Jess as he had with me at that hour.
“Jess is over there.” I gestured at my friend, who was pointing an accusing finger at the fuming Shaun behind the glass doors. “She’s talking to her boyfriend.”
“Oh, she has a boyfriend?” Geoff’s expression fell.
“I’m afraid not for long now,” I said, bringing a look of hope to his face. “But, Geoff, listen…” I placed a hand on his arm. “Even if she does break up, the last thing she’ll probably want is to jump into another relationship right away. Okay? You need to be patient.”
He worried his lip between his teeth. “A woman like her won’t stay single for long.”
“Single or not, Jess gets harassed a lot by men who hope to be her next boyfriend. Do you really care about her?”
“Do I?” His voice squeaked as if I asked whether he enjoyed breathing or wished to stay alive. “Nic, I’ve turned down job offers I would’ve killed for before I met Jess. But when she called to hire me, I didn’t hesitate. The best work interview I’ve had in my entire life was with her. We connected so well. It felt like I met my other half, you know? I’m usually intimidated by beautiful women and try to stay away from them. But with her…” He sighed, his gaze drifting to Jess across the room.
She seemed to be screaming at Shaun now, her face turning red and her arms gesturing wildly. Yet, a dreamy softness settled over Geoff’s features as he looked at her.
“It was so easy to talk to her,” he gushed. “I made her laugh, and she was so quick at replying to all my jokes. I haven’t met anyone so sharp and witty before, yet so easy-going and down-to-earth too.”
Jess flicked her wrist in the air, as if literally casting Shaun into oblivion, before turning her back to him and returning to the studio room. The glass door shut into Shaun’s face. He made a move to follow Jess, but then just spat out some curse words at her back, stomped his foot, and left.
Instead of coming to us, Jess marched around the room, with her eyebrows pinched together, and her mouth set into a firm line.
“She’s upset.” A deep concern etched on Geoff’s face. “I should go to her.”
I made a move to stop him. Jess obviously was trying to calm her nerves a little before returning to us and eventually facing the cameras again. But then I thought about something.
“You said you know how to make her laugh?” I asked Geoff.
He grinned confidently. “Yes, I do.”
“Then go.” I nodded. “Cheer her up, please.”
“She asked for water.” Invi handed him one of the bottles.
“And, Geoff…” I touched his arm again. “Just keep in mind that she probably doesn’t want another boyfriend right now. She could really use a friend, though. Okay? Could you be her friend? Can you give her more than a Champagne fueled night in a hotel room?”
A blush spread over his face, connecting the gazillion freckles on his neck and chin.
“I… Knocking on hotel doors is not something I usually do. But they say women like confidence, right? So, I figured that Jessica was worth everything, even my potential humiliation if she sent me away.”
“Well, she probably needs you more now than she did last night.” I gestured at Jessica on her way to complete the second circle around the room.
Geoff jogged to her. At the sight of him approaching, the wrinkle between her eyebrows smoothed out, and I exhaled with relief. Geoff gave her the bottle of water, accompanied by the world’s most awkward bow. Jess giggled, hiding her mouth behind her hand like a schoolgirl.
“What do you know,” I marveled. “I think she really likes him.”
“Does that make you happy?” Invi tilted his head to see my face.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I bet our freaking cake that it was you who locked poor Geoff in the closet.”
His right eyebrow lifted in the expression that said the Sin of Envy harbored no regrets about dealing with Geoff as he saw fit.
I shook my head. “Is that the way you deal with competition? By locking people in closets?”
“Or basements.” He shrugged. “Whatever works to keep them away from you.”
“Invi.” I gave him a stern look.
“My dearest Nicole.” He grinned, unrepentant. “Do you know that envy,” he lifted a hand palm up, as if presenting me with something, “and jealousy,” he lifted his other hand in the same manner, “are very close?” He brought both hands together, steepling his fingers. “And I embody them both, so…” He spread his arms aside in a disarming gesture, and I was deep enough in love with him already to find it charming.
“Well, it’s a good thing that when it comes to me, there is no competition. I never had many men vying for my attention. So, you can ease your worries. And please, make sure to ask questions before locking up sins or people.”
“I’ll try,” he promised with that impish smile of his.
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. It really was a good thing that men weren’t falling for me at the first sight.
“How about trust, Invi?” I peered at him. “For example, you’re arguably the most attractive man in this building, if not in the entire city, but I’m not going to shove every woman who bats her eyelashes at you into a closet, because it’s not about other women. When you said you wanted me and only me, I believed you. I trust you. Because I love you.”
His eyes opened wide. His breath halted. His mouth parted, and…
The signal sounded, announcing that the show was going on air again.
The judges gathered both teams by the cakes and stretched the announcement of the winner for as long as could possibly be accepted by the audience before they’d rebel.
“And the winning cake is…” the head judge finally declared, “The Haunted Ruins!”
“Aaaah,” Jess screamed as if her soul was leaving her body from happiness.
Her knees buckled, and Geoff grabbed her, stopping her from collapsing to the floor.
“We won?” I gasped, afraid to believe.
“We sure did,” Invi said softly in satisfaction clearly too profound to be expressed loudly. “Though I still think the cake should’ve been called The Swamp Princess.” He gave me a devoted smile.
Happiness burst out of me.
“We won!” I jumped up to wrap my arms around his neck, and he caught me, spinning me in a circle of happy giggles.
He buried his face in my neck.
“I love you, my darling,” he murmured against my skin. “I love you so much, sometimes I fear my chest may explode from this feeling.”
“Invi…” I leaned back to see his face, but he quickly caught my mouth in a kiss, and I closed my eyes, savoring the sensation.
“I love you more than I can tell…more than I could ever explain…more than anything,” he said softly, covering my face with light, tender kisses.
My heart sang, purring like a cat in the warm rays of Invi’s caress and affection.
The sound of someone clearing their throat popped our bubble. I unlinked my arms, sliding down his tall body back to my feet.
Jess stared at us, as did the entire audience in the room and, judging by at least two cameras aimed at our faces, probably a few million TV viewers all across the country.
“Wow!” the host exclaimed. “The winning team is off to a wild celebration already, ladies and gentlemen.”
Goeff retorted with a few witty comments, and Jess deftly diverted everyone’s attention away from us, allowing me to run a hand down my mussed hair and straighten my blouse, all the while smiling in the spotlight like a woman with no regrets.
“So,” Jess turned back to us after the cameras had moved on to Aiden to properly document every drop of his bitterness and disappointment. “This isn’t going to be a one-night thing between you two, is it?” she asked me, with a gesture at Invi.
“No,” I admitted. “It is much bigger than that.”
She looked at me closely.
“You really like him?” she asked with a voice softer than her gaze. “Is he here to stay?”
I loved him.
But considering that as far as Jess knew, I’d only met Invi a few hours ago, I figured professing my love for him would probably raise concerns and even suspicions on her part.
So, I simply nodded. “I do. And yes, he’ll be around.”
We hadn’t figured out yet how exactly we could be together. But Invi had promised me back in the maze that he’d never leave me, and he’d proven already that he was the man of his word.
Jess drew in a long breath.
“Well then…” She smiled, slapping Invi on his upper arm. “Welcome to the family.”
Because good friends became a family. And now, Invi was one of us too.