Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Business as Usual
Late one summer afternoon, three road-weary figures in want of a real bath and a mule in want of some new handlers rounded a bend in the wide dirt path that cut through Linden, coming within sight of a particular slightly crooked cottage—its roof in need of patching—and its sprawling garden—in need of some thoughtful weeding—in time to catch a show from the setting sun, yellow orange as the egg yolks they had enjoyed for breakfast thanks to Mal helping himself to someone’s coop.
After all, what didn’t stay had never really belonged to them in the first place.
Just like the treasure he had delivered to his former employers before daybreak on the last day of his deadline while his sleep-deprived companions hid around the corner outside, weary from the breakneck journey home.
Kage’s grin was sharper and toothier than Mal’s own as he inventoried the spoils in the cellar—down to the gleaming silver vambraces and the crown of lupines and marigolds.
Mal sure was going to miss the crowns, but he wouldn’t miss smelling the inside of Served With Love or working for his enemies. And he wouldn’t miss worrying about someone plotting another attack on Griff. On his sweet boyfriend with the kohl-lined green eyes that haunted him in the best way.
He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve, grateful for his choppy new haircut as Griff glanced over at him from atop the mule, that black scarf still tied around his neck despite the rising warmth of the day.
This was it. Just like he had promised, Griff had come home with him.
From the porch, a very old gray-brown dog who might have once had some red in his fur cracked open a lazy eye to watch their approach and bellowed a greeting, long and low.
Before they could close the remaining distance, the door burst open.
Out ran a girl of about four in a pink summer dress, gold hair falling into her dark eyes, dirty bare feet slapping the worn boards.
Mags, his niece. She put a hand on Whiskey’s back—the dog was now standing, with some effort—and then bared her teeth in a wide wargish smile, growling louder than the hound as she raced down the steps.
She leaped neatly over the darting shape of a white cat that yowled at her as her foot grazed its tail, finally reaching the bottom and turning to call back into the house, “They’re home! ”
This brought the sound of a window creaking open—not from the cottage itself but rather from the house across the lane. The people who lived there had always been curious about the goings-on at Wynnie’s cottage. The kind of curious that meant they frequently called Liam to come change their locks.
Mal would make sure they used a different locksmith from now on.
After a quick dinner, Alys tucked her kids into bed while Vic did the dishes.
In their absence, Wynnie had left for Thrallkeld on Mal’s errand of revenge—a birthday present was how she’d described it to Vic—so she wasn’t around to hear the impressive tale of how he had left the Shadow Queen’s service just as she once did.
With the rest of the cottage suitably occupied for the evening, Mal helped Griff to his feet and led him to his old room, to his narrow bed. The same one he’d had since childhood.
“I already have the best pillows in Mayfair, and now they’re yours too,” he boasted, warm and familiar, hoping to put Griff at ease after so long away from this place.
“I’m all for a good pillow, but I don’t think we need the biggest bed this side of the mountains when I’d rather be right next to you anyway,” Griff observed slyly, sounding plenty comfortable already as Mal’s hand worked at undoing all his buttons.
“This one is plenty cozy. Structurally sound too,” he teased, rapping on the underside of the bed frame, “if you want my professional opinion.”
“A free consultation from Mister Foreman? Must be my lucky day.” Mal chuckled as he popped open the last of Griff’s buttons and pulled his pants off, tossing them into a far corner of the room where a pile of laundry from the Mire waited to be tackled by some enterprising soul that wasn’t him.
Tracing his fingers lightly over Mal’s bare shoulder, Griff asked, “Can you still see that stupid griffin statue from your room? You know the one.”
Mal cracked a sharp-toothed grin. “Sure can. Still close enough to piss on, if you’re motivated enough. I never did like that thing.”
Griff seemed to know a dare when he heard one, a good sign for their future.
Laughing at their own juvenile plan, they let the blankets fall away and climbed to their knees, which gave them just enough height to gaze fully out the window that overlooked the scraggly weeds and grasses of the backyard, currently blanketed in velvety night.
Taking himself in hand, Griff aimed at the stone head, whose perked ears were just visible peeking through a tangle of small yellow flowers.
But he’d barely started trying when Mal slipped a hand around him from behind too, guiding his stream closer to the griffin’s head until he found his mark, fingers teasing all the while.
“Remember,” Mal whispered against his neck, his breath hot and eager as he ran his thumb along Griff’s slit, “Rewards are for winners.”
And his boyfriend certainly seemed to feel like a winner as Mal began to stroke him to full hardness. They fell back into the blankets together as Mal kissed him, running a hand through his hair just the way he liked and praising, “You got that old thing so good.”
With that, he reached under the bed for the vial of oil he’d stashed there earlier when putting their packs in the room.
Then Griff rolled on top of him and kissed him, pulling a pillow over their heads to blot out the starry night and everything but the sounds of their breathing and the scent of each other so close in the dark.
“These are the best pillows, you’re right,” Griff said—far too loud to be romantic, and probably entertaining any curious ears within these thin walls, but sparing Mal from having to strain to hear as he kissed the other man’s throat and ground their hips together.
“But we’ll both sleep better if we test the structural integrity of this bed with two, just to be safe. ”
Mal groaned as Griff reached down between them to palm his hardening groin, but kept something of his usual boastful air as he reminded him, “You should know by now that I give the biggest tips.”
It’s possible Griff thought he meant the slick fingers that stroked their way gently between his cheeks and spent longer than usual preparing him, pushing past that ring of muscle with tender focus again and again until Griff begged for something bigger.
But later, when the whole bed was knocking rhythmically into the wall in time with Mal’s thrusts as he buried himself balls deep in Griff—apparently, doing such a good job that Griff was unabashedly drooling onto one of the best pillows in Mayfair—he tossed something into the air seconds before his own climax.
The silvers from the Mire.
They glittered in the air for a moment before raining down all around them amid groans and curses and laughter.
There was no need for blankets after that, with flushed skin kept warm by the tangle of their limbs.
Brushing a few coins off the bed, Griff leaned in to kiss the scar over Mal’s heart. It gave a strong kick in answer.
“You’re so good at … everything,” Mal murmured as he lazily trailed his fingers down Griff’s stomach until they came to rest between his legs, cupping him with a gentle familiarity. “I love you. And I love this too.”
“You’re going to get me going again,” Griff warned with an ambitious smile of his own. But after all they had demanded of their bodies over the past few days, it was apparently a dare for later.
“Welcome home, Griff,” Mal whispered as his eyelids grew heavy.
And he was pretty sure he heard Griff answer loud and sure as he drifted off, “Been there for a while now. No more bad dreams.”
The weeks of a long, golden summer tumbled one into another like frogs hopping along the banks of the creek, becoming a sweltering blur of days spent working or tadpole catching with Alys’s children and firefly-bright nights with Griff where they made plenty of their own heat, the kind a window flung fully open couldn’t even touch.
True to his word, Mal continued with his other businesses as usual, though now sans any late nights at the tea shop—only the occasional overlong call at the widow’s place.
Griff was on leave from his construction job yet again as he rested his leg and shoulder and picked at his surviving lute, sometimes doing odd repairs around the cottage that Wynnie and Vic had neglected.
The lute wasn’t even that annoying. At least, not in Griff’s hands.
Sometimes Mal even sang along despite his own dubious ability to carry a tune, forgetting himself and remembering how to have fun.
He was still more talented than those damned Yule carolers who dared climb the cottage porch each winter anyway.
As Alys started restamping their silver coins to look like the crescent-marked half-dollars that circulated in Mayfair, Mal set aside some of his hard-earned pay from each job.
He told Griff that the money would be going toward the new, bigger bed he wanted (they were, in fairness, putting the old one through its paces)—that is, until he came home early one day, holding the reins of a handsome black horse for Griff.
He still reached for the flask on occasion, only to find his inner pocket full of little notes from Griff instead, which he now collected like the treasures they were.
Griff left them everywhere for him to find, since his world had gone so quiet with the loss of his hearing.
He’d spot them slipped under a plate of egg-in-a-hole at breakfast; in the mirror; under his pillow; curled into a boot.
Some were silly drawings of things that had happened recently, like the mule kissing Mal on the mouth, while others were words of encouragement and love, or even stories of things that had happened in their long years apart.
They still had plenty of catching up to do.
And they did. Over breakfast in bed on the weekends, when they would crack open his dwarvish book of philosophy and pick a page to discuss for hours as they nibbled their bacon and toast and sipped the flavorful tea that Griff made to help with Mal’s occasional cravings for something stronger.
It was helpful enough that he stayed sober, and so did Griff along with him.
Griff held him through plenty of those cravings, just like Mal held him through his nightmares, though they seemed far less frequent by the time summer was nearing its end.
By then, Griff was even helping Mal with his wolf business, such as it was, howling outside the homes of various marks to convince them that they needed Mal’s hunting services in order to keep their livestock safe.
Griff seemed to take particular pleasure in spooking Leo Raintree this way to pay him back for years of childhood transgressions.
While perhaps his howls weren’t very realistic, the moonlight threading through his hair—grown longer and lovelier as summer had passed—combined with the kohl around his luminous eyes, made him look like some kind of mysterious, otherworldly creature at times as he’d turn, breathless, to look at Mal before darting off into the cover of the trees.
Mal didn’t mind that he had to work harder than ever in the absence of his paychecks from the tea shop. What mattered was that they had made it back alive from the Mire, all of them. All his treasures and loves were right where he wanted them, safe at home to admire.
And then one day, when the air turned crisp again, Mal came home to smoke rising from the cottage chimney and the familiar rhythmic sound of a splitting maul echoing from the backyard.
From the kitchen window, a glass of water in hand, he watched as Griff swung that maul, as wood fell off the stump, never having imagined he would see this particular figure performing this chore in this very spot again outside of his wildest dreams.
Just like that, he was the wealthiest man this side of the Teeth.
He drank the water in a long, slow gulp, watching for quite some time—long enough that Mags, who was playing nearby, came over and started chatting at him. Long enough for her to grow frustrated when she realized he wasn’t listening at all and demand to be picked up.
From the circle of his arms, she watched with him for a while, sometimes looking at Griff doing yard work and sometimes simply studying her uncle’s oddly relaxed face as if she had never seen him smile quite so gently.
But then Vic threw a towel at Griff and told him to wash up at the creek, and Mags poked Mal in the cheek extra hard just to see what would happen.
At the same time, the two new sort-of-dogs Mal had brought home from a dodgy connection earlier that week—long-nosed, pointy-eared, whip-thin beasts with sleek coats and nubby wings that allowed their feet to skim above the ground in pursuit of prey, no ordinary rabbit hounds as advertised—decided to chase each other through the house, knocking over swords and boots and a coatrack, and it was back to business as usual.