Chapter 16 Ris
Ris
She hadn’t realized how desperately she needed a win until one found her.
Eighteen people. It wasn’t Cevanore, but compared to the pathetic showing she’d managed to pull for the first try, this felt tremendous. A win is a win, and we’re going to take it.
She woke that morning long before her alarm. Her sleep had been fitful the night before, as it always was when she had something important scheduled for the following day. She’d always been that way, ever since childhood.
The light outside the bedroom window was still thin and gray, the city itself not yet fully waking.
Ainsley slept beside her, flat on his back with an arm thrown across her pillow, his other arm bent, hand partially covering his face.
The tips of his tusks pressed lightly into his wrist, leaving an indent he’d have all day.
Ris propped herself up on an elbow, looking down at him with a soft smile.
He looked younger when he slept. His hair had grown out to a shaggy dishevelment, and he insisted it was so close to being ready for a style.
His brow was unfurrowed, his features slack.
In his dreaming state, he was still the Ainsley that only existed now in photographs and memories.
Which was fine, because the Ainsley he’d grown into was one she loved just as fiercely.
Lowering her head, she pressed her lips to his, whisper-soft, not wanting to wake him. It was his midweek remote day, and he never started early.
Lying back down against her own pillow, she raised her hand, threading her fingers with his behind her head, as she stared at the ceiling, her heart already ticking too fast.
Today was the day. She would have to suffer through work somehow, suffer through the endless hours of employees who couldn’t follow directions, who delighted in pushing the envelope, who made the mistake of assuming that contacting HR was like going to the principal’s office.
After work, she would go straight to the community center. She wanted to access the room as soon as she could to have everything set up and ready long before it was time.
Ris wasn’t sure if she had ever wanted anything to work more than this.
“Be honest,” she’d moaned to Ainsley the night she’d posted her online application. “It sounds like I’m starting a cult, doesn’t it?”
He looked up from his guitar, cocking his head for a moment, considering.
“I think that depends. Are you providing robes? If yes, then I would say yes, that definitely sounds cultish. If you’re telling members they have to provide their own robes, then it’s a cult, but it’s a shitty cult. But I feel like, if you’re keeping things robe free . . .”
Ris stuck her tongue out at him as he grinned, ducking his head, moving his eyes back to his composition book.
“What do you think, Fitz?”
The greyhound turned his eyes to her at the sound of his name, ears perking.
Fitz stared up balefully, offering no opinion on whether her flyer sounded like she was starting a cult.
The name she’d been casting for had come from Fitz in the end.
A soft place to land. Wasn’t that what they all needed?
It was amazing what time and patience had done.
He had gone from a dog afraid of his own shadow, afraid of them, to a piece of Velcro.
He followed them from room to room, Ainsley most especially.
Wherever they sat, he was curling himself into a long, grey comma beside them, putting his head in someone’s lap.
She had been late coming home several months earlier, her luck sailing through the backup on the highway running its course. She was already leaving the office late, and the unexpected backup had set her behind more than an hour.
Ainsley had just gone back to the band. Ris had been the one to insist upon it, afraid that if he gave up too much, he would never go back, and she didn’t want him to lose any more of his sparkle.
She had assured him and reassured him that it would be fine; she was home before he left anyway.
Always had been. Always was, except for that night.
The evening wound up being a carnival of bad luck.
Her phone was dead after the extended day at work, and the charger normally kept in her work bag was not there.
Ris could close her eyes, envisioning it perfectly, beside the sofa, where she had pulled it out a few nights prior, feeling too lazy to walk all the way to the bedroom to retrieve the charger that was there.
She hadn’t realized it until she was already on the road. And your car charger is in his car.
The guilt rode shotgun the entire way back into the city, her stomach twisting over the fact that she wasn’t where she said she would be.
She had no way to contact him and let him know she was running late, had no idea if he had skipped band practice because of her, had no idea if Fitz was sitting in the apartment alone, howling his little head off.
There was never a night now when one of them wasn’t home.
It was a complete reversal of their previous go-go-go lifestyle, but Ris found that she preferred it.
It finally felt like they were living together, building a life together within those four walls, rather than just inhabiting the same space for a few hours at night and passing in the doorway. No one was more shocked than she.
She burst into the apartment that night in a full-blown panic.
It was already dark out, and when she swung open the front door, her heart had sunk to see the apartment also cast in dim shadows.
He’d left for rehearsal, assuming she would be walking through the door behind him, when it was still light.
“I’m home,” she had called out to the empty rooms, almost shrieking when she saw a looming shape before her at the end of the hallway. Fitz had been standing there , silently, all alone . . . but his tail had wagged when he saw that it was her.
He had never wagged his tail for her before that moment.
Ris had burst into tears that she didn’t quite understand, hopping over the gate and dropping to the floor where he stood.
“Hi, you. I’m so sorry, Fitzy.” He had pressed his head into her chest, licking at her chin as she wrapped her arms around him, emotions she didn’t have a name for leaking out of her like a balloon. Time and patience.
She had been watching from her camera at work, the first time he’d played.
Ainsley was on a conference call, muted, his head bobbing along, mimicking the voice of a coworker she knew he didn’t like, as he folded a basket of laundry.
Ris wasn’t sure if it was an invasion of his privacy or not.
He knew she checked in on the dog regularly, and checked in on him just as much when Ainsley was home, her heart feeling a little closer by watching them from afar.
As she watched, far away in Cambric Creek, Ainsley dropped a pair of freshly folded socks.
They went bouncing across the floor, startling the greyhound in the corner, as he startled at everything.
Fitz froze and then, before her eyes, pounced on the socks.
Pounced with the ungainly enthusiasm of the puppy Ainsley had always wanted.
She’d wound up crying happy tears at her desk, watching Ainsley sink to the floor, unsure if he was laughing or crying as the dog held the socks in his mouth like a prize, his tail swinging back and forth as he was engulfed in Ainsley’s arms. Patience and time.
It was what she gave the Orc she loved. What they both gave to the dog they’d brought home.
And it was what she tried to give herself when she decided to go through with relocating her idea to Cambric Creek.
It had been months. Months she needed, she’d decided.
The disappointing coffee shop experiment had drained her confidence, more than she’d realized.
Now the moment was here.
Ris pulled herself from the bed, not wanting to start the day behind schedule.
The apartment still smelled faintly of last night’s curry she thought, padding to the kitchen, pouring herself a cup from the coffee machine they had programmed to start the hour prior.
Carrying it to the window, she watched the city wake up, smiling down when a tail thumped against the floor, huge dark eyes staring up, waiting.
“Good morning to you, too. Are you ready for breakfast?”
Her phone buzzed against the counter, a text message sent from Ainsley's phone with an urgent highlight. She frowned, biting her lip as she tapped open, immediately snorting.
Is the coffee ready?
“You are an absolute sloth,” she called out, grinning when she heard his laughter drifting down the hall from the bedroom.
Ainsley staggered out a moment later, his eyes still soft from sleep, his hair still disheveled, having pulled on the loose pair of shorts that were his living room pajamas, after she’d pointed out that his walking around the apartment naked was probably a bad influence on Fitz.
He leaned down to kiss the top of her head, stealing the coffee mug from her hands.
“Perfect timing.”
“A sloth.”
“Are we all ready for the big day?” He asked, ignoring her insults, turning to lean against the counter, grinning down at Fitz devouring his breakfast.
He ate willingly now whenever there was food in his bowl, and whatever insecurity or anxiety he had previously experienced had dissipated over time. Time and patience. It had become a theme in their home. We should probably paint it on the wall.
Ris nodded, a jerky motion. “As ready as I’ll ever be. I have to get dressed. Distract me with your inane chatter, please.”
The outraged sound he made was akin to a lizard choking on a banana, slapping his hand down against the counter, making the dog jump.
“I’m sorry, Fitzy. Your mother is being incredibly rude right now.”
Ris peeled off her tank top, flinging it at Ainsley. “My nipples want to hear your chatter, please.”