Chapter 17
Toby
Tuesday afternoon. I'm curled up on the couch grading essays from the youth writing workshop—"What I Want to Be When I Grow Up"—when there's a knock at the door.
"Robin, use your keys!" I call, not looking up from a particularly creative essay about becoming a dragon veterinarian. The kid has included detailed salary expectations and a benefits package. I'm genuinely impressed.
Another knock.
I sigh, marking my place with a sticky note, and pad over to the door.
Robin probably has his hands full with catering supplies again.
He's been stress-baking even more than usual since everything happened, which means our freezer is stuffed with cookies and our counter is a rotating display of experimental tarts.
I open the door to find no one there.
But there are grocery bags. Nice ones—the reusable kind from that expensive organic place downtown that I've only been inside once. And flowers. Huge sunflowers in a glass vase, so bright and cheerful they almost hurt to look at.
The sound of a motorcycle engine makes me look up.
Knox is at the edge of the parking lot, straddling his bike. He's too far away for me to read his expression, but he raises one hand in a small wave.
Then he drives off before I can react.
I stand there in my doorway, barefoot, staring at the space where he was.
"What the fuck?"
The grocery bags are heavy. It takes two trips to get everything inside, and by the time I'm done, my kitchen counter looks like a magazine spread for people who have their lives together.
There's cheese—the expensive kind from that place Robin's always talking about, the one that ages everything in actual caves.
Three different kinds of salami. Fresh fruit that's clearly in season and definitely didn't come from a regular grocery store.
Olives in a glass jar with a fancy Italian label.
Fig jam. Crackers that Robin loves, the specific brand he has to drive across town to get.
Two bottles of wine that I'm afraid to google because I'm pretty sure they cost more than my weekly grocery budget.
And gelato. A pint of stracciatella from that place across town—the one Robin took me to for my birthday last year, the one we said we'd go back to but never did because it's so far away. That I mentioned in passing.
I stand there staring at all of it, trying to figure out what I'm feeling.
He remembered. All of this—the cheese I mentioned once while we were cooking dinner, the crackers Robin grabbed from the cabinet, the gelato I said was the best I'd ever had—he remembered. He was paying attention when I thought he was just waiting to get me into bed.
The sunflowers watch me from the counter, aggressively cheerful.
I pull out my phone before I can talk myself out of it.
You can't buy my forgiveness with cheese.
The response comes immediately, like he was waiting: Not trying to. Just wanted you to eat something nice.
This is like $300 worth of "something nice"
Is it nice though?
I look at the spread on my counter. At the sunflowers. At the gelato that's going to melt if I don't put it in the freezer soon.
It's nice.
Good. Enjoy it.
I wait for more. For him to ask if he can come over, if we can talk, if I've forgiven him yet. For the catch, because there's always a catch.
Nothing.
I stare at my phone for a full minute before I accept that he's really not going to push.
Thank you, I type finally.
You're welcome.
And that's it.
I put the gelato in the freezer, the cheese in the fridge, the wine on the counter next to the sunflowers. Then I go back to grading essays about dragon veterinarians and try not to think about what any of this means.
I fail.
When Robin gets home two hours later, he stops dead in the kitchen doorway.
"What is this?"
"Knox dropped off groceries."
"Knox." Robin walks slowly into the kitchen, like he's approaching a crime scene. He picks up one of the wine bottles, and his eyes go wide. "Toby, this is a ninety-dollar bottle of wine."
"I know."
"And this cheese—" He picks up the wedge wrapped in paper, reads the label. "This is from that place. The cave place. I've been wanting to try this for months."
"I know."
"And these crackers are my favorite."
"I know."
Robin sets everything down and turns to look at me. "He remembered all this from one dinner?"
"Apparently."
"And he just... dropped it off? Didn't try to come in?"
"He was gone before I even got the bags inside."
Robin is quiet for a moment, processing. I can see him trying to hold onto his anger, trying to remember that Knox is the enemy, that Knox hurt me. But it's hard to hate someone who drops off your favorite crackers and doesn't ask for anything in return.
"The sunflowers," Robin says slowly. "Those are your favorite."
"I know."
"And he remembered."
"And he remembered."
We stay there—me on the couch, Robin in the kitchen—staring at each other across the fancy groceries and the bright yellow flowers.
"Horror movie and charcuterie?" Robin finally suggests.
I smirk. "Obviously."
We spend the next hour building the most elaborate snack spread of our lives.
Robin arranges the cheese and salami on our nicest cutting board, the one we got as a housewarming gift and never use.
I open the crackers, the olives, the fig jam.
We argue about which wine to open first and eventually decide to open both because we're adults and we can do what we want.
By the time we settle on the couch with The Conjuring queued up, we're surrounded by enough food to feed six people.
"This cheese," Robin says around a mouthful, "is fucking incredible."
"The truffle one?"
"The cave-aged one. Try it with the fig jam."
I do. It is incredible.
We eat in silence for a while, watching the movie, working our way through the spread. The wine is smooth and rich and way better than anything I'd ever buy for myself. The cheese is perfect. The olives are briny and bright.
"Maybe he's not so bad," I say, reaching for another slice of manchego.
Robin shrugs, but he's already cutting more of the truffle cheddar. "Maybe not."
"You're coming around?"
"This is really good cheese." He pairs it with another cracker. "Maybe he's good for something."
I feel my face heat. "Robin."
"What? I'm just saying." He steals an olive from my plate. "A man who remembers your specific cheese preferences after one dinner might be worth considering. Plus, sunflowers. Your favorite flower, your favorite color."
I don't have a response to that, because he's right.
"He hurt you," Robin says, more serious now. "And I haven't forgiven him for that. I meant what I said—if he hurts you again, I will destroy him. I know people."
"I know you do."
"But." He pauses, reaching for his wine. "He also stood there and let me slap him. Didn't flinch, didn't defend himself, just took it. And now this." He gestures at the spread in front of us. "It's thoughtful. Specific. Like he actually paid attention to who you are."
"His lion chose me the second I walked in," I murmur, remembering what Knox said. Like it's supposed to mean something.
"What?"
"Something he told me. That his lion knew immediately. That I was his."
"And you think that's bullshit?"
"I think that's... instinct. Hormones. Pheromones. Whatever shifters have instead of rational thought." I pick at a piece of cheese without eating it. "It's not really knowing someone. It's just... chemistry."
Robin's quiet for a moment. On screen, someone is investigating a creepy noise in a basement, which never ends well.
"He got you sunflowers," Robin says finally.
"So?"
"So that's not pheromones. That's not his lion. That's him listening to you ramble about a cardigan and remembering that you love sunflowers." Robin shifts to face me more fully. "That's choosing to pay attention. That's caring about the small stuff."
I stare at the flowers on our coffee table. They really are beautiful. Bright and open and hopeful in a way I don't feel.
"I'm scared, Robin."
"Of what?"
"That he's right. That I am his mate or whatever. That this is real and permanent and I'm going to spend my whole life wondering when he figures out I'm not enough." My voice cracks a little. "What if he wakes up one day and realizes I really am just boring and average?"
"Toby." Robin sets down his wine and takes my hand.
"You organize literacy programs for at-risk youth.
You taught yourself calligraphy because you thought it was pretty.
You read to kids in different voices and you cry at animated movies and you once spent six hours explaining the history of bookbinding to me while drunk. You're the least boring person I know."
"But—"
"No buts. Knox would be lucky to have you. The question isn't whether you're enough. The question is whether he deserves you."
I want to argue. Want to point out all the ways I'm ordinary, forgettable, not worth a lion shifter's obsession. But Robin's looking at me with that fierce protective love he's had since we met, and I can't make the words come out.
"Thursday is story hour," I say instead.
"And how do you feel about that?"
I think about Knox at the last story hour, before everything fell apart. The way he'd sat carefully cutting out paper mice. The way the kids had climbed on him like playground equipment and he'd just let them, this massive dangerous predator turned into a jungle gym for five-year-olds.
The way he'd looked at me across the room like I was the only person in the world.
"I don't know yet," I admit.
Robin nods, stealing the last piece of truffle cheddar. "That's fair. You don't have to know yet."
"But Robin?"
"Yeah?"
"A man who drops off three hundred dollars of groceries and doesn't even try to come in..." I trail off, not sure how to finish.
"That's a man who's trying to prove something," Robin finishes for me.
"Prove what?"
"That he can give you what you need without taking anything back. That it's not all about what he wants." Robin squeezes my hand. "That's not nothing, Toby. Maybe he is trying. Maybe he's not such an asshole."
The sunflowers glow in the lamplight, bright and warm against the darkness of the horror movie we've stopped watching.
After Robin goes to bed, I stand in front of the bathroom mirror for a long time.
The marks are almost gone. The bruises on my neck have faded to nothing. The scratches are completely healed. My skin is blank again, unmarked, like none of it ever happened.
Except for the bite.
I pull my shirt aside to look at it. It's still there—deep and dark against my shoulder, not fading like the others. The one Knox said would scar.
I press my fingers against it, gently this time. Not to make it hurt, just to feel it.
Expensive groceries. Sunflowers. My favorite cheese, my favorite crackers, Robin's favorite wine. All of it dropped off without a single request to see me, talk to me, come inside.
That's not pheromones, Robin said. That's listening. That's caring about the small stuff.
Maybe he's right.
Maybe it's not nothing.
I go to bed still thinking about sunflowers, and for the first time in a week, I don't cry myself to sleep.