Chapter 10 #2
The muscles at his throat strained. “A good pastry,” he confirmed.
So he didn’t mind me in that way. Couldn’t he have just admitted that in the first place? A little bit of relief loosened my body, and I’d swear his facial expression softened at the same time, not much but some. And it was really so unexpected that I couldn’t help but smile a little as I dabbed at my face. All I said was “Oh. Thanks, Henri.”
His sigh was so soft. “Don’t.” A short groan grumbled through him. “I forget you can’t tell how I’m feeling without me saying anything. At the ranch, everyone is aware of everyone else’s emotions at all times. I don’t hide anything because I can’t. I like the way you….” He sighed once more, piercing me with a look that was real close to being pleading. “Please. Stop crying.”
I was a sucker for a few things. Big muscular men, puppies, children, and the word “please.” And coming out of Henri? I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I couldn’t stop brushing tears off my face.
He looked at me for another second, his expression going almost pained before he scooted across the bench seat until he sat right beside me.
I watched as he slipped a hand between my back and the cushion, and then, with his opposite hand, he gently wiped under one of my eyes and then the other. And while I sat there, in a mix of sadness for the past and the present, fear of the unknown future, and the most unexpected kind of surprise as the hand he’d used on my tears went to his nose. He took a sniff of his damp finger, the tendon at his throat flexing, and before I could ask what that was about, he moved again. That palm went to the back of my head, and he drew my forehead to his shoulder.
I let him.
I let my head fall to the spot along his thick trap muscle and neck, as he sighed, “Poor little Cricket.”
My bones might have well been nonexistent the way I slumped against him even more. I was human jelly. Cinnamon jelly according to him.
He wasn’t my parents, Matti, Sienna, or Duncan, but this didn’t feel wrong. Didn’t feel cheap. It made me feel better.
Henri made me feel better.
“You’ll see Matti and Sienna again.” His warm fingers on my skin felt like straight magic. “I haven’t lived anywhere new in a long time, but I know it’s hard. You’ll settle in with time.”
I’d been so caught up on keeping my shit together that I hadn’t let myself appreciate the way he smelled again. How much I liked it. Up close, it was even better the second time around. It took all the strength in my body to act normal, to breathe like I always did when his natural body odor and deodorant smelled like rain and cedar.
His fingertips moved, skimming along my back through the thin material of my shirt. I could feel the heat of his palm on the back of my head. His breath was soft on my ear like he had his head bent toward me.
I wasn’t starved for affection, but….
“You’ll make more friends,” he seemed to promise in a steady, strong voice.
I didn’t trust mine, or really even myself, honestly, so all I did was nod. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t too worried about making new friends, but that was a lie. There were a lot of things I was uncertain about, things I was mourning that were human-shaped and not human-shaped, and that was the freaking truth.
And fortunately for me, he smelled good, and he was warm, and he was being so nice, and I knew he would have done this for anyone getting upset around him. He’d said everyone on the ranch was his, and I believed that he believed it. By default, I guess that made me the same, in a way.
One of many.
But it was something.
Being needed could be such a crippling thing, but it could also give you more purpose than you could ever imagine. It could make the crappiest day brighter. I understood that firsthand now.
So I wasn’t going to pull away and not take what was offered. What I was going to do was sit there and soak up his scent and the reassurance his body gave me. He was no Matti, his presence was no warm, friendly hug to my soul, but it was something nice in a totally different way. Like hugging a domesticated bear.
And after a few breaths, he shifted a little, and I took it as my sign to lift my head. “Better?” he asked. He hadn’t scooted back, and his nose was right there, inches from mine.
He was gorgeous with those cheekbones and square jaw.
“Much better. Thank you,” I told him, giving him a real smile. I felt much better.
Henri looked at me for a second longer, like he was making sure he believed me, then he tipped his chin after a moment. “You hungry?”
“I’m always hungry.”
The muscles around his mouth didn’t move, but his eyes crinkled a little. “Let’s grab a bite then.”
I nodded, patted my cheeks one more time, and got out. He was already waiting for me behind the truck, that stern, no-nonsense expression over his features. He was a real-life action hero standing there.
And then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a string of beads.
It was my bracelet.
Without doing more than briefly meeting my eyes, he closed the distance between us, took my right wrist, and slipped my bracelet on me. His palm covered the beads and my wrist. “You don’t need to hide who you are,” he told me, his thumb touching the soft notch where my hand met my forearm, “but it’s your decision. I’ll give you Duncan’s collar later.”
My lips were formed into a little O, but I nodded, meeting his bright gaze fully.
He didn’t say anything as he looked at where his finger rested. His skin was a little creamier than mine, but very tan. When he let go a moment later, he stuffed his hand into his pocket, and we headed into the diner side by side, with him opening the door for me.
I hadn’t been paying attention when we’d parked, and I was surprised to find the inside was a real retro 50s diner. The floor was checkered, the vinyl booth seats pink, the black tabletops sparkling. There was even a jukebox. A waitress assisting a table was dressed in a cute black-and-pink skirt and button-up, short-sleeved shirt.
But it was the magic coming from every inch of the place that struck me more than the décor.
It was coming from the waitress, from behind the counter—where there were two other women in the same uniform—and beyond them, from the kitchen.
They were all magical beings of some kind.
Fingers nudged at my forearm, and Henri gestured with his head toward the corner booth. I followed him, glancing around some more, taking in the handful of tables that had people at them. I took a seat across from him, my butt squeaking on the bench.
The employees were watching us. Staring, more like it.
One of the women behind the counter broke away from whatever she was saying to the other employee—a blonde who was making a face I wouldn’t call friendly—and came over, picking up a single menu on the way. She was pretty with dark hair and big dark eyes, maybe in her early thirties.
Something about her seemed familiar.
“Hi,” she called out while she was halfway across the restaurant. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Henri and me, almost… nervously?
My phone beeped with an incoming text, and I took it out of my fanny pack.
Sienna: Miss you already.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the man across the booth muttered maybe a whole second after I’d finished reading the text.
I laughed, but I doubted either of us were surprised when it came out watery. I showed him the screen with one hand and wiped at my eyes with my other. “It’s Sienna’s fault,” I explained as the dark-haired waitress arrived at the table.
She set the menu down in front of me, leaving nothing for Henri.
“Morning, Phoebe,” he greeted her in a very polite tone, almost gentle.
She didn’t feel like a predator to me, and the more I looked at her, the more that sensation that I was missing something got stronger. For some reason, her magic felt familiar, but I couldn’t pinpoint where I’d sensed something similar to it….
I smiled at the woman named Phoebe, confirmed by the name tag on her chest. Her round, brown eyes met mine, and I knew there was no missing how shiny mine were. “Hi,” I said, picking up the menu.
“Water for you, Henri? What would you like to drink, Nina?” she asked.
I read through the drink options, and said, “A vanilla milkshake, please.”
She knows my name? I lifted my face, trying to figure that out too. “I’ll be back with your drinks,” she told us before I had a chance to guess.
The second she turned, I peeked around the side of her to see that the other employees were still eavesdropping and watching. The way they had their hands over their mouths told me one thing—they were talking about us. Or I might be inflating my own ego, and they were just talking about Henri.
I barely heard him say, “You don’t recognize her, do you?”
“She looks familiar, but I don’t know why,” I whispered to him. It wasn’t like I’d met that many people within a 100-mile radius of here to begin with.
“She doesn’t have as many freckles when she isn’t in her satyr form.”
My eyes went wide. “That’s why she looks different!”
Henri nodded.
It was Shiloh’s mom . I went “ohhhhh” in realization. “I feel dumb.” I laughed.
“I forgot again,” he told me, tapping the side of his nose. She would’ve smelled the same.
I nodded. “I’ve never had your senses, so I don’t know what I’ve been missing out on, but the more we talk about it, the more it feels like a lot,” I joked.
“It can make life less complicated, but it can make it a hell of a lot harder too when you’re forced to always tell the truth and deal with it because you can’t lie about anything.”
“And then if someone does lie, it makes it that much worse when you know they are,” I agreed. When I’d been very young, I remembered how long it had taken me to get over trying to lie to my parents about little things I thought they would get mad about.
It made me feel like crap, and I still felt guilty over certain things I’d tried to get away with, even if they were small and inconsequential now. Having to confront issues might seem like a curse sometimes, but it really wasn’t. Resentment built problems.
Henri nodded. “No matter how good a liar someone thinks they are, they’re never good enough.”
The way he said that made it seem like he had a lot of experience dealing with that kind of thing. Being in law enforcement and in his position in the community, he probably did.
Lowering my attention, I read through the menu. They had three different kinds of steaks, one with mashed potatoes, another with french fries, and a third option with a side salad. Bison and elk were also listed.
This was definitely a diner that catered to carnivorous magical beings.
As much as I enjoyed steak, I wanted comfort more. A BLT on the menu made my stomach grumble. I closed the laminated pages and sat back.
I clasped my hands together and smiled at the man across from me. I didn’t want to ruin his lunch being weepy. “You already know what you’re ordering?”
“Ribeye,” he answered, his intense gaze unwavering.
“That’s what your cousin orders every time it’s on the menu.”
“It has the best ratio of fat in the cut.” He set his hands on top of the table, those long fingers linked together, his light, caramel skin popping against the counter. The only jewelry he had on was a military-grade watch with a shiny, digital face.
“How many times have you moved?” he asked, surprising me with his change in subject.
“Since I started living in my trailer?” I hadn’t really traveled to that many places before I’d bought it. After leaving the small town where we’d grown up, Sienna and I had moved to Santa Fe, where I had learned the depths of my dislike of living among a lot of people. But for her, I had stuck around while we took six and a half years to finish school, both of us getting degrees in nothing we actually went on to use and barely passing our classes. Working full-time and going to school was not for the weak. By that point, I had maxed myself out on Santa Fe.
But I knew that wasn’t what he was asking when Henri dipped his chin. I still told him about it anyway. “I don’t know if we have time to go over everywhere, but I’m pretty sure I’ve stayed at almost every RV or state park on the west coast at least once, a few multiple times. I spent a year in Arizona, another year in California, months in New Mexico, but not where we lived….” I shrugged. “Everywhere, Fluff. Northern Colorado. I’d never heard of Lobo Springs. I didn’t know a place like this could exist. South Dakota and Wyoming are the closest I’ve ever experienced, but it doesn’t compare to here. This place feels like a nuclear reactor of m-a-g-i-c.”
Henri’s fingers stretched on the table. “There’s a place in Alaska that’s rich. Banff and parts close to Thunder Bay feel the most similar, but still not on our level.”
Matti had mentioned the place in Alaska already. “Really? I’ve never been to any of those places.” What were the chances these places were all located in the wilderness? Or maybe that was why there was so much wilderness.
Ancient conspiracy theory there.
“It’s where the majority of communities like ours are located, ’least the successful ones.” He was back to talking so low I had to put all my focus into paying attention and reading his lips.
“Are there a lot? I know of this one because of you and your cousin, and one in Kansas that I can think of, but that was because I was eavesdropping on a conversation outside my trailer. They weren’t saying good things about it.”
“If it’s the one I know of, the people running it are idiots, and it’s a miracle they’re still around,” he replied. “There aren’t a lot of communities. Only a handful around the same size; there are more that are smaller. Mostly extended family units. Streets in small towns where every neighbor is magical.”
“I know about streets like that.” Like where home had been. The whole street had been magical—not that anyone ran around in their other form or anything, but more than a few times, someone’s “big dog” had gotten loose and been spotted. We’d had a lot of Irish wolfhounds that made rare but special appearances at night.
Wolfhounds. Whoever had come up with that excuse was clever. “Your family really left all this land to you?” I asked him.
Henri nodded. “My father’s family, yes. My—Matti’s dad relinquished his rights.”
Something told me he probably wouldn’t appreciate having that conversation out loud in front of so many nosey people. I moved on. “How do you afford the property taxes?”
This man looked me right in the eye as he answered, “With money.”
I slumped forward, forehead hovering over the table, and started laughing. “Who are you?”
The faintest, tiniest little smile crossed that grave mouth when I peeked up at him.
I was in the middle of doing that—watching his serious mouth fighting a smirk—when Shiloh’s mom returned. She set my milkshake down first and then the glass of water. “Do you know what you want to order?” she asked, her body language back to being uncomfortable. Maybe nervous.
The point was, she wasn’t at ease. Whether it was me or Henri, I had no idea. She had gotten really startled that other day when he’d raised his voice. I’d had my bracelet on when we’d met, and it was back on now, but… dang it, I was going to need to get this conversation over with as soon as possible. Today, if I could. There was no reason for me to put this stuff off. I didn’t want to tiptoe for the rest of my life.
I held the menu out. “A BLT with fries, please.”
“Sure.” Phoebe smiled almost shyly at Henri. “Your usual?”
“I’d appreciate it,” he answered, back to using his softer tone.
“I’ll be back with your orders.” Her voice was low before retreating, and I wondered if that was how she usually spoke when she wasn’t on the verge of strangling her child for making reckless decisions that put him in jeopardy.
I wrapped my hand around my opposite wrist where my bracelet sat. “Henri, is she usually nervous around everyone, or is it me?”
He took a sip of his water, and I wondered if he was picking his words or if he was just thirsty. “Both, I think.”
That helped.