30. Wilder #3
I weigh the ask. I want it. I don’t care if it’s too much, too soon. I’m coming on strong, and I might end up getting my heart broken.
But I might not. And I know if I called Wills or my mama right now and asked their advice, they’d tell me to go for it.
Oz’s belly grumbles, and he slaps my chest. “See, though? You can’t leave me partially fed, or I get very unpleasant. Let’s go, okay?”
We hold hands the entire way to the saloon, all block and a half of it.
When we get there, the pixie hostess grins at our clasped hands, but says nothing as she leads us to a booth in the window.
I almost hope Saint Fucking Ashbourne walks by and sees us looking blissfully happy while he’s a hair’s breadth from losing his godsdamned job.
Oz reaches across the table and strokes my forearm, pulling me back to the present. “I lost you again. What are you thinking about?”
I glance out the window as I lean onto my forearms, slipping two of my fingers through his. “Just that it takes me a while to anger, but once I’m there, I’m hells on wheels, and I am there with your ex-boyfriend.”
Oz sits back, but he looks pleased enough. “I didn’t peg you for being quite this possessive, Mister Lane.”
I grab the menu with my free hand and cast a glance over it. “You haven’t pegged me at all, Mister Luzzi.”
He smirks as he looks around the restaurant. Returning his gaze to mine, he pulls his hand away and picks up a menu. “Don’t look now, but we’re being ogled by the gals who run the Gulch Gossip paper. Have you seen that yet, by chance?”
I resist the urge to look around as I shake my head. “Don’t pay attention to gossip.”
“I’d normally say you’re missing out.” He sets the menu down. “But right now, I’m thinking we’re about to be a topic in an upcoming column, and I don’t love that.”
No sooner has he said it than two elderly pixie females appear to my right, staring down at us.
Oz smiles up at the grizzled females, their arms clasped together as they beam at us. “Well, hello, ladies, how goes it?”
The blue-haired female smiles big enough for me to see she’s missing a tooth here and there. Gods, she must be very, very old. “We noticed you’re here with a newcomer, Oz, and we thought we’d drop by a couple copies of this week’s Gossip for your…now who might you be, sonny?”
I don’t owe that information to anyone, and normally I’d tell them to give us some space, but these are my future neighbors.
“Wilder,” I say with a smile, lifting my hand to shake hers. “I’ve been back and forth to the Gulch for a long time, but I’ve just moved.”
“Oh, have you?” That from the second pixie female. “Don’t recognize you though, do we, Merit?”
The first woman bats her lashes as she sets a paper down on the table between Oz and me. “No, we don’t, Bryony. We don’t at all.”
Oz clears his throat. “Does that mean y’all haven’t delivered Wilder one of your trademark peach poundcakes? Because I know for a fact you brought Lemon one when she moved to town, and she was only a temporary resident until, well, you know, LOL.”
Merit and Bryony chuckle. “Ah, yes, lots of good fodder for the Gossip with those two.” She points to the current issue, sitting on the table. “And, of course, our very own Bluebell and Hadrian. What a trial they went through.”
Oz gives me a knowing look. “Brother’s best friend. Such a hot trope. Popular for a reason…very taboo. Very spicy.”
I’m not sure where to take the conversation next. I don’t know much about other monsters’ love lives, and that seems like about all these females are interested in. Thankfully, I’m saved when Willa appears and slides onto the bench next to Oz, eyes wide as she slaps both palms on the table.
She only notices the pixies when one of them clears her throat. Willa looks up. “Oh, hey, we’re not ready to order yet. Give us five minutes, please.”
Oz bursts into laughter and just as quickly covers his mouth with one hand. The pink-winged female’s mouth drops open, but the other one just shuttles her away, and they disappear toward the bar.
Oz cackles as we share a look. Again, it’s just Willa being Willa. She probably did that shit on purpose to save us from an incoming interrogation for the paper. Oz bumps Willa with his hip. “Where’d you leave Kohdiy? Rattle-deep in notebooks at the Keeper’s mansion?”
Willa rolls her eyes. “Outside grumbling. He said he wasn’t welcome in here, and I said if he expected that to ever change, he had to actually, I don’t know, do something to change it.
We had a little tiff, and now he’s sitting on his scales outside sulking.
He’ll be here momentarily, if I read him right. ”
Not two seconds later, the door behind me opens, and Oz’s eyes go wide. The entire saloon goes quiet as Kohdiy slithers in and props himself on a pile of his tail beside our table, scowling at the sheer size of it.
“Where do you expect me to put myself, Willa?” He rattles the end of his tail, and the minotaurs at the table next to ours get up and move, side-eyeing the ferocious sound coming from him.
My sister glances over at me with a big smile. “Beside my big brother, of course.”