Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When I leave Ash’s apartment, I wander down the street a few blocks until I find a bench.
I settle onto the chilled metal, leaning back, and letting out a deep sigh.
When I came to this world, with Calida’s encouragement, I never imagined that things would go this easily or be this difficult at the same time, but here we are.
I never imagined finding Ash would be difficult. Finding her was always going to be the easy part, even without Calida. There was never any worry or doubt that I would be able to track her down. That’s what I do; who I am. It wasn’t even a challenge. It was, honestly, pitifully simple.
Not only did I manage to find her, I was able to save the day when Calida set that fire.
‘Well, I’ll make her believe’” was all the warning I got before she toasted that box of books, leaving me looking like a total asshole. Her giggles sounded in my head as Ash leapt into action and then was defeated by the fire extinguisher.
‘Grab the blanket, you idiot.’
Gods help me — being bossed around by a lizard less than a fourth of my size.
It worked, though. I could see the beginnings of acceptance in Ash’s eyes after that.
She may not believe everything I tell her, and she shouldn’t, but she had the beginnings of trust forming and that’s a foundation I can build on.
She trusted enough to ask a “strange” man into her home and to let her guard down enough to get just a little bit drunk.
Fuck — she was adorable and so helpless last night.
Eating pizza, watching bad TV, and playing twenty questions; trying so subtly to pump me for information.
I was not nearly as undone by the wine as she was, but after a couple of glasses, she didn’t even notice.
I would have been interested in a different form of pumping, but it’s too soon.
Don’t get me wrong. It was hard to resist the urge to press my advantage. Looking into those onyx eyes, having her body so close to mine… those curves, the clothes that are considered modest in this place, the way she bites her lip when she is trying to find the thing she wants to say…
Bracing my elbows on my knees, I cradle my head in my hands and close my eyes.
This morning when she was studying me, I was awake long before she was, but was content to lay there and try to remember why I’m here.
Thoughts of the night before – of her lips on mine – kept intruding, but I did my best to block them out.
Eventually, I opened my eyes and they met hers in the sunlight.
She looked beautiful, with her bed head and smeared makeup. She looked perfect. She looked real.
Yes, finding her was simple, but I’d never imagined that the hard part would ever be as hard as it’s actually proving to be.
Stopping at a simple kiss when there were so many more interesting things to be explored with her willing and…
pliant. Pretending I can’t slip beneath the wall in her mind to examine the shades of her thoughts, her feelings.
That I don’t know everything I know or that I’m here by some random act of chance.
Pretending that I’m here to do anything except destroy her.
Why do we so often have to destroy what we love, in order to save it?
I reach out to Calida with my mind.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m on the roof of the book shop. They have a lot of rats and I was hungry. How did things go with Ember?’
‘You should probably continue to call her Casie,’ I warn through our link. ‘It won’t be easy to explain you calling her anything else.’
‘Please — like you calling her Ash last night? I’m not deaf. And I’m also not an idiot.’
Fuck. I had called her Ash last night, hadn’t I?
I rub my hands roughly over my face and through my hair.
I hadn’t meant to. It had slipped out. I know that isn’t what she’s calling herself now.
To be fair, she had never called herself Ash.
Either way, she’ll never be anything but Ash to me. Old habits die hard.
The ashes of everything.
Shaking myself out of the memories before they overwhelm me, I stand and begin my walk to the bookshop.
‘I’ll meet you there.’ I tell her, ignoring her obvious dig.
Miss Betsy Bits and I have a lot to discuss and I’m sure it’s going to take considerable time and, possibly, some of my particular… skill sets… to come to an agreement that at least one of us can live with.
Hours later, I leave Wanderlust victorious with a tension headache wrapped around the base of my skull.
Despite that, the sun is high in the sky by now and matches my mood.
While I wouldn’t say I’m sunny or happy by nature, this feeling is almost akin to that and I’ll take what I can get.
There have been far too many hard days, so any moment in the sun, without the pressures of my life, is a win.
In each hand, I carry a bag. One is full of books and reference materials that Betsy was positive Ash would need when I return home.
The other is overflowing with baked goods that she packed up, certain that every one of us would starve if left to our own devices.
I tried to remind her that I’m actually a very good cook when given the time and the effort, but she just swatted my arm and told me to hand her the bags on the top shelf.
I’m still baffled that they put anything on the top shelf. None of the shop employees are over 5’5”.
Before leaving, I was able to… persuade… Betsy to make me Wanderlust’s newest employee. Not only that, but she provided the keys to an apartment across the hall from Ash’s. When I left, she winked at me.
So, now I have bags of goods for the woman I’m supposed to be living with, keys to the apartment across the hall so I don’t have to live with her, a pocket full of cash for my immediate needs, and a very full dragon, who is sleeping off a multitude of rats on a very large floor pillow at the book shop.
Betsy seemed delighted at the prospect of “baby sitting”.
I don’t even know if Calida is going to be willing to remain that far away from Ash for that long.
Then again, Betsy apparently has a surplus of mice and rats for her to snack on, so she might be willing to hang out there indefinitely. I wonder if Betsy will order her pizza.
I should probably be more worried about Calida being let loose in this land, but I have bigger things to worry about.
Besides, if I know anything about humans, it’s that they will never accept the correct explanation — either because it’s too fantastical or it’s too simple.
You’ll also never make all humans happy because there are too many asshats in this realm.
Not my problem, I decide.
Right now, my problem is the 5’3”, rainbow-haired beauty waiting for me in a cramped apartment and she is completely clueless of what’s to come.