Chapter 49 #2
Mrs. Alvarez studied him quietly for a moment, fingers still resting against her glass, like she was listening to something the rest of us couldn’t hear. “Bueno,” she said finally. “At least someone was watching over him.”
“I was,” Calder muttered. “I intervened.”
Heat crept up the back of my neck.
Mrs. Alvarez made a soft sound under her breath. “Ay, mijo.” Oh, dear.
“It sounds worse when you say it like that.”
“Because it was worse.” She pointed the spoon toward me. “You went into the woods alone making bird sounds and almost got yourself eaten.”
“I was photographing nature!”
Calder glanced toward her. “His bird impression was inaccurate.”
Then Neven leaned back slightly in his chair, looking toward me with faint amusement warming his expression. “So let me understand this correctly. You went into the woods alone, started talking to birds, nearly got yourself killed by a bear, and somehow ended up in a relationship.”
“That summary feels extremely biased.”
“No,” Mrs. Alvarez said. “It sounds accurate.”
I looked toward Calder for support. Traitor that he was, he nodded. “It is mostly accurate.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am.”
Neven laughed outright this time, warm and easy enough that I found myself laughing too, and that was when I caught it–the briefest flicker of uncertainty in Calder’s expression while he watched me laughing with Neven across the table. Small enough most people would’ve missed it.
It disappeared so quickly I almost convinced myself I’d imagined it.
By the time we finally stood to leave, we probably weighed ten pounds heavier than when we first arrived.
Mrs. Alvarez hugged me first, both hands cupping my face the same way she had since I was a kid. “Don’t disappear for another month, mijo,” she warned. “Or I’ll start sending Neven into the woods after you.”
“That feels threatening.”
“It is threatening.”
Then she turned toward Calder. For a second, neither of them moved. Mrs. Alvarez looked impossibly small beside him. And somehow completely unafraid. “You take care of him,” she said softly.
Calder answered immediately. “I will.”
Something in her expression gentled at that.
“Bueno,” she murmured. Then, before either of us could escape, she pulled Calder down into a hug too.
The look on Calder’s face afterward was so genuinely startled I nearly lost my mind.
Neven absolutely noticed. “You survived,” he said solemnly.
“I believe she has claimed me.”
The porch light spilled gold across the yard as we headed toward the SUV. We reached the SUV before I glanced toward him fully. “You okay?”
Calder looked toward the house once more before answering. “Yes.”
I unlocked the SUV.
Calder climbed in carefully, still visibly distrustful of modern vehicles despite surviving the first trip earlier. By the time I slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, he was staring quietly out the passenger window.
The drive stayed quiet at first. Not uncomfortable, but full in that strange way silence became after emotional events.
Streetlights disappeared gradually behind us until it was mostly trees again, dark stretches of road cutting through the woods while the SUV hummed softly beneath us. Beside me, Calder watched the passing forest through the window, thinking.
I glanced at him briefly before looking back at the road. “You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The emotionally processing in complete silence thing.”
“That is because I am emotionally processing.”
I snorted softly, turning onto the darker stretch leading back toward the woods before Calder spoke again. “Is Neven your babe?”
My entire soul left my body. I nearly swerved the SUV directly into a ditch. “What?”
Calder finally looked toward me fully, pale hair catching faint silver from the dashboard lights. “You called me babe,” he said carefully. “I thought perhaps it described a human you felt particular affection toward.”
Oh my God.
“No,” I said immediately, trying not to combust emotionally. “No, babe is not, like… a species classification.”
Calder absorbed that silently. “But Neven belongs more easily in your world than I do,” he said after a moment.
It wasn’t jealousy in the way humans experienced it. There was no anger, nor possessiveness. It was insecurity.
“He understands your customs. Your humor. Your language.”
My chest hurt a little listening to him say it so plainly. “You think I want Neven instead of you?”
“I think humans often choose what feels easiest.”
Jesus Christ. I tightened both hands on the steering wheel immediately because my nervous system clearly valued survival. “Calder—”
“You belong easily there,” he continued quietly. “With humans. With people like him.”
The words weren’t bitter, but that somehow made them harder to hear, like he was trying to understand something painful without blaming me for it.
“You belong there too,” I said softly.
Calder looked out toward the woods again. “I do not think the world agrees.”
My chest hurt a little at that. “You know what I saw tonight?” I asked quietly.
His eyes returned to mine briefly. “What?”
“Mrs. Alvarez looking at you like you were already family.” I swallowed once. “And Neven liking you almost immediately even though you terrified him for at least the first ten minutes.”
“I did not terrify him.”
“You’re six foot seven and built like you hunt elk with your bare hands.”
“I do hunt elk with my bare hands.”
“That’s my entire point.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but the uncertainty still lingered beneath it. I could feel it.
“I thought perhaps,” he said slowly, “someone like Neven would make more sense beside you. I worried because he belonged easily in your world.”
“You are my world.”
The words came out instinctively, and Calder stiffened beside me.
I pulled into the clearing beside the cabin more abruptly than I meant to, gravel crunching sharply beneath the tires.
Before Calder could say another word, I reached across the console and grabbed his face with both hands.
“My God,” I muttered, kissing him hard enough to shut him up completely.
He made a low startled sound against my mouth before immediately kissing me back with that same overwhelming certainty he did everything else.
Warm hands slid against my jaw with careful strength and complete trust. I broke away long enough to take a deep breath of air, then kissed him again, slowly and languidly. “There is nobody easier for me to love than you,” I said softly.
Calder watched me with that unbearable focus that always made me feel like the center of his entire world. “But—”
“No.” I brushed my thumb along his cheek. “You impossible man. Listen to me for a second.”
He went still immediately.
“I don’t want easy,” I said quietly. “I want you. With your weird cryptid logic and terrifying forest instincts and inability to understand buttons.”
A faint flicker of amusement quirked his mouth.
I leaned forward until our foreheads rested together. “There is nobody else for me. Do you understand?”
Calder watched me carefully in the dim light from the dashboard. “Yes, I understand.”
“I love you with my whole heart, Calder.”
The words settled between us softly. Certain. Real, and something in Calder’s expression opened so completely it almost hurt to look at.
“And you are my heart,” he said quietly.
That voice.
That devastatingly calm sincerity.
Outside, the woods stretched dark and endless around the cabin.
But inside the SUV, with Calder’s hands still holding me carefully like something precious, nowhere else in the world felt important.