22. Fable
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Fable
Five months later, with spring finally breaking over the mountain, Fable Tales has a new reading nook.
It’s in the back corner of the store, where the chaos shelf used to be before Orion alphabetized it into submission. The pack volunteers who built it worked for three weekends straight, refusing all payment despite my increasingly creative attempts to compensate them.
“You’re our queen,” Theo said firmly, sawdust in his hair and a level in his hand. “Queens don’t pay for labor.”
“I’m not a queen. I’m a bookseller.”
“You’re both. Accept it.”
“What if I made you cookies?”
“Cookies are acceptable tribute.”
So I made approximately seven hundred cookies, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and the peanut butter ones Mira specifically requested, and the pack built me a reading nook that looks like it belongs in a fairy tale.
Built-in bookshelves line two walls, stocked with my personal favorites.
Soft fairy lights drape along the ceiling like captured stars.
And a window seat stretches beneath the glass, covered in cushions I picked specifically because they match the exact shade of orange Mario’s fur gets in the afternoon sunlight.
He has, predictably, claimed it as his throne.
He presides over the store from his cushioned perch, a furry dictator, accepting tribute in the form of chin scratches from approved customers and hissing at everyone else. The regulars have learned to approach with appropriate deference. The newcomers learn quickly.
Above the register, Ishmael circles his bowl, five months old and thriving out of pure spite, safely beyond the reach of the orange dictator, who has classified him as a long-term project.
Mr. Darcy the wolf occupies the one corner of the window seat that Mario permits him, worried button eyes surveying the store.
“He bit Mrs. Patterson again,” I report, shelving a stack of new releases while Orion reorganizes the inventory spreadsheet he insists on “helping” me maintain.
“Mrs. Patterson keeps trying to touch his belly.”
“I know.”
“He has been warned. Repeatedly. In writing.”
“I know.”
“The sign says ‘Do Not Touch The Orange Dictator’s Belly.’ It has a picture. It’s very clear.”
“Mrs. Patterson thinks he’s special.”
“Mrs. Patterson is wrong.”
“Mrs. Patterson is an eternal optimist who believes all cats secretly want belly rubs.”
“Mrs. Patterson is a fool.” Orion doesn’t look up from his spreadsheet. “Mario doesn’t even like belly rubs from you.”
“Mario tolerates belly rubs from me.”
“That’s different from liking them.”
“It’s different from biting, which is the relevant metric here.”
Mario, as if sensing he’s being discussed, yowls his agreement from the window seat. Through the bond, I feel Orion’s amusement, and beneath it, his deep, abiding contentment. Five months of this life, and he still feels like he’s gotten away with something. Like he can’t quite believe his luck.
I can hear you, I send.
I’m not hiding it.
You’re being soft again.
I’m allowed. We’ve established this.
We take my car.
This still feels strange sometimes, the casual way I can say “we’ll take my car” and then actually get in and drive it somewhere. The laminated checklist is still clipped to the visor, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop using it, but the ritual has become automatic now. Background process. Normal.
Meds taken. Phone in glovebox. Mirrors adjusted. Seatbelt.
I turn the key.
Orion folds himself into the passenger seat, his long legs awkwardly bent. He’s tried to buy me a new car, something with actual legroom, approximately seven times. I’ve refused every time.
“This car has history,” I told him the last time. “This car is important.”
“This car is a death trap.”
“This car carried me to you.”
“This car carried you to a hospital. I carried you to me.”
“Technicalities.”
Now he just sighs and accepts his fate, folding himself into the too-small space with the resignation of someone who knows when he’s lost.
“Left at the light,” he says.
“I know where we’re going.”
“You missed the turn last time.”
“I was distracted.”
“By what?”
“By you doing that thing with your jaw. The clenching thing. When you’re thinking too hard about something.”
“I’ll try to think less.”
“That would be helpful.”
“I could also try to have a less distracting jaw.”
“Don’t you dare. I’ve invested significant emotional energy in that jaw.”
He laughs, and I feel it through the bond. Five months of this, waking up next to him, feeling his emotions flicker through our connection, arguing about absolutely everything and nothing, and I still catch myself checking the passenger seat before I panic.
Five months and I still look over to make sure it’s not empty, I think. It never is anymore.
His hand finds mine on the gear shift. Through the bond, I feel his understanding, and his quiet promise that it never will be empty again.
The graveyard is quiet in spring.
The trees are budding, pale green against gray bark. The grass between the headstones has gone soft with new growth. Wildflowers are starting to push through in scattered patches, purple and yellow and white, exactly the colors Mom loved best.
I brought more, gathered from the meadow behind Orion’s house this morning. He held the basket while I picked, not rushing me, not asking questions. Just being there.
Their graves are side by side, simple and clean. Dad’s name, Mom’s name, dates, and the words Beloved parents, together forever.
I kneel in the spring grass and arrange the wildflowers carefully. Mom was particular about arrangements. About a lot of things, actually.
“Hi,” I say, and my voice only cracks a little.
Silence. But it doesn’t feel empty anymore.
“Sorry it’s been a while. Things got… complicated.” I glance back at Orion, who’s standing at a respectful distance. “Really complicated, actually. Do you want the whole story?”
No answer. But I imagine them leaning in, Dad with his reading glasses pushed up on his forehead, Mom with her particular expression of amused curiosity.
“Okay. So. I was driving here, actually, the day I crashed. The anniversary. I finally got brave enough to try, and then… a car crossed the center line. Or maybe I did. I honestly don’t remember. But I woke up in the hospital, and there was this man.”
I can almost hear Mom’s sharp intake of breath. Can almost see Dad’s eyebrows climbing.
“Very tall. Very attractive. Suspiciously helpful. He was there because I’d accidentally written his phone number on my emergency contact form instead of Millie’s, and instead of saying ‘wrong number,’ he just… showed up.”
I pause. Take a breath.
“He kept showing up. Brought me groceries… organized by category, which you would have loved, Dad. Alphabetized my bookstore. Laminated my anxiety checklists. Made me feel safe in ways I hadn’t felt since…”
My voice breaks.
“Since you died.”
Orion moves closer but doesn’t touch me. Through the bond, I feel his support, steady, patient, asking nothing.
“The complicated part is that he’s a werewolf.
Lycan. He gets very specific about the distinction; it’s adorable and annoying.
He’s also three hundred years old. And apparently I’m his cosmic soulmate, which he knew the whole time and didn’t tell me because he was afraid I’d feel trapped.
” I laugh, a little wet. “We had a fight about that. A big one. But we worked through it.”
I arrange another flower. Then another.
“He’s good, Mom. Dad. He takes care of me. Not in a smothering way… in a showing-up way. He makes me feel brave.” My throat tightens. “He makes me feel like maybe I can do hard things after all. Like driving here. Like talking to you.”
I look up at their headstones, at the names I’ve loved my whole life.
“Mom. Dad. This is Orion. He’s my mate. My emergency contact.” A small laugh escapes me. “My giant dog.”
Behind me, Orion snorts.
“You’d like him,” I continue. “I mean, at first you’d think he was too serious. Too controlled. Dad, you’d probably try to make him play charades, and he’d be terrible at it because he can’t stop organizing the teams by skill level.”
“I would not…”
“You absolutely would. You’d make a spreadsheet.”
“Spreadsheets are efficient.”
“See?” I tell the headstones. “But then you’d see the other stuff. The way he organizes his spice cabinet by cuisine type. The way he checks locks in threes. The way he…” My voice breaks again. “The way he loves me.”
Orion kneels beside me. His hand finds mine.
“You’d see that,” I whisper, “and you’d love him. I know you would.”
He squeezes my fingers. Then, quietly, to the graves:
“Thank you. For her. For raising someone so brave, so stubborn, so completely unwilling to give up on anything she decides to love.” His voice is rough. “For every year she had with you. Every lesson you taught her. Every piece of who she is that started with you.”
I’m crying now. Not sad tears, not entirely. Happy ones too. The kind of tears that come when something broken starts finally healing.
“I can’t give her back what she lost,” he continues. “I know that. But I can promise to spend the rest of my life making sure she knows how loved she is. That she never has to carry anything alone. That she always, always, has someone to show up for her.”
We sit there together, shoulder to shoulder, watching the sun sink toward the horizon.
“They would have liked you,” I say eventually.
“You think so?”
“I know so. Mom would have interrogated you about your intentions, and Dad would have made terrible jokes, and they both would have decided you were acceptable by the end of the first dinner.”
“Just acceptable?”
“That’s high praise from my family.”
He laughs, and I lean into him, and we stay until the sun sets.
The emergency contact form is on the fridge when we get home.
I notice it immediately, a crisp white rectangle pinned under a magnet shaped like an orange cat. The handwriting is obsessively neat, each letter precisely formed.
EMERGENCY CONTACT FORM (updated)
I read the first line. My chest goes tight.
Primary Contact: Orion Halloran
The second line:
Relationship: Mate
The third:
Phone: 555-0194
And at the bottom, in the notes section:
Will show up anyway.
I read it three times. Then I turn to look at him, standing in the kitchen doorway, trying very hard to look casual and failing completely.
“You made yourself my emergency contact.”
“Officially this time.”
“You wrote ‘will show up anyway.’”
“It seemed like relevant information. For medical professionals.” The corner of his mouth twitches. “In case they were wondering about my intentions.”
“That’s…” I don’t have words for what that is.
“Too much?”
“No.” My voice comes out thick. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”
I cross the room in three steps and throw myself at him.
He catches me, of course he catches me, he always catches me, and spins me once before settling me against his chest. Through the bond, I feel his joy matching mine, amplifying it, creating something bigger than either of us alone.
“I love you,” I say into his sweater.
“I know.” His arms tighten around me. “I can feel it.”
From the kitchen, Mario yowls for dinner, demanding, entitled, exactly the same as he’s been since the day he decided I was acceptable company.
“We should feed him,” I say, not moving.
“We should.”
“He’s going to commit crimes if we don’t.”
“He commits crimes regardless. It’s his purpose.”
I laugh, pulling back just enough to look at his face. This face I’ve memorized, loved, chosen a thousand times over.
“Ready?” he asks.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
The bond hums between us, warm, steady, eternal. I grin, take his hand, and feel the answer rise up from somewhere deep.
“Always.”
THE END