Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
No Hexes, No Exes, and No Pissed-Off Brewers
Gideon
The curry the pub was serving for dinner was something Alvin had been working on as part of the whole festival experience.
He said a good ale deserved a proper pairing, and he wasn’t going to let the winning beer sit on tap next to food that didn’t honor it.
The result was a lamb and sweet potato curry with just the right amount of heat and flavor.
It was really good, but most of Alvin’s food was. He’d worked in a fine-dining restaurant in the city for a few years, but he missed living somewhere that was more supernaturally friendly, so he came home. He seemed happy here, and I hoped he was because I would hate to lose him.
I’d brought the food upstairs in two bowls covered with plates to keep the heat in, along with a couple of glasses and a bottle of Roy’s ale, since that was the drink it was paired with.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about serving his ale with everything we were learning, but until we knew anything for sure, I would stick to the agreement to serve it on tap.
Declan had said nothing about the ale when I poured it. He’d just picked up his glass, taken a sip, thought about it for a moment, and set it back down.
“It’s actually not bad,” he said. Which was high praise from Declan concerning a beer.
“It really isn’t,” I agreed.
“That’s annoying.”
“A little. I can get you something else if you want.”
“No, it’s okay. Besides, I haven't tried it with the curry yet.” He picked up his fork.
We ate in the comfortable quiet that had become one of my favorite things about being with him. We could hear the muted sounds of people talking and laughing downstairs at the pub, but up here in the apartment, it was just the two of us. No hexes, no exes, and no pissed-off brewers.
Licorice had taken up a post on the windowsill, facing outward, which I took to mean she considered the inside of my apartment sufficiently supervised and the street to be the more pressing concern.
She’d barely moved since we came upstairs, and both my wolf and I approved.
We liked knowing Declan had someone watching out for him when we weren’t there.
“Not a single one of them,” Declan said with a huff.
I looked up from my bowl.
“None of the brewers found a hex bag.” He stabbed a piece of sweet potato with slightly more force than it required.
“We asked all of them, and nobody found anything.” He set his fork down.
“So either Roy collected them after the fact, which means he’s more careful than we thought, or we’re wrong about the hex bags being the delivery method, or —”
“Or they didn’t find them because they weren’t looking,” I said. “You said they were no bigger than a golf ball.”
“I know, and I know without Licorice, we probably wouldn’t have found Ivan’s,” he said.
“A golf ball isn’t big, and places where someone’s brewing beer tend to have a lot of equipment and shelving. Lots of places to hide an object that small.” I picked up my glass. “I’m not saying they aren’t there. I’m saying it’s possible no one noticed.”
“They’ll be looking now,” he said. “Maybe they’ll find them after all.”
“Exactly, and if they find something, they’ll let us know.”
“And if not, we’ll go check ourselves. It’s not okay to cheat like that. The best beer should have won.” He glared at the almost-empty glass sitting in front of him before picking up his fork and taking another bite of the curry.
We finished eating at a slower pace. I told him what I’d learned at the panel, which was basically nothing, and he talked me through what they’d found at Ivan’s again, and what he and Elwood had been able to read from the hex signature.
By the time the bowls were empty and the ale was mostly gone, we’d gone as far as we could go with the investigation tonight.
Declan leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. “We’re going to figure this out.”
“We are.”
“Roy thinks he’s been clever.”
“He has been, a little.”
“Not clever enough.” He brought his gaze back down to mine, and there was something in it beyond the case. Something he’d been carrying since the library when he saw Josh. I’d known we would have to talk about it, but I didn’t want to push him, so I waited.
He turned his glass in a slow circle on the table. “You know you don’t have to worry about Josh being here.”
“I know,” I said. I really wasn’t worried. I trusted Declan.
“Good,” he said. Then, his voice quieted to a whisper.
“Because I’m not going back to him. I want to be clear about that.
I know I said it outside, but I wanted to say it when it was just the two of us.
” He paused. “He was easy, for a long time. Comfortable. And I stayed too long because comfortable felt like enough. But it wasn’t, and he wasn’t, and now I’m here. ”
“And I’m glad you are,” I said.
He turned his glass again. “The thing I keep getting stuck on is my own judgment. Like, I picked Josh. I stayed with Josh for years. That’s a long time to miss all the signs that someone’s a cheating cheater who cheats. What does that say about my ability to assess a situation?”
“It says you’re loyal, and you gave someone the benefit of the doubt.” I set down my glass. “Those aren’t flaws.”
“They got me cheated on.”
“They also got you here where you belong.” I held his gaze. “I don’t think your judgment is broken, Declan.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then the corner of his mouth lifted. “Well. You would say that. You’re biased.”
“Extremely,” I agreed.
“But if it isn’t Josh you're worrying about, it's something else. There’s something bothering you. I can tell.”
There it was.
I’d been sitting with this for weeks, turning it over and over in my head. The mate question. The thing my wolf knew with absolute certainty, and my human half couldn’t confirm because I couldn’t shift.
“I think I know what you are to me,” I said. “I’ve been wondering for a while. I just can’t —” The word caught slightly. “I can’t be certain in the way I should be able to be certain. Because I’m broken.”
Declan was very still.
“Gideon, you aren’t broken.”
I scoffed. “I am.”
“Not to me.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and looked at me. “Can I tell you what I think?”
“Yes.”
“I think,” he said carefully, “that we’re going to have to do this the normal human way.
” He tilted his head. “Date each other. Get to know each other. Fall in love at whatever pace it happens. All the boring, non-magically-confirmed steps.” The corner of his mouth curved.
“No fate. No bond. Just us deciding every day that this is what we want.”
“That sounds terrifying,” I said.
“It does.” He smiled at me. “But I’m in if you are.”
“I am,” I confirmed. “I’m all the way in.”
I kind of liked the idea of choosing him every day instead of it being fate. Not that I didn’t want to mark him and make him mine, I did. But deciding I wanted him every day wouldn’t be hard at all.
He stood up from the table, collected both bowls, and stacked them with the ease of someone who’d started treating my kitchen like his own, and I liked that he felt at home here.
I stood up, too.
He turned, and I was already close, but not close enough.
“Hi,” he said, looking up at me.
“Hi.”
I pulled him close and kissed him.
Not the quick ones from earlier. This was slower and more deliberate. He made a soft sound against my mouth and leaned into me, his hands finding my shirt. I walked him back until his shoulders met the wall, and he let out a breath that was half laugh and half something else.
“Every day,” he murmured against my mouth. “I will choose you every day.”
“Every day,” I said firmly and kissed him again.
His fingers worked the buttons of my shirt, and I pulled it off and dropped it somewhere behind me, then returned the favor.
I carefully removed his glasses and placed them on the end table before running my hands up his sides and lifting his shirt over his head.
He shivered when I palmed his chest, his skin warm and slightly flushed, and tipped his head back against the wall.
“Bedroom,” he said. Not a question.
I walked him there.
He went down onto the bed and pulled me with him, and I settled over him, my weight braced on my forearms. He looked up at me in the low light with an open, entirely unguarded expression, and something in my chest tightened.
I kissed his throat. His collarbone. The soft skin below his ear that always made him gasp, and his fingers curled into my hair.
I took my time with the rest of it. Enjoying all the things I'd learned about him over the last few weeks. The sounds he made when I dragged my mouth down his stomach. The way he arched when I slowly wrapped a hand around him, working him until he was breathing hard and pulling at my shoulders.
“Gideon.” His voice had gone low and rough. “I swear to God—”
“Mm.”
“Don’t you mm me right now.”
I moved back up his body and kissed him once, deep and unhurried, while he made a sound somewhere between frustration and desperation that I felt everywhere.
Then I gave him what he was asking for.
He cried out softly when we came together, his legs wrapping around me, his hands gripping my back.
We found our rhythm the way we always did—like this thing between us had always existed—and everything else fell away.
The case, the festival, all of it, until all that was left was this. Just the two of us and nothing else.
When he came apart beneath me, his magic flared, announcing his pleasure like fireworks. He called out my name, and I followed him over with no resistance at all.
Later, the room was quiet. The window was cracked and the night air moved through it, cool against the warmth of our skin. Declan was tucked against my side with the bone-lessness of someone who’d fully let go of the day, his breathing slowed to the edge of sleep.
Licorice had relocated to the windowsill outside the bedroom. I wasn’t sure when. She sat with her wings folded, keeping watch.
My wolf was quiet too, as if even he had accepted that, for tonight, things were good.
Every day, Declan had said.
I could do that.
I pulled him a little closer and breathed in his scent.
It was enough.
For now, it was exactly enough.