Chapter 14 #2
“Don’t be.” He broke off a piece of the focaccia and passed it to me. “I have high structural standards for furniture, but realistic ones for pasta.”
Our fingers brushed during the exchange, and I found myself holding the bread without immediately eating it, distracted by the lingering warmth of his touch.
“Tell me,” he said as we began to eat, “how did you become a librarian?”
The question pulled me from my touch-induced daze. “Oh! Well, I’ve always loved books. Even as a kid, I organized my picture books by color and subject.”
“Not alphabetically?” His mouth quirked in what I was learning to recognize as amusement.
“That came later, around age eight,” I admitted. “I was a very systematic child.”
“I can imagine.”
I took a sip of wine. “What about you? How does one become a minotaur architect?”
“One is born a minotaur,” he said dryly. “The architecture came later.”
“Smart aleck,” I muttered, and was rewarded with a small, genuine smile.
“I’ve always understood spaces,” he said after a moment, his deep voice thoughtful. “How they connect, how they flow. Even as a child, I built structures rather than destroying them like other young bulls.”
“Young bulls?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Are there many?”
His expression clouded slightly. “No. Not anymore.”
I sensed I’d touched on something painful and quickly redirected. “So you were building even as a child? What was your first creation?”
The tension in his shoulders eased somewhat. “A fort. In the woods behind my mother’s house. More of a labyrinth than a traditional fort. I kept adding to it, creating new passages, hidden rooms.”
“So the labyrinth-building is innate? Not just a cultural expectation because of, you know…” I trailed off, suddenly worried I was being insensitive.
“Because of the myths?” He didn’t seem offended. “Perhaps. Nature and nurture are difficult to separate. I build because it satisfies something in me, not because of Greek legends.”
“I understand that,” I said. “I organize books because it brings me joy, not because librarian stereotypes dictate it.”
He nodded, a look of appreciation in his eyes. “Exactly.”
We ate in comfortable silence for a moment, the pasta delicious despite my earlier kitchen chaos. Rion’s bread was even better—crusty on the outside, tender within, with complex flavors that complemented the simple pasta perfectly.
“This bread is amazing,” I said after finishing a slice of the sourdough. “Seriously, you could sell this.”
“I considered it,” he admitted. “Opening a bakery. But the logistics of a minotaur-owned business in a human town seemed… complicated.”
The matter-of-fact way he said it made my heart ache. How many dreams had he modified or abandoned because of who—what—he was?
“Have you always lived so… apart?” I asked carefully.
He was quiet for a long moment, his dark eyes focused on something distant. “Not always,” he finally said. “There was a time when I tried to integrate more. Work construction jobs, interact with humans regularly.”
“What happened?”
“What usually happens.” His voice held no self-pity, just resignation. “Fear. Prejudice. Occasionally violence.”
I reached across the table without thinking, placing my hand over his much larger one. “I’m sorry.”
He looked at my hand on his, then up at my face, his expression unreadable. “It was a long time ago.”
“Still.” I didn’t move my hand, and neither did he. “It’s not fair.”
“Life rarely is.” He turned his hand beneath mine, his palm now facing upward, our fingers not quite interlaced but definitely touching. “But it has its moments of… unexpected grace.”
The way he looked at me as he said this made warmth spread through my chest. We sat there, food momentarily forgotten, hands connected across my small table.
“What about you?” he asked after a moment. “Has life been fair to Clara the librarian?”
I laughed softly. “Fair enough, I suppose. No major tragedies, just the usual disappointments. Failed relationships, career setbacks, the crushing realization that adulthood is mostly about pretending to know what you’re doing.”
“You seem to know what you’re doing,” he observed.
“That’s just good pretending,” I assured him. “Inside, I’m usually panicking about whether I’ve organized the Historical Fiction section correctly or if I’ll ever stop being the girl who tripped during her graduate school commencement.”
“You tripped?”
“Spectacularly,” I confirmed. “Cap flew off, gown billowed up, the whole works. There’s probably still footage circulating on campus.”
His mouth twitched. “I would have caught you.”
The simple statement, delivered with such certainty, made my breath catch. “I believe you would have.”
Our eyes held, and I became acutely aware that our hands were still touching, his warm and solid beneath mine. I reluctantly withdrew to take another sip of wine, needing a moment to compose myself.
“So,” I said, aiming for casual conversation, “what do you do besides building amazing labyrinths and baking incredible bread? Any hobbies? Secret talents?”
He seemed to consider the question seriously. “I carve,” he said finally. “Wood, mostly. Sometimes stone.”
“Carve what?”
“Furniture. Decorative pieces. Chess sets.”
My eyes widened. “Chess sets? Like, the whole thing? Pieces and board?”
He nodded, a hint of pride in his expression. “I find the precision satisfying.”
“I’d love to see them sometime,” I said, genuinely fascinated. “Do you play as well?”
“When I have an opponent.” Something flickered in his eyes. “It’s been some time.”
“I play,” I offered. “Not well, but enthusiastically. My dad taught me when I was little.”
“Perhaps we could…” He hesitated, as if uncertain how to phrase the invitation.
“Play together?” I finished for him. “I’d like that. Fair warning, though—I’m terribly competitive despite my mediocre skills.”
The small smile returned. “I’ll remember that.”
The conversation flowed more easily after that, winding through topics serious and trivial.
I learned that Rion enjoyed classical music but harbored a secret appreciation for 80s rock bands.
He preferred history books to fiction, though he’d developed a grudging respect for Hemingway.
He couldn’t stand cilantro (“Tastes like soap”) but loved spicy food.
In turn, I told him about my childhood dream of becoming an archaeologist before books won out, my disastrous attempt at learning guitar in college, my tendency to cry at commercials involving animals. With each exchange, the space between us seemed to shrink, the connection deepen.
As we finished eating, I realized we’d gone through both the pasta and an entire loaf of bread. The wine bottle stood empty, and the candles I’d lit were burning low. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d so completely lost track of time in conversation.
“That was delicious,” Rion said, setting down his napkin. “Thank you.”
“For overcooked pasta and near-disasters? The bar is low,” I joked.
“For the meal,” he said seriously. “And the conversation.”
I smiled, warmed by his sincerity. “Even with the wine spill?”
“Especially with the wine spill.” Was that teasing in his tone? “It was… authentically you.”
“Clumsy and chaotic?”
“Resilient,” he corrected. “You don’t let small setbacks deter you.”
I blinked, touched by his perspective. “That’s… possibly the nicest spin anyone’s ever put on my klutziness.”
“Not spin. Observation.” He rose from the table, his head nearly brushing my ceiling. “Let me help clean up.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” he said simply.
So we cleared the table together, falling back into that same careful dance in my small kitchen.
I washed while he dried, his large hands handling my plates and glasses with surprising delicacy.
The domesticity of the moment struck me—how natural it felt to have him in my space, how easily we’d found a rhythm together.
As I handed him the last wine glass, our fingers brushed again, lingering this time. I looked up to find his eyes already on me, dark and intent. The air between us seemed to thicken, charged with all the things we hadn’t said.
“Clara,” he said, my name a low rumble that I felt as much as heard.
“Yes?” My voice came out barely above a whisper.
He set the wine glass down carefully, his movements deliberate. Then his eyes found mine again, and what I saw there made my heart race—longing, hesitation, and something deeper, more intense.
“Thank you,” he said finally. “For seeing me.”
The simple statement held such weight, such vulnerability, that I felt my throat tighten with emotion. I understood what he meant—thank you for seeing beyond the horns and fur, beyond the myths and monsters, to the person beneath.
“I like what I see,” I said softly.
His gaze intensified, dropping briefly to my lips before returning to my eyes. The kitchen suddenly felt impossibly small, the air between us electric. I was acutely aware of his proximity, of the heat radiating from his body, of how little I would need to move to close the distance between us.
Time seemed to stretch and compress simultaneously. I couldn’t have said how long we stood there, caught in that moment of possibility, the dishes forgotten, the world narrowed to just us and the charged space between.