Chapter 17
Over the next three days, I decided simple avoidance was no longer enough.
Every conversation with Rhaevan left me...bothered.
Clearly, drastic measures were required.
So I stopped avoiding him.
Instead, I started hiding from him.
It was an excellent strategy.
Whenever I spotted him walking my way, I slipped into the nearest room before he could see me.
The kitchen worked first.
Until Rhaevan wandered in a few minutes later carrying vegetables for Miss Ann.
I frowned.
Fine.
I moved into the laundry shed.
He showed up there too, balancing two buckets of water as though he'd known exactly where I'd gone.
My eyes narrowed.
Was he...following me?
Determined not to be defeated, I relocated to the storage room.
This time, I chose my hiding place carefully, squeezing myself behind a stack of grain sacks where no reasonable person would think to look.
A few minutes later, the door opened.
I stiffened.
There he was.
I knew it.
He was absolutely following me.
Rhaevan walked right past me.
Didn't even glance in my direction.
He picked up a sack of flour, checked the shelves, moved a crate against the wall, grabbed a coil of rope, and left.
I remained crouched there in complete silence.
...
Oh. He wasn't following me.
He actually had work to do in all these places.
Which meant I'd spent the last three days proudly hiding in the exact locations where the household's most hardworking person was guaranteed to end up.
I wasn't a strategic genius.
I was just spectacularly bad at hide-and-seek.
Another infuriating thing about Rhaevan was that he anticipated things.
Not in a dramatic, mind-reading sort of way.
He simply noticed what needed to be done before anyone else did and quietly did it.
It became impossible not to notice.
One afternoon, the inn was unusually busy. Every table was occupied, customers kept calling for refills, and I was weaving between them with enough plates to qualify as a traveling buffet.
Someone at the far end shouted for his meal.
I turned toward the kitchen, already preparing myself for another sprint.
The tray was waiting for me.
I stopped.
Then slowly looked up.
Rhaevan stood beside the counter, holding it out as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world.
I looked at the tray.
Then at him.
Then back at the tray.
"...How?"
"The soup was ready," he said simply. "You were heading this way."
That was it.
No grand explanation.
No smugness.
Just...logic.
I took the tray anyway, still eyeing him with appropriate caution.
“Are you telepathic?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
He shook his head with a small chuckle and went back to the kitchen.
I frowned at him, but another customer called before I could overthink it.
As the afternoon wore on, it happened again.
A stack of clean mugs appeared just before I reached for them.
A heavy sack of flour vanished from the doorway before I could trip over it.
The water barrel was refilled before anyone asked.
By the end of the rush, I reluctantly arrived at a deeply disappointing conclusion.
Rhaevan wasn't helping because he was trying to impress me.
He wasn't secretly following me around the inn.
He was simply...like this.
Painfully observant.
Annoyingly competent.
And, worst of all, genuinely helpful.
Damn it.
Eventually, I gave up.
Avoiding Rhaevan had failed so thoroughly that continuing the effort felt embarrassing.
So I adapted.
I stopped leaving rooms when he entered them. I stopped redirecting every conversation into work. I simply continued whatever I was doing, whether he was there or not.
It was not acceptance.
It was tactical surrender.
The truly concerning part was not his presence.
It was how quickly it began to feel normal.
One evening, Miss Ann made tea and set down three cups.
Before I could reach for one, Rhaevan silently handed me the least sweet cup.
I stared at it, then at him, raising an eyebrow.
His expression remained calm.
"You dislike too much sugar."
Although unsettling, I didn't show it. I sighed, took the cup in my hands, and rolled my eyes.
Which was precisely why, when Miss Ann pushed a cart toward me one afternoon and said, "It will be difficult to find wood once the rains begin. Bring enough to last the season," my first instinct was no longer to object to who stood beside me.
I merely looked at the cart.
Then at Miss Ann.
Then at the very obvious physically capable man standing nearby, who possessed both magic and enough skill to single-handedly bring down half the forest if he felt inclined to.
I opened my mouth.
Closed it. Opened it again.
Then sighed.
Why bother?
If Miss Ann wanted to send one perfectly average girl to toil in the woods instead of a generously overqualified specimen of masculinity standing right beside her -who was I to question her deeply flawed judgment?
"I will go with her, Miss Ann," Rhaevan said.
I turned slowly.
That calm, composed, unnecessarily helpful voice had just volunteered.
"Oh dear, no need," Miss Ann said dismissively. "The girl can manage."
I narrowed my eyes.
Something was definitely wrong here.
Miss Ann had been defending him consistently.
A truly horrifying thought crept into my mind.
...She didn't have a crush on him, did she?
I looked at Miss Ann. Then at Rhaevan. Then back at Miss Ann.
Oh no.
Was that what I was witnessing?
Eww, absolutely unacceptable.
The woman was old enough to remind him to eat properly, not stare at him with unexplained levels of fondness.
...
She wasn't exactly staring.
But she had started smiling at him far more often than she smiled at me.
Creepy.
"No, Miss Ann," he said again, steady and firm. "I insist. It is the least I can do."
Before I could object, protest, or strategically disappear, he took the cart from my hands.
Just like that.
Efficiently. Decisively. Uninvited.
I slowly turned toward Miss Ann and gave her what I believed to be a very expressive look.
She ignored it completely.
Then she made a small shooing gesture, as if dismissing two mildly troublesome children.
Go. Do your job.
I looked at Rhaevan.
Then at the cart.
Then at the forest waiting in the distance.
With a quiet sigh and the growing certainty that this situation was not going to improve anytime soon, I followed him into the forest, entirely unaware of the surprise waiting for me there.