16. Willa #2
“Bathroom first,” I said, grabbing the box labeled in Krem’s precise handwriting.
Traig’s bathroom was spotless. White tile. Glass shower. One towel hanging perfectly straight. A solitary toothbrush in the holder.
“No one’s bathroom is this neat and tidy,” I said.
He huffed from the doorway, bags of clothing in his hands. “Mine is.”
“That’s the problem.”
He left, and I pulled out my hair products and scattered them across the counter. I hung my bathrobe on the back of the door. Added a second toothbrush to the holder.
Traig returned to stand in the doorway, watching. His tusks twitched.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re not being honest.”
“I’m—” He shook his head. “This is different.”
“In what way?”
“It’s odd seeing someone else’s things in my space.”
I set down a bottle of shampoo. “I can put it back. We can find another way—”
“No.” He stepped into the bathroom, picked up one of my bottles, and moved it three inches to the left. Then frowned and moved it back. “This is good. This is right.” Another pause. “It just feels strange.”
“Strange bad or strange new?”
His gaze met mine. “New.”
He picked up my body wash and uncapped it. Breathed in. His eyes closed.
“This is what you smell like,” he said. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for weeks.”
He set it down beside his body wash inside the shower, the bottles touching.
We moved to the bedroom next.
I opened the door and stopped. “Traig.”
“Yes?”
“There’s only one bed.”
He came up behind me, close enough that I felt the heat of him through my shirt. “You’re correct.”
“One bed for both of us. Tonight.”
The bed was large, clearly built for two orcs. We’d both fit. But there’d be no way to avoid each other in the night. I’d be aware of him beside me. His warmth. His breathing. The weight of him on the other side of the mattress.
We’d kissed twice. I’d baked him cookies. We’d disagreed about filing systems.
And tonight we’d share a bed.
What had occurred to me finally occurred to him.
“The couch is big enough,” he said. “I can sleep there.”
“The scribe is assessing whether we’re bonded. Bonded mates share a bed.”
“You’re saying—”
“I’m saying if you’re on the couch, we’ve failed the assessment before it starts.”
“I can build a pillow barrier,” he offered. “I’ll place it down the center. We’ll have separate sides.”
Despite the impossibility of what we were attempting, I almost laughed. “A pillow barrier.”
“To maintain appropriate boundaries.”
“Right. Appropriate.”
His ears darkened. “You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m not.” Though I was. A little. “A pillow barrier is very thoughtful.”
“I’m trying to be respectful.”
“I appreciate it, but bonded mates don’t need pillow barriers.”
He paused, frowning. “What do bonded mates need?”
Each other, though I couldn’t say that.
Neither of us moved as the reality set in. We were going to spend the night in the same bed.
I set a box on the bureau and started unpacking, placing a book on the nightstand, my alarm clock beside it. Clothes in the drawers he cleared for me, his hands shaking as he moved his own things to make room.
We worked in silence, building a life that didn’t exist. Making it look real enough to fool someone who’d been trained to spot lies.
When we’d finished, the cottage looked different.
My coffee maker sat beside his kettle. My books were mixed with his on the shelf.
I reached for one of my mystery novels at the same time he reached for his creature behavior manual.
Our hands collided.
We both froze, fingers tangled near book spines, neither of us pulling away.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be.”
He slid his hand away slowly, his fingertips dragging across my knuckles.
I shelved my book next to his. They leaned against each other, their spines touching.
We did one more quick check to make sure it looked like two people lived here.
I stopped in the doorway, studying the space we’d built in two hours. It looked convincing. My things beside his things. Evidence of cohabitation.
It looked staged.
One of my shirts had fallen off the hanger in the closet. Traig bent to pick it up, smoothing the fabric between his fingers.
“This is the one you wore on your second day,” he said.
“You remember what I wore?”
He hung it carefully. “I remember everything.”
My ribs squeezed tight around my lungs.
I walked to my purse and pulled out my notebook, the one I’d been keeping since Portland. Since Derek.
Traig watched me, his expression shifting to confusion when I opened it. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t answer. Just flipped past weeks of entries—Fred, Kelthara, Traig—until I found a blank page near the back.
I pointed to it, holding it up to his face.
“Willa—”
He stared at the notebook. “I don’t understand.”
“This is for good things,” I said. “Things you want to remember about today.” I met his eyes. “Real things. Not the pretend life we just built for the scribe.”
His throat worked. “Why?”
“Because if we’re going to convince him we’re mated, we need more than my shampoo in your bathroom and your books next to mine.” I gestured around the cottage. “This looks right. But it’s not real. Not yet.”
I took the notebook to the kitchen table and set it down.
“Tonight, after the scribe leaves, we’re both going to write one good thing from today,” I said. “Something that actually happened, not something we staged. And tomorrow night, we’ll do it again.”
Traig followed me to the table, still holding the blank pages. “You want me to keep a tally.”
“I want us to build something real underneath the performance.” I pulled out a chair and sat in it. “Because when he comes back tomorrow morning, I don’t want to be pretending anymore.”
He lowered himself into the other chair slowly. The notebook sat between us.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he said quietly.
“Write down one good thing. There’s always at least one.” I picked up my pen and wrote the date at the top of a fresh page. “I’ll start.”
I wrote, Traig remembered what I wore on my second day.
I slid the notebook across to him.
He stared at my entry for a long moment. Then he picked up the pen and wrote beneath it. Willa is letting me write in her notebook. A blank page I can fill myself.
He slid it back.
When I read what he’d written, my eyes burned.
“See?” I said, my voice one big croak. “Real.”
“After the scribe leaves tonight,” he said. “We’ll both write something.”
“Every night,” I said.
“Every night.”
Two people lived here now. Or it looked like they did.
But maybe, underneath the staging and performance and fear, we were building something that could be real.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, not sure if I was talking about the bed or the assessment or the fact that my heart was doing odd things every time he looked at me.
He didn’t answer.
Just glanced down at the notebook between us like it was the most important document he’d ever seen.