17. Traig #2
“We sleep,” she said softly. “That’s all. Just sleeping.”
“In the bed at the same time.”
“Right.”
Neither of us moved.
This was fine. People shared beds all the time. Bonded mates did this every night.
But we weren’t bonded. Not really.
Were we?
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yes.”
I wasn’t.
We pulled back the blankets. I took the left side while she climbed in on the right.
The bed was big enough for two orcs. For a human and an orc, it was enormous.
But it felt too small.
We lay on our backs with the light out, staring at the ceiling. The space between us might as well have been the Cassarian Sea. I could hear her breathing. Feel the mattress dip under her weight. She was close enough that if I reached out, my hand would find her hip.
“Thank you for doing this,” I said.
“I couldn’t let them take you.”
“What happens tomorrow?”
“We convince him this is real.”
“What if we can’t?”
She rolled onto her side, facing me. “Then we come up with a new plan.”
The word settled in my chest.
“I’m afraid that I’ll fail this,” I said. “Maybe my parents were right about me. I can’t do anything important without their strict rules.”
“You’re not failing anything.” Her hand found mine in the dark, threading our fingers together. “You built something important here with the others. You did that.”
“With help.”
“Yes. With help. That’s not weakness, Traig. That’s life.”
I brushed my thumb across her knuckles.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked.
She was quiet for so long I thought she wouldn’t answer.
“All you named, but also, that this is pretend,” she finally said. “That tomorrow the scribe will leave, and you’ll realize you don’t actually want me here.”
I turned onto my side, facing her. Our faces were close enough that I could see her eyes in the moonlight through the window.
“It’s not pretend for me,” I said.
She went very still. So still I couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
I’d said too much. Or not enough. Both.
I wanted to tell her everything I’d been carrying since the moment she’d walked through the door of the rescue league and reorganized my perfectly ordered world, but the words got stuck.
She shifted closer. Then more, until she’d curled against my chest, her arm across my side.
I eased my arms around her.
She fit. That’s what my brain kept coming back to. She fit against my chest like we’d been designed to occupy this space together.
I spread my hand across her back. Her breath warmed my neck.
If this was fake, I didn’t want to know what real felt like.
“Is this okay?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She fell asleep, her breathing evening out.
I lay awake, too aware of her warmth, the scent of her shampoo, and the way her hand curled into my shirt like she was holding on.
Sometime after midnight, I got up, went to the bathroom, then to the kitchen, moving quietly past the scribe asleep on the sofa. In the kitchen, I touched her things, unable to believe she was truly here with me, in my home that I hoped would one day be her home too.
Her coffee maker sat near my tea kettle. Two different ways of waking up, side by side. I ran my finger along the edge of her machine. She’d make coffee this morning. I’d watch her do it. Learn the exact motions she used for this machine as compared to the one in the break room.
Her notebook sat on the kitchen table.
I sat in my usual chair, staring at it. She’d shown me a few things, but what else did she write there? Did she spill out her thoughts like I did aloud and sometimes on my tablet?
I flipped open the cover, telling myself I’d only peek, not read the entire thing. The first page was dated the day she started.
My name was in the first entry.
I pulled the notebook closer.
Traig brought me coffee before I arrived.
I turned the page.
Traig ate nine of my cookies and looked at me like I’d given him something irreplaceable.
Another page.
Traig listened when I said the bloombacks were bonded. He changed his assessment. He learned to trust me.
My throat cinched tight.
Unable to resist, I flipped back, finding entries from her first week.
Traig made a sixty-five-page manual for my orientation. Excuse me. Sixty-seven with appendices. He wants me to succeed.
Traig fixed my filing error without making me feel stupid about it.
Traig makes coffee exactly how I like it even though I never told him how I take it.
I kept reading, my chest getting tighter with each entry.
She’d been adding me to her list of good things.
Traig kissed me like I was the only thing keeping him standing.
I set the notebook down carefully, like it might break. Or maybe I was the thing that might break.
She’d been thinking about me too. Entry by entry. Day by day. While I’d been labeling supply rooms and organizing filing cabinets, she’d been thinking about me.
I went back to bed, sliding in beside her, tugging her into my arms. She sighed and snuggled closer.
This wasn’t fake for either of us. Maybe it never had been.
I didn’t sleep. I held her while the moon moved across the sky and dawn crept closer, bringing with it whatever judgment the scribe would deliver.
But right now, with Willa breathing softly in my arms and her notebook full of my name, I let myself believe this was real. That I’d chosen her, and she’d chosen me. That against all logic, we’d stumbled into something neither of us had been looking for.
Something that looked a lot like bonding.