20. Lynn #2
There’s more he’s not saying. I can feel it, the same weight that’s been hanging over us since last night. The “talk” he promised. The things he said he’d tell me.
But every time he gets close to saying it, he pulls back. Changes the subject. Finds some new aspect of my injury to fuss over.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
His hand tightens on mine. “A lot.”
“When are you going to tell me?”
“Soon.” He meets my eyes, and I see the struggle there, the wanting to speak warring with something else. Fear, maybe. Or caution. “When the time is right.”
“And when will that be?”
“I don’t know.” He brings my hand to his lips, kisses my knuckles. “But I promise it’ll be soon. There are things I need to explain. Things about us. About what we are to each other.”
What we are to each other.
The words send a shiver through me.
“For now,” he continues, “let me do this. Let me take care of you. Please.”
I should say no, insist on going back to my dorm, on maintaining some semblance of normalcy, on not uprooting my entire life to live in a hidden room with a lycan king.
But his eyes are so earnest. And my ankle really does hurt. And the thought of hopping up three flights of stairs makes me want to cry.
“Fine,” I say. “But if we get caught-”
“We won’t.”
“If my professors find out I’m living behind their offices-”
“They won’t.”
“If Mr. Darcy bites you-”
“He absolutely will. That’s a given.”
I laugh despite myself. “Okay. So how do we do this?”
Milo’s plan is, objectively, insane, and also kind of brilliant: a loading dock, an after-hours window, and Maya running interference while a lycan king smuggles a girl, a hamster, and roughly fifty library books past the offices of three of my professors.
I get live text updates. Professor sexy got bit (twice).
Dr. Brennan nearly caught them behind a filing cabinet.
Mr. Darcy pooped on the desk, possibly on purpose.
By the time the hidden door opens and Milo appears, disheveled and triumphant, I’m officially a secret resident of the faculty building.
“Mission accomplished.”
“Maya says you got pooped on.”
“Your hamster has opinions about relocation.”
“He has opinions about everything.”
Milo crosses to the bed, sitting beside me. “How’s the ankle?”
“Still attached. Still throbbing.” I reach for his hand. “Thank you. For doing all this.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I want to.”
He lifts my hand to his lips again, he keeps doing that, like he can’t help himself, and presses a kiss to my palm.
“There are house rules,” he says. “For the duration of your stay.”
“House rules?”
“Rule one: silence after 6 p.m. The other faculty sometimes work late. If they hear voices from my office when I’m supposed to be gone-”
“Suspicious.”
“Exactly. Rule two: no visible lights under the door. Same reason.”
“Reasonable.”
“Rule three-” He pauses, glancing toward the corner where Mr. Darcy’s cage is now set up. The hamster is already on his wheel, running with manic intensity. “No hamster wheel after midnight.”
“Have you met Mr. Darcy?”
“I have. He bit me.”
“Then you know that rule is impossible.”
“I’m aware. But we have to try.”
As if on cue, Mr. Darcy’s wheel begins squeaking with renewed vigor.
“He’s doing that on purpose,” Milo says.
“He definitely is.”
The days that follow are the strangest, warmest of my life.
But there’s a wall under all of it. Every time the warmth settles, he starts a sentence he can’t finish. “There’s something I should tell you,” he says one afternoon, ladling more soup. “About us. About what you-”
The shared wall erupts before he can, Dr. Hartley launching into a phone fight about couples therapy loud enough that we both freeze, and the moment shatters.
He reads to me.
Mythology, mostly, books from his collection, annotated in his handwriting. Stories of transformation and fate and bonds that transcend understanding.
“This one’s about a wolf who fell in love with a mortal woman,” he says, settling beside me on the bed. My ankle is propped on its pillow throne. Mr. Darcy is running on his wheel, squeaking despite the late hour. “She didn’t know what he was. He was afraid to tell her.”
“Why?”
“He thought she’d run.” He opens the book, and I see his notes in the margins, careful, precise. “He thought the truth would be too much. That she’d look at him differently. That she’d realize he was a monster.”
“Was he? A monster?”
“No.” Milo’s voice is soft. “He was just a man who loved someone beyond reason. Beyond logic. Beyond anything he could control.”
I lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder.
“How does it end?”
“I don’t know yet.” His arm comes around me. “I haven’t finished reading.”
There’s something in the way he says it, like he’s not talking about the book at all. Like he’s talking about us.
“Milo?”
“Mm?”
“The thing you keep almost telling me. Is it bad?”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
“It’s not bad,” he finally says. “It’s just… big. Life-changing. And I want to tell you when you’re ready to hear it. When we’re both ready.”
“I’m ready now.”
“You’re recovering from an attack. Your ankle is still healing. And-” He stops, swallowing hard. “I’m not ready. I should be. I keep trying to be. But every time I open my mouth to say it, I…”
“You what?”
“I get scared.”
The admission hangs between us.
“You?” I turn to look at him. “The lycan king? Scared?”
“Terrified.” His smile is crooked, vulnerable. “Of losing you. Of saying the wrong thing. Of-” He shakes his head. “I’ve held a pack together through the worst month of my life. I’ve stared down a council of wolves twice my age. But the thought of telling you this one thing makes my heart stop.”
“That important?”
“The most important thing I’ll ever tell anyone.”
I reach up, cup his face, make him look at me.
“When you’re ready,” I say. “I’ll be here.”
“You mean that?” His voice is smaller than he wants it to be.
“More than I’ve meant anything.” I say it without hesitation, and he believes me.
He kisses me, soft and sweet and full of something that feels bigger than both of us.
“Get some sleep,” he whispers against my lips. “We’ll talk soon.”
“Soon?”
“Before you can overthink it.”
He settles beside me, pulling me close, and I drift off to the sound of Mr. Darcy’s wheel spinning endlessly in the dark.
Three in the morning.
The hamster has no concept of house rules.
And somewhere in the building, Dr. Hartley is still on the phone with Frank.