Chapter 53
“Are Fabian and Tink still out in the courtyard?” Ivy asked, drawing me from my unsettled thoughts.
Ren nodded. “Yeah, I have no idea what they’re doing. I should probably go annoy them.”
Smiling slightly, I watched him walk toward the kitchen, stopping to tip Ivy’s head back and brush a kiss across her lips.
A pang of jealousy and envy stabbed me, and I reburied my face in Dixon’s fur. He purred louder, like a little engine. After a few moments, I became aware of Ivy moving closer. I looked up, not at all surprised to see the concern in her gaze.
“I want to ask if everything is okay, but I know that’s a stupid question. So, I’ll try to refrain from asking that,” she said, coming to stand beside me. “How are you feeling being back here, though?”
“It’s…it’s good, but it is weird,” I admitted, thinking that if anyone knew what it felt like, it was Ivy. She had been through her own messed-up abduction. “Like it almost seems surreal to be here.”
She nodded in understanding. “When I was taken, there were times when I didn’t think I’d ever see my apartment again or the people I cared about. The first day home was a weird one.”
There had been many moments when I didn’t think I was going to walk out of that nightmare.
“Ren and Tink being there for me helped. If they hadn’t been, I probably would’ve eventually dealt with everything, but having them made it easier.” She scratched Dixon’s ear as she lifted her gaze to mine. “Can I give you some unsolicited advice? Don’t shut out the people who want to help.”
“I’m not.”
Her brows arched.
I sighed. “Things are complicated right now. That’s all I want to say about it.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Ivy responded. “Just remember that I’m here when and if you do.”
“I will,” I promised.
Eventually, Ren returned inside with Tink and Fabian.
It was hard to look at Caden’s brother and not see the impossible similarities in the golden hair and cut of Fabian’s jaw.
After a bit, Ren and Ivy left, and Dixon found his way to Tink.
Somehow, and I wasn’t even sure how, I ended up on the couch, squished between Tink and Fabian and buried under a small mountain of blankets.
There were no questions about how I was feeling or what was going on.
Tink turned on what had to be his favorite movie, oblivious to Fabian’s long-suffering sigh.
Twilight. At this point, I’d seen it a hundred times, and I could recite those lines right alongside Tink, but I wasn’t complaining.
Well, I would draw the line at Breaking Dawn.
That whole plot would hit way too close to home at the moment.
Pizza was ordered for lunch, and since I’d been given the all-clear to eat whatever, I might’ve gone a bit overboard and eaten half of the pies.
For once, Tink didn’t comment, but I could tell he was bursting at the seams to make a comment about how I was now eating for two, though was doing his best to keep his mouth shut.
I’d relaxed between them, and by the start of Eclipse, I dozed on and off. I didn’t know what made me think of the community in Florida, but a plan formed in my mind, one that might actually work.
The moment Fabian left, I twisted toward Tink, who had been combing Dixon’s fur. “How big is the fae community in Florida? Is it like Hotel Good Fae?”
“Bigger, I think. There are several thousand there, and they don’t stay in a hotel or use glamour to hide where they live.
They have several gated subdivisions that are all together, built right by a beach.
Super smart what they did by gating the communities.
” He dragged the small comb down Dixon’s back.
“Makes the beaches sort of private since you have to come in through the gates. People just think those who live in there are super rich or something.”
“Do any humans live there?”
He nodded. “Some of the fae there are in relationships with humans.”
That was good. “Did you like it there?”
Tink shrugged as he glanced at the screen as Jacob went full wolf. “I liked it.”
“What about Fabian? He normally lives there, right? Does he plan to go back?”
“I think so, eventually.” He frowned. “Do you ever wonder why Bella couldn’t just have both Jacob and Edward?”
“What?”
“I mean, Edward has been alive for a while, so he’s gotta get bored with the same old, same old. And Jacob is a wolf. I’m sure both have seen and done stranger things,” he reasoned. “Plus, sharing is caring.”
I stared at him and then gave a shake of my head. “No, I’ve never thought about that.”
“You have boring thoughts then.”
I ignored that. “Do you think I could go there? To the community in Florida?”
He returned to combing Dixon, focusing on his tail. “Why would you want to do that?”
“I could use the vacation.”
Tink glanced at me. “You probably could.”
“And…” I took a deep breath. “If Caden doesn’t end up picking a Queen soon, I’m eventually going to start showing. It won’t be easy to hide.”
“Wait a second.” Dropping the comb beside him, Tink picked up the remote and paused the movie. He looked at me. “You want to go down to the community to basically hide.”
“And to relax. I have enough money saved up, and I’m sure Miles would—”
“You want to go hide in a fae community while becoming obviously pregnant?”
“No one down there should know who I am, right? It’s not like Fabian or you told any random fae that I was the human chick the King was hooking up with.”
“Of course not. Although, that would’ve been juicy gossip. But do you really think Fabian isn’t going to know who the baby daddy is?”
I opened my mouth.
“He’s not going to believe for one second that anyone but his brother is the father,” he said before I could speak. “So, you’d be putting him in a position where he’ll have to either knowingly lie to his brother or betray you.”
I snapped my mouth shut. Shit. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Obviously.”
“I really hadn’t.” I sank into the couch, surprised that I had forgotten that very important detail. “It’s like my brain isn’t fully functional or something.”
“I just think you’re really desperate, and desperate people do and think stupid things.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Tink was still for a bit and then placed Dixon in my lap. “Can I be honest for a moment?”
I slid him a sideways glance. “I have a feeling you were just super honest right then.”
“I’m about to be even more honest. Like really super honest. The realest real kind of honesty.”
“I think I get it.”
“But you don’t.” He tipped toward me as Dixon sat up in my lap, watching him. “I get why you’re doing what you are. I do. You want to save the world and some shit. Honorable. I’m not going to mess up your need to martyr your warm and fuzzies.”
“It’s not my need—”
“But it’s become clear to me that you really are delusional.”
“Wow,” I murmured.
“Why else would you think your idea to hide with your baby daddy’s brother in a community of fae was good enough to interrupt Eclipse? But it’s more than that. Do you honestly think Caden is going to marry someone else even if he believes you don’t want him?”
My stomach dropped. “He has to.”
“He doesn’t have to do jack shit, Lite Bright.
I feel like everyone, including Tanner and Faye, is forgetting that.
He didn’t want to be King in the first place, and the last I checked, he’s a grown-ass adult.
Besides in the highly unlikely event that he’s going to be like ‘YOLO, let me pick a fae Queen now,’ do you really think he’s just going to let you walk away?
Not fight for you? And I don’t mean that in a creepy, super-possessive way either, but in a way we all would want someone we cared about to fight for us. ”
All the pizza I’d shoved down my throat was starting to settle wrongly in my stomach.
“But I have a really important question for you. One you need to think about long and hard before answering,” he went on.
“Do you honestly think you’re going to be able to shut down the way you feel about him?
You’re going to be able to stand by and watch him be with someone else?
You’re going to be able to resist him—resist what you want—when he does fight for you? ”
I hadn’t answered Tink’s question, and he hadn’t expected one, but I had thought about it. I’d spent the rest of the day and a good part of that night thinking about it, and every time I said that, yes, I could resist all of Caden’s attempts, there was a little laugh in the back of my mind.
But what other choice did I have?
Restless after downing a glass of orange juice and a small army’s worth of eggs, I took the prenatal vitamin and roamed upstairs, my head in a really weird place.
Slowly, I went down the hall of the second floor, past the closed door of the office, beyond the room Tink had commandeered, and to the other closed door—the one my mother had used.
I could use her room for the baby. My stomach wiggled like it always did whenever I acknowledged being pregnant.
That was if I was still here then. The community in Florida was a stupid idea, but there were a million other places.
If I was here, though, the room would be large, but since the small one that had once been a nursery had been converted into a walk-in closet ages ago, it was the only option.
Well, unless Tink ever moved out. His room was smaller. Maybe he’d want the larger one?