Chapter 7 #2
She was just hungry, she decided. Hungry and a little bit overheated. She’d bypassed breakfast to leave the apartment before Mitch had, and now her baby was letting her know that she was hungry and uncomfortable.
“I didn’t expect you were going to be out here,” she said. Not a lie, since she’d been hoping to find him in the park before stumbling upon him out in the corridor. “So, if you’ll excuse me, I was on my way to get breakfast.”
Now that? That was a lie.
And Ash knew it, too.
“Callie—”
Oh, she was going to regret this. Deep down, she knew she would. But she would also regret it if she walked away from Ash and didn’t resolve… this. Whatever existed between them before, and whatever they were now.
There was no changing that she was six months pregnant and that Ash was the father. Fated tied them together when Ash recognized her as his ffrindau, and circumstances meant that—regardless of how either of them felt—they were bonded by the child growing inside of Callie.
She took a deep breath, then sighed. “You can come with me. Okay?”
It probably wasn’t what he was hoping for.
She’d put money on the fact that Ash wanted her to invite him inside of her place, maybe cook for him like she had so many times before.
Though he warned her never to eat food from Faerie, the fae could eat human food should they choose so long as they didn’t use a metal fork.
He was a huge fan of pepperoni pizza, popcorn, and scrambled eggs, she remembered, and she made plenty of brunches for the two of them to share.
That was when he was basically dating her; or the fae equivalent of dating. Now that they were going to have to co-parent for the sake of their child, he didn’t get that invite or the home-cooked meal.
The deli a few blocks over would have to suffice. With a stubborn set to her jaw, she adjusted her purse hanging on the crook of her elbow and waited for his answer.
Ash gave her a solemn nod. “Of course.”
When Callie went to lead them inside of the deli, Ash shook his head and led her a few blocks further down until they reached a small cafè.
It had small tables scattered around the space, and after Callie ordered two hot chocolates, a croissant, and a blueberry muffin, she followed Ash wordlessly toward one near the back.
It gave them privacy while also allowing Ash to keep an eye on the place.
His back was to the window, his gaze roving over the handful of patrons, scrutinizing them closely.
Only when he seemed to assess that the old ladies sipping their coffees and the bald man bent over his crossword weren’t threats to her did he gracefully hook his fingers around the muffin, pulling toward him.
Callie was nibbling on the edge of the croissant. This close to Ash, she realized she was too nervous to really have an appetite. She picked up the nearest hot chocolate, giving Ash a quelling look when he reached for the other one.
“They’re both mine,” she told him.
He pulled his hand back. “Of course.”
She clenched her jaw. If he said “of course” like that one more time…
This was a bad idea. When she thought she’d regret it, she figured it would be later on after Ash inevitably was gone again.
Nope. The atmosphere in the cafè was cozy which was a nice way of saying that the tables were cramped.
If she wasn’t careful, she might end up brushing against him, they were seated that close.
After she took a few more tiny bites off of her pastry, Ash plucking pieces of the muffin top and plopping it gently inside of his mouth, Callie couldn’t take the tension any longer.
“Okay. Let me see if I got this straight. You tell me that you didn’t want to leave me.
That Melisandre made you do it. And that, all of a sudden, you could walk away from this bargain you made after all this time because you heard a rumor that a human was pregnant and you guessed it might be. Right?”
Ash nodded. “Yes. I’m glad you understand.”
He was glad? She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“So what? You could’ve done that all along? You just needed a reason to disobey her? Is that it?”
“Well, no. I couldn’t leave until she took the cuffs off. I had to earn her trust enough that I could get to you.”
Wait.
What?
“Cuffs?”
“That’s right. Crystal cuffs. Magic. She could’ve thrown me in Siúcra—one of the prisons in Faerie,” Ash added at her visibly blank look, “and I couldn’t have been more trapped than I was wearing those cuffs.
I only just got them off recently before I made my way back.
Hearing about a possible halfling… it was the push I needed to go. ”
To cover up her confusion, she took a big mouthful of her now not-so-hot chocolate, before swallowing and saying, “And you really expect me to believe all that?”
“You must.” He raised his eyebrows. “Have you forgotten? I can’t lie.”
Callie didn’t notice how hard she’d been holding onto the hope that he could, that while everything he said to her could be exaggerated, then that also meant he’d been bluffing in front of Melisandre when he said all those cold, cruel things that day in Faerie.
They’d been pretty close to absolutes, and she couldn’t see how she could interpret them any other way.
Guess not.
Grabbing the nearest napkin, Callie crumpled it up, tossing it on top of her picked-at food. “Really? So, then, I guess you did mean what you said to me before.”
“Mean what? That you… that our child is in danger? I wish I wasn’t.”
Callie, too, but that was something she could worry about later. For now—
“‘You can’t forsake what you never wanted’,” she retorted with more venom than she had meant to use. “I remember exactly what you said that day. And you can’t lie, right?”