Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
— DOUGLAS ADAMS
“ Y ou have let me down, Sonnet.”
I looked up from the script I was reading and found Ranger Boone standing in front of me, holding a cannoli in each hand. We were in the craft services tent, which was mostly empty. Luke had flown back to LA last night for auditions. I’d taken advantage of his absence to get out of my trailer.
“Why would I be a disappointment to you?” I took a moment to lament the fact that my magical repertoire did not include a hex spell. Ranger Boone was a pain in my rear end.
He dropped down into the empty chair next to me, and I held out my hand. If I had to deal with his disappointment, he could share his fried pastry dough.
“I’m not in a sharing kind of mood.” He held them away and took a bite from the strawberry one.
Now we were both disappointed. Dropping my hand, I watched him chew as he regarded me defiantly.
Maverick, being a man of his word, had picked me up this morning. It turned out that his ominous we had included Ranger. Were they some kind of weird hydra-headed twins? Rice grains in a sushi roll? Regardless of the reason they were stuck together, it had been Maverick, Ranger, and I riding in Maverick’s truck.
Ranger had been pointedly morose and sullen for the entire drive. Worse, Maverick had switched back to being politely friendly rather than lustily friendly. Let me tell you, it was disappointing to be looking forward to some sexy heart palpitations and conversational exchange and instead get an angry Boone brother and a chaste Boone brother.
“I gave you every opportunity,” Ranger accused. “Who the Sam Hill wouldn’t have exploited the situation?”
“ Dios mío! Why can’t you speak clearly? You can’t give me shit for not understanding you!”
“On Friday? With the special sock delivery and the coffee? That was no accident. I arranged for it to happen.” He waved his cannoli in the air.
“You are so strange.” I got up and grabbed a plate of cannoli. He did not get to eat pastry in front of me. I did not offer him any.
He took a bite out of his cannoli.
“Yes. Yes, I am. But you dropped the ball. I passed and you fumbled. If we’re going to get you and Maverick together, I need you to be my first string. I threw my brother at you, and you let me down.”
“You were throwing Maverick at me?”
“Of course I was.” He sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes. I had worked with less talented actors. “Do you want me to help you win my brother, or not?”
“Yes, absolutely, yes, please,” I said quickly. “Please give me all the help.”
“We need to coordinate.” Ranger shoved the rest of his cannoli into his mouth.
“Awesome. You bet. Synchronized striking.”
He thought for a moment. “You are officially invited to family dinner next week.”
“Okay.” Seducing Maverick in a room full of his brothers seemed like it would require more than mere synchronized striking, but what did I know? I was taking advice from the weirdest Boone of them all.
My phone buzzed as said Boone chewed on his cannoli. I glanced down, saw it was Elena, and sent it to voicemail.
Elena promptly called back, winning me a flinty glare from Ranger.
“You should pick up.” He pointed his cannoli at my phone. “You pick that up, and I’ll ponder while I finish my dessert.”
Alrighty then.
I picked up.
It was probably nothing.
Or ten more things I needed to have finished yesterday.
Or feedback from the studio on my Wolf Girl pages?
I greeted my sister, reminding myself that I was a successful, professional, and semi-articulate adult. It would be fine news.
“What’s up?”
“Where are you?”
“Craft services. On set. Why?”
“Can you go somewhere private?”
My stomach dropped. I thought of all the ways things could have gone wrong. I’d been fired. My pages were crap. The water main had broken in my Hollywood place, and there was raw sewage flowing through my living room, and the paparazzi had leapt to unfortunate conclusions about my bathroom habits. Whenever Elena had bad news and I was on set, she wouldn’t tell me until I was alone.
Don’t catastrophize.
“Is there a problem at home? Are Mami and Papi okay?” I’d just texted them yesterday.
“The family’s fine; it isn’t personal. Just go to your trailer and call me back as soon as you can.”
She hung up on me. Maldito.
“What’s wrong?” Ranger asked around a mouthful of sweet cream.
“No clue.” Would a quick Google search of my name be helpful or not? Probably not. It was better not to know everything that was said about me. “My sister won’t tell me until I’m alone.”
“Excuse me?”
“She worries.” I gathered up my script pages and closed my laptop. “This is her modus operandi. She’s sure I’ll lose my shit if she tells me something I don’t want to hear, and then I’ll make a scene, and there will be pictures or video online, and she’ll have to do damage control.”
“And do you?”
“Lose my shit?” I shrugged. “Not really? I mean, not more than most people. The last time I screamed in public there was a rat the size of a terrier running across my feet. I believe I was justified.”
“Hmmm.” Ranger studied me, then pushed a business card at me as he stood up. It was for All-Purpose Animal Services. “We can help with the rats. You’re going to your trailer?”
Shoveling my crap into my bag, I nodded and stepped to the side as he pushed in my chair. “Yeah. Now I need to know, but she won’t tell me until I’m out of sight.”
“Excellent. That’s excellent.” He gave me a brisk nod, then jogged out of the tent.
Ranger Boone was an odd bird.
Since I didn’t have time to contemplate all the ways in which he was (delightfully) odd, I darted back to my trailer. Eric fell in behind me from wherever he’d been protectively lurking and followed me. He also opened the door to my trailer and checked it quickly before he let me go in. The caution was appreciated, but my curiosity was killing me. I dumped everything on the bed and called Elena.
“Okay,” I said, once I had her on the phone. “Tell me. I’m alone.”
She sucked in a breath. Oh, God. This was going to be bad. “The studio doesn’t think you’re right to play the part of Wolf Girl. But they still want you to write the script.”
What?
Ummm, EXCUSE ME?
I was literally writing it. It was my book baby and I had brought it into the world. No one knew the character of Wolf Girl better than me.
“Why not?”
Elena hesitated. “The studio’s director pick thinks you’re too curvy.”
UGH. “He wants a skinny lead.”
“No,” Elena said firmly. “Well, yes. But all because you’re Latina. He’s worried it would be typecasting.”
I reminded myself that screaming was unprofessional. Also, it would make Eric come smashing through my trailer door.
“Are you saying he doesn’t want to cast me in a role about a curvy woman who discovers she has supernatural superpowers because he thinks only Latina women are hot, curvy bombshells?”
Elena snorted. “No. He knows the curvy Latina thing is a stereotype. But because it’s a stereotype, he’s getting pushback.”
“That’s stupid. It’s entirely illogical. A brilliant, funny, curvy Latina woman not only wrote the best-selling book that the film will be based on, but she’s adapting the screenplay. I have curves.” I might have stomped around my trailer dramatically. “I am also more than just those curves. This whole thing is the perfect setup to illustrate how limiting thinking in stereotypes is.”
I paced up and down my trailer. I did not kick anything. Or huff. I was a professional but this was just so wrong. When would I ever be enough exactly as I was?
“So,” I continued, “the studio is worried that a television audience will get upset about a Latina woman playing a major lead role because the character is a curvy woman, never mind that I’m a talented actress. Are they also worried that I’m going to pop out babies as a sexy werewolf bombshell and have an enormous pack of wolf pups? And speak with a thick accent? Those are outdated stereotypes, Elena. This is ridiculous. The studio is taking away my chance to show that movies need and thrive with more diverse lead heroines. I was trying to give women like us a platform and a voice and now? Nada .”
Latina women could be anything. We were more than our Spanish last names, our appearance, or our uteruses. We were not all loud, crazy, and spicy. What I wanted, more than anything, was to make sure the characters in my scripts all had speaking parts. My women—Latina and not—spoke out. Sometimes, they even had a lot to say and did it loudly.
If I’d been a white actress, would this have been an issue? Would the director have worried that my curviness sent the wrong message about the Caucasian race? There were stereotypes about fat white women too.
This sucked.
“ Hermanita , this isn’t fair. Nothing about this industry is fair. But the good news is that they loved the last script you wrote, and they’re impressed with the pages you sent for Wolf Girl . You’ll still be involved.”
I’d be involved on their terms, not mine. I’d have something, but not everything.
I curled up on the bed. What could I say?
Nothing, that’s what.
Absolutely nothing.
“Sonnet? Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“There will be other movie roles. We’ll land you something better.” She hesitated, then asked, “And you’ll keep sending pages? For Wolf Girl ?”
“Really? That’s what you want me to do? Write it and let them take it over and push me out?”
“Sonnet,” she said sternly. “You keep on sending those pages. Do not stop. We can spin this into something. You have options .”
“I’ve got to go.”
“Sonnet, listen to me?—”
Nope. I was not listening to someone who was more concerned with getting her script than with how I felt about losing my part.
I hung up, turned off my phone, and wondered how long it would take me to drive to an international airport.
I had my passport. I could go somewhere else, somewhere fun. I could take that vacation I’d dreamed about.
And that was the weird thing. I wasn’t seething about being called fat or losing a part because of the way I looked. Yes, I was mad. I wasn’t going to be Wolf Girl because of my ethnicity and my weight. No matter how good of an actress I was, I’d been judged on my outsides rather than on my actions.
It was profoundly irritating, and yet not shooting the movie actually felt like a relief.
Someone knocked on the trailer door. I ignored it. I also ignored the second and third knocks. The knocks weren’t exactly deafening, but they were firm and insistent. They would not take no for an answer.
Well, too bad!
I was not in a polite mood.
The door opened. Eric was going to give me grief for not having locked it.
“Sonnet?”
I covered my face with a cute throw pillow. Because of course my determined knocker was Maverick. I didn’t need him to see me when I wasn’t at my best.
He shut the door behind him and crossed to where I was burrowing into the bed. I’d thought I was okay with opening up and being vulnerable around him, but I’d been super wrong. I was dealing with a career setback and racial injustice. I was busy.
His weight settled on the bed next to me. “Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”
No.
I was not.
I was angry, I was frustrated, and I was way too close to crying.
It took a few minutes for me to get the words out, but I managed to lie eventually. “I’m fine.”
Maverick settled in. His leg pressed against my hip. He was warm and nice, but I still would have preferred to have my angry cry alone.
I peered up at him, careful not to blink. That was the key to not actually crying. He was staring carefully down at me, his eyes warm and concerned. His handsomeness was almost overwhelming this close. Why was he even here?
Was he here to deliver more bad news? This was, after all, the trailer of bad news, the preeminent bad news delivery site.
So I asked, “Why are you here?”
“Ranger said you were getting bad news.”
“And?”
His brow furrowed; he clearly was confused by my question. “And I was concerned about you.”
His hot-and-then-cold-and-then-hot-again attitude was worse than a shower with a small hot water tank. He did not get to come here and confuse me with this niceness and sweet concern.
“So your intentions are friendly?” Shoot. I’d narrowed my eyes. The tears started trickling. I swiped them away angrily. Nothing was going right for me, not even my lacrimal glands.
Was he expressing friendly concern for an acquaintance? Like: oh, I’m so sorry some asshole rear-ended your new truck! Or: wow, it sucks that you have carpenter ants in your bathroom! I can recommend a good animal services company!
He’d kissed me like I mattered.
Then he’d walked away.
Then he’d picked me up this morning with his brother in the backseat of the truck —and that was not some unexpected (and unwelcome) kink.
So, no, I didn’t understand why he would be concerned.
I was confused and hurt.
Should I ask him if the kissing had been a one-off, an aberration? Did he have plans to do more kissing, or were the plans only in Ranger’s devious head?
While I debated these important questions, Maverick pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped decisively at the screen. Perhaps he was launching nuclear bombs or checking on his home security system. Perhaps his house had been invaded by killer honeybees, or the raccoons were holding a dance party in his trash cans.
Whatever. I was out of fucks to give.
Unexpectedly, music played from his phone. Dramatic, soaring, very loud...it was opera music? I found a single, sad, solitary fuck to give.
“Why are we listening to music, and what song is that?”
Maverick’s warm gaze moved over me, and he smiled. God, he had a beautiful smile. “‘I Love You, Olga.’”
“You need to keep your ladies straight,” I joked weakly.
I ignored my heart’s pathetic little jump. It had really, really liked the first three words, alright.
The music was sweeping and happy. A tenor warbled away in a foreign language. I sighed. The singer sure seemed to have a whole lot of feelings, and he wasn’t afraid to share them. Sooooo unlike my professor, who was all about hot smiles and not about words. His smile was absolutely not warm or tender.
It was not, not, not.
I would not be tricked into having any more feelings for him. Damn his beautiful music! I would not be influenced!
“It’s Russian,” he added, as the music swirled romantically around us.
“Oh, right,” I said. Perhaps he moonlighted as a spy. Or worked for the KGB. Was that still a thing? I read paranormal romance, not the New York Times . Only one of those guaranteed a happy ending.
Then he held out his hand. “Dance with me?”
Ummm. What?
“Why?”
Apparently, that meant, Yes! I enthusiastically agree! (I had no idea how to say that in Russian, but possibly it sounded similar?) because Maverick pulled me to my feet and slid his arm around my waist. This wasn’t bad, so I didn’t complain.
It got even better when he tucked my body against his bigger one, one strong arm banding around my waist, while the other reached for my hand. Our bodies were flush together like pine planks on a porch or two ears of corn on a stalk. His body warmed mine with intoxicating heat, his familiar scent invading my nose. He enthralled me and soothed me at the same time.
There were hard calluses on his palms, rough spots on his hands from working hard. The friction felt delicious against the smoother skin of mine. He was so different, but it was a good different. We somehow fit together and found a rhythm that worked for both of us. So what if his hand was so big that it enveloped my smaller one? He didn’t swallow me up—he wrapped me up and I felt comforted and safe.
He tethered me to him, and I loved it.
I loved him, damn it.
“Why?” I asked.
He threaded his fingers through mine and thought about it as he twirled us in slow circles to the gorgeous music. He was a great dancer. Had he taken dance lessons as a small boy? And how could he fit an entire dance number inside my small trailer?
Finally, Maverick bent his head, his lips brushing my ear. His beard tickled the bare skin of my neck. “We’re dancing because you need me to hold you, but you won’t ask.”
HOLDING. HANDS.
We were HOLDING HANDS.
My brain yelled this out at random moments because this was an exciting and confusing plot twist I hadn’t seen coming. What were we doing?
We danced around my trailer, “I Love You, Olga” on a loop, and I hung on to Maverick because I was not ready at all to let this moment go.
Sharing my bad news with Maverick did not actually make me feel instantly better. Losing the part of Wolf Girl still sucked. It was still unfair. It was still a blow for diversity in the TV industry. After we danced and I shared my bad, bad news, Maverick suggested we go for a walk in the woods. Trees were like comfort food for me, so trees plus Maverick was a five-course meal for starving me.
It turned out that he had a truckful of opossums his brothers had rescued, so we hiked into the woods on a mission. He carried the cage with the opossums in one hand, his other holding mine. We were surrounded by northern red oaks, cucumber trees, basswoods...so many awesome tree names. The woods were my happy place, and this one was old and beautiful. The fall colors were at their peak, all the leaves yellow and orange, red and vivid green.
He’d listened carefully to my recounting, concerned and angry on my behalf.
He was Team Sonnet. He made it clear, too, that he would have been even without the dancing and the hand-holding. What had happened was wrong, and it made him mad. He was just madder because it had happened to me .
When we reached a big stream, we stopped by the tree-lined bank. It was impossible not to feel better. The water rushed over the mossy rocks, chattering and singing. Maverick set the cage down, and then we let the opossums out. They were cute as heck with their little white bandit faces and black eyes.
Momma opossum waddled out of the cage carrying her little ones on her back like a bunch of furry commuters packed in a train car. She sniffed the air once and then promptly disappeared into the underbrush.
Mission accomplished.
Now here we were, sitting on a rock in the middle of the stream, our hips touching, his arm around me as we silently tossed bits of sticks into the rushing water. I was talked out, and it felt good to just sit. I snapped a few pictures for my Instagram but didn’t even check to see if I had enough signal to post.
Maverick broke our easy silence. “My momma had some good advice. She used to remind me that you should never fry bacon nekkid as a jaybird.”
Ouch. I snorted and looked over at him.
God, he was good-looking. Strong nose, plush lips, firm jaw. Whisker stubble where he wasn’t all thick, lush beard. He was a gorgeous rock of a man.
The bacon-frying advice was spot-on. Hollywood was a kitchen full of flying, boiling-hot pig fat. In this particular case, I’d stepped into the kitchen without thinking, and I hadn’t been ready for the splash back.
Sitting here with Maverick helped, though. His big shoulders and muscled arms were a welcome distraction, as were his warm fingers wrapped around mine.
Maverick was well-honed strength and power, the kind of physique that came from hours of hiking and hauling homeless opossums hither and yon. From wielding axes, collecting samples, and climbing trees and mountains.
Okay, so I wasn’t entirely sure what Maverick did, but clearly he wasn’t sitting around in a laboratory all day, and he hadn’t acquired his muscles in a gym. He didn’t Zumba, CrossFit, or lift. He went out and did things.
Wild, semi-civilized, genuine things.
Unlike my fellow actors who worked out in gyms with personal trainers, he used his body as a tool on a daily basis to do his job. It felt real. He felt real. He wasn’t worried about how he would look on Instagram.
“Your momma,” I said, “was a wise woman. Also, I have to ask. Was this piece of advice based on an actual episode in the Boone family kitchen?”
He laughed. “You’ve met Ranger, right? But no, it was more of a general observation on life.”
That was so funny that I almost slid off our rock, laughing. Maverick anchored me, tucking me more firmly into his side. “Did your momma work in the film and TV business?”
Maverick’s smile faded some. “No. Her bacon grease was more of the husbandly, werewolf, biker sort.”
He stood up, tugging me gently after him. He waited until my feet were well planted, then started picking a path back to the streambank.
“She sounds like my mami. Mine likes to say things like, ‘ No puedes ponerle alas a un gato y llamarlo pájaro .’ You can’t put wings on a cat and call it a bird. Usually when I’m worrying about not looking like the typical TV actress or my books not being marketable.”
Maverick’s smile was amused and understanding.
I was so done giving Hollywood and its unfairness room in my head. No vacancy! Find another place! So, I switched the subject and asked, “Did you always want to be a biologist?”
“No,” Maverick shook his head, laughing so hard he almost fell into the stream. “I wasn’t a school kind of kid growing up. I hated sitting still, following the rules, doing all that homework. I liked to run around outside and poke my nose in places I was forbidden to go. And the faster I could go, the better. I’d picked a raptor when we had to choose our favorite animal in school because they were strong and mean and went for what they wanted. Also, I wanted a dinosaur uncle or daddy.” He paused for a moment. “Mostly though, I wanted to be an Iron Wolf. I wanted my own cut, to run with them, and then to lead them some day in the not-too-distant future.”
Wyatt had told me this, but I got the sense that Maverick needed to let it out, to share this part of himself with me. And I had to admit, I wanted to hear the story in his words, directly from him. We’d spent too much time listening to what other people said about us, and not enough time talking face-to-face.
“Wyatt shared some things with me, but I’d love you to tell me.”
I wanted to hear all his stories.
He stopped walking and let go of my hand. Folding his arms over his chest he stared out at the mountain around us. “It was a biker club, although, yeah, all the patch-wearing members were wolf shifters. I wanted to be their president, the alpha wolf.” Then, quieter, he added, “It would have made my daddy proud, and running with them was all I ever wanted back then.”
Maverick turned so we were face-to-face. His big shoulders blocked out the first streaks of pink sunset in the sky.
My heart beat harder.
He looked so serious.
“Evan always did the right thing. He always gave everything one hundred percent—didn’t half-ass, didn’t hold back. He was the good guy, the right kind of friend. I wasn’t. I’d get into trouble, and so he’d come and pull my ass out of the fire. He was my own personal preacher, giving me a hand up and an earful about reforming at the same time.” Maverick chuckled, remembering some long-ago scene, and shook his head. “He always saw the potential in me and didn’t give me up as a lost cause, even when others did.”
I could not imagine Maverick as a villain.
He was my hero.
I squeezed his hand, letting him know that I was also on his side, how I saw him right now, how he’d rescued me from my unhappy headspace.
“He was such a part of my life, and then he died. He joined the Marines. I joked that I should have been a big enough rescue job for him, but no, he had to expand his efforts to the whole world. He died on his first overseas tour. He’d always wanted to be a biologist and a teacher.”
His stare became distant.
“So, you did it for him? You went to graduate school to follow his dream?”
Maverick looked at me. My easygoing, friendly man had vanished. He was a withdrawn, snarly wolf.
“I stepped up.” He nodded once. “I should have been the one to die, not Evan.”
“That’s not true. There’s no way Evan would have wanted you thinking that.”
I had never met Evan, but I was certain it was true.
Good friends only wanted the best for us.
They loved us even when we were hardest to love.
And while they might push us to be better or to do more, they also held us when we needed it most.
Evan had been the best of friends.
“I was an ass. Disrespectful of my momma, rude, cocky, sure I was always right. I stole cars. I didn’t hesitate to lash out—with my fists, my wolf, and my words. I once tried to make my sister the old lady of the vice president of the Iron Wolves.” Maverick’s lip curled. He did not like past Maverick, and I had to wonder if he liked himself now. Or was he still trying to atone? “My daddy proposed it like there could be nothing better than telling a fifteen-year-old girl that she was the property of a thirty-year-old wolf. I didn’t tell him no. I did nothing to stop it. I was that sure of my daddy. Fortunately, my brother Knox stepped in and protected her. My daddy was road captain for the club, and I thought he was a big wolf. Truth was, he was only a big wolf in the eyes of the club. To the rest of the world, he was a shitty, ethic-less felon whether he was human or wolf.”
Everything in me wanted to reach out and hold him. These things were awful, wrong, and fucked up. But he’d changed. He’d shown me a man who was the moral opposite of this story. He was no biker now.
“And then Evan died.” Maverick’s voice deepened, rough with emotion. “And I realized who I loved. It wasn’t the Iron Wolves, or being a big man, or giving orders to a pack of wolves. It wasn’t even my daddy. It was honor and loyalty, the family I’d chosen, belonging to them. With them. Because Evan had given me that chance, to be with the people who were important in my life, and I hadn’t appreciated it. I’d tossed all that away, abandoned my brothers, for a fast bike and a patch.” He frowned fiercely at the trees, remorseful and tortured. “I’d run away as fast as I could from my momma and my sister, treating them like the property the club claimed women were.” He shook his head, his face full of self-loathing.
“That’s not who you are now,” I pointed out, needing to ease the bitterness that twisted his face. “You chose to change. You did the work that it took.”
“I didn’t change me ,” he said. “I was done with me . I became someone new. I asked myself: what would Evan do? And then I did that. He didn’t get a chance to live the life he deserved, so I’ve tried to be the person he might have become. Insofar as I can.”
I fisted the edges of my shirt. There was so much hurt in his voice. And pain and anger, all directed at himself. “But what about your dreams and hopes? Don’t you get to do things for yourself now?”
Maverick shook his head, his smile mocking and tired. “I buried my dreams with Evan. They weren’t good dreams. I wanted the wrong things.”
I exhaled painfully. “I don’t mean wanting to run a gang of werewolf bikers. You chose to make a new life for yourself, so why couldn’t you choose some new dreams? Like a New Year’s resolution or a life makeover? What do you want to do? If you could do anything, what would the first thing be?”
Maverick jammed his fists into his pockets. “Not hurt people.”
He looked exhausted, as if he’d spent far too long rebuilding and restarting, and now he simply needed to rest.
There was no deception, no holding back, no glossing over what he’d done or not done. He’d made choices and he owned them. I’d never seen him so vulnerable. I felt like we were looking at each other, seeing pieces of each other that had always been carefully hidden away.
“Awesome! So, we can rule out dark sorcerer and vampire slayer.”
I winced because my timing was awful and it wasn’t the right time for jokes, but he gave a bark of laughter, the tight lines on either side of his beautiful mouth easing some. “Definitely.”
Maybe I was enough. Maybe I didn’t need to have a different sense of humor, better timing, or more empathy.
Maybe I really was enough for him.
She thought she could, so she did.
I was enough and I was done keeping secrets. I could trust him with all my pieces.
“I’m not a witch,” I blurted out before he could say anything. “My sister is, but I’m half Fae, half Chaneque. The Chaneque side of my family, we’re forest spirits, big on trees and being outside. We like to play a few tricks, and don’t ever ask my aunties and uncles for directions, but it’s not mean-spirited. The Fae half, though, is the side I get my glamour from.”
“Is it magic?”
“Yes? But not a spells-and-wands kind of magic. It’s just an ability that I’ve had from birth, to make myself seem more likeable. I smooth out my rough edges, the weird bits. I don’t exactly look like this, which is something we should talk about. Also, I want to see your wolf.”
“Show me?” he asked softly.
And...and so I did. I let the glamour go. I raised my hands up in front of my face, swept downward with my palms, dropping my hands past my forehead and my nose, from my chin to my chest. Particles of gold danced in the air like dust in the sunlight, here but not quite here.
The glamour faded and I just was.
I kept my eyes fixed on his face because I needed to know what he thought about my real face, the real me.
“Here I am. This is me.”
I’d never shown my face to a lover before. My heart jackhammered against my rib cage, demanding to be let out. My stomach jumped up to meet it.
Maverick stared. “It’s nice to meet you, Sonnet.”
I knew what he saw. The tip of his finger traced the pointed top of my ear, eliciting a delicious shiver. They were so sensitive, those ears of mine.
“Well?” I nibbled nervously at my bottom lip, which meant he could see my sharper-than-human teeth, my pointy canines, the jagged, wickedly sharp incisors.
My ears were also sharper, rising to those delicate peaks that were so clearly visible through the tangled, curly masses of my hair. Otherwise, I was largely the same: my body just as curvy, my chin just as pointed, my height just as nonexistent. But the veins beneath my sun-kissed, golden skin were the delicate brown-green of lichens on a tree, and my eyes were the violet of pansies.
As he’d done on Friday, Maverick stepped into me, erasing the distance between us. He threaded his fingers through my hair, sending goosebumps racing over my skin. I tipped my head back.
Please kiss me. It was my turn to make him feel better about his life choices, and I took my turn seriously.
Also, my belly and my heart were leading a marching band formation in my body. Hup, two, three, four! Kiss, kiss, kiss!
Also, I just liked this dang man.
Instead of kissing me on my lips, he pressed his lips against my forehead. I exhaled in a confused whoosh .
“Maverick—”
“Shush,” he said, his mouth against the edge of my hair. “You’re beautiful, with or without the glamour. Do you know why?”
I whimper-whined something. I was . . .
I was . . .
“Because of who you are inside,” he said roughly. “You don’t change, Sonnet. Not who you are. And you are beautiful.”
He tipped his head down, pressing our foreheads together, inhaling me. I wrapped my arms around his waist. Why was Maverick so confusing? I wasn’t ready to be not-kissing. I wanted to be touching more of him, not less.
I bit back a needy demand. “What are we doing?”
“Finding comfort.”
“Oh,” I whispered. I smiled up at him. Seeing him from this angle was weird and unexpected and good. “You find comfort in me?”
“I do.”
Mission accomplished. I could feel my smile spreading across my face, and I shut my eyes and breathed Maverick in.
What had seemed like silence without words was merely quiet. And now that I was listening, I heard all sorts of sounds that I hadn’t paid attention to before. Frogs and crickets had started up. A breeze stirred up the leaves that had started falling from the trees. Something rustled, then scampered off. Maverick’s heart beat steady and sure against my chest, and I felt each inhale and exhale beneath the hands I’d clasped behind his back. My own breathing slowed, matching his.
My eagerness to move on, to get going and reach the place I was headed for, faded. This stillness, this moment, being here with him, was comforting. And I didn’t need more.