“You asked for it.” I hopped off the bed and headed to the closet. “Remember, you brought this on yourself.” I pulled out the inflatable mallet Lethe won at a fair last week. I traded her a pack of bacon for it, and I had no regrets. “Hold still, and it won’t hurt as much.” I swung the mallet in a dramatic arc, really putting my back into it, then tapped him on the head just hard enough to make it squeak. “Well?”
Staring at the mallet, he rubbed his head. “I’m confused.”
“That’s the head trauma talking. Sir Bonks-A-Lot does that to people.”
The primary reason I bribed it out of Lethe’s hands was the fact she chased me all over the house, bonking me on the head until I slipped, hit a doorframe, and gave myself a goose egg the size of my fist. The woman was a menace, and she had to be stopped.
“Grier,” he sighed.
“Okay, fine. I expected you to revert during your time in Atlanta. I’ve noticed you backsliding for a while now, but I haven’t done anything about it. I knew you would undo all my hard work during the quiet times you spent alone in the city. I figured I should store up the lectures, the bribes, and the threats for when you came home for good.” I twirled the mallet. “Every time you insult my devotion to you, you get bonked. I’m sorry, but those are the rules.”
“Who made these rules?”
“Me.” I squeezed the handle and made the mallet squeak. “And my friend here.”
His troubled expression deepened. “There’s something I need to tell you, about Boaz.”
“This ought to be good,” I snarked, but he didn’t laugh. “What’s wrong?”
“Mother has created a position for him at the Lyceum. She plans to keep him on indefinitely.”
“Okay.” I waited for the other shoe to drop. “What about it?”
“She asked if…” He toyed with the highlighter he’d picked back up at some point, capping and uncapping it. “She wanted to know if that would pose an issue for you.”
“Uh-uh.” I tsked him. “There’s more. I can tell.”
“She also asked if there was any chance of him jilting Adelaide and running away with you, if that’s why they haven’t married yet.” He tossed the marker onto the nightstand. “She worries he’s waiting for you.”
“Your mom is a piece of work.” I traced the plastic ridge on the handle with my thumbnail. “And you said…?”
“That you love me.”
“Good boy.” I reached up and patted his cheek. “What else?”
Amusement curled his lips. “That you would never leave me.”
“Wow.” I tossed the mallet and clapped for him. “All your home training is really paying off.”
Linus gathered me against him, breathed me in, and I barely dared to move. Even now, it was so rare for him to initiate contact aside from a light touch here or there. I wanted to view it as progress, but the time apart had been rough on us both. It would take time to ease him back into our pre-Siege routine. I was just glad Sir Bonks-A-Lot was here to help whenever he needed a gentle reminder.
“I want to climb back in bed and forget someone tried to poison my BFF.” I pressed my face against his chest, and it muffled my voice. “But I have butt to kick.”
“You have your hands full planning the wedding. I can tackle this for you, if you like.”
“Nope.” Chin propped on his sternum, I gazed up at him. “You are potentate non grata. This is my city, and it’s my problem.” I traced the length of his spine with my fingertips. “However, I might be convinced to let you help.”
“What is that quote about the student becoming the master?”
“You’ve spent way too much time around Hadley if you’re misquoting Star Wars.” His Atlanta apprentice was a bona fide geek with a love of all things science fiction. The older the better in her book. “She would be proud to know you’ve retained some of it.”
Hadley wasn’t actually Hadley. Hadley Whitaker died a few years ago, and her death remained a secret. Boaz’s little sister, Amelie, took her place as part of the complicated bargain he made with Adelaide and her father while arranging their marriage.
“She mailed me something borrowed for the wedding.” I laughed when his eyebrows climbed higher. “It’s an enamel pin, a super rare collector’s item from the ’50s to celebrate the release of Bridezilla Versus the Wedding Planner from Mars. I know because she included its certificate of authenticity and a veiled threat.”
“Veiled because you’re getting married?”
“You get me.” I kissed him. “You really get me.”
“Are you still okay with her attending the wedding?”
Hadley and I had been best friends in what felt like a past life, was a past life as far as she was concerned. We had gone on to claim cities hundreds of miles apart and lead such divergent lives I could barely remember how before felt anymore. We hadn’t grown up together so much as we had grown apart together, but neither of us had seen it that way until it was too late.
None of that made me love her less, but we were taking our new friendship slow.
“I want her there.” I stepped out on the same wobbly limb. “Are you sure you want Boaz to attend?”
His gaze shifted to the floor, where the inflatable mallet waited. “Yes.”
“Are you saying that because you don’t want to get bonked again or because you’re being honest?”
“Can my answer be both?”
“Hmm.”
“I thought we agreed not to hmm at one another.”
“Did we?” I pulled back and tapped my chin. “Maybe I bonked you too hard that first time.”
“Boaz is an old friend of yours, and he’s—maybe not happily but—engaged to a new friend of yours. I’m not going to let my insecurities stand in the way of you having everyone you love around you on The Big Day.”
“Pretty sure you’re only saying that to avoid another bonk, but I’ll take it.” I headed to the dresser for shorts, a sports bra, and a tank top. Lethe and I had learned long ago to stash a change or two of clothes at each other’s houses, and I kept mine in this room. “The drill sergeant who trained me for this potentate gig forces me to run five miles before work every day. You in?”
“Sure.”
I was halfway to dressed when I noticed he hadn’t moved. “Well?”
A blush painted his cheeks, and I wanted to pinch them and plant a smacking kiss on his lips.
“You’re watching me change.” I turned it into a slow strip tease that ended when I tripped over my shorts and landed on my back like a turtle. “How can you handle this much sexy?”
“I carry bandages with cartoon breakfast foods on them and antibiotic ointment in my pockets at all times.”
Really playing up my injury, I held out my hand. “Help me up?”
Concern tightened his features, and he reached for me. “Are you hurt?”
“Sucker.”
I clasped forearms with him and let him pull me into a seated position. From there, I leaned into his midsection and used that grip and a little oomph to send him flying over my shoulder. He hit the floor with a satisfying thump, but he flowed into his countermove before I could react. The next thing I knew, I was pinned beneath him and feeling good about it.
Hooking one leg over his hip, I flexed my toes against his back. “How do you feel about alternate means of getting in our cardio?”
Much to my amusement, he required no bonk on the head to prompt the correct answer.
When he was done with me, I was a boneless, breathless puddle of woman. And when I was done with him, his skin held a sheen of sweat, and his heart punched beneath my cheek.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to start the night. I could definitely get used to this.
Downstairs, the smell of smoked sausage mingled with sizzling bacon and fresh coffee. I followed my nose and ended up in the ridiculously large dining room where the pack took all their meals, schedules permitting. Lethe sat at the head of the table with Hood on her right. All so she could call him her right-hand man and mean it. She was such a goober.
“I heard you broke in the mattress in your room.” Lethe winked at me. “Nice work.”
“My room?” I waited for an explanation. “Don’t you mean the locker?”
That’s what she called it since I showered and changed here often enough to be assigned a room with an en suite bathroom. What can I say? The potentate gig is messy, and I spent a lot of time here when I got lonely while Linus was in Atlanta.
A generous spread that began with breakfast for the nightshift and progressed toward dinner for the dayshift covered the length of the table buffet style. I grabbed a plate and passed one to Linus. As I heaped mountains of food onto mine, I gave him a tablespoon of various items he liked well enough to eat but wouldn’t bother to without prompting.
Yet another hiccup I had Atlanta to thank for, his backsliding into fasting.
Ah, well. He was home now. I would fatten him up in no time.
“We have a room at your house, and now you have a room at ours.” She crunched on a strip of bacon. “I was going to give it to you as a wedding gift, but hey. Everyone likes to get presents early.”
A slender girl with pale blonde hair and tanned skin entered from the opposite door and spotted us right away. A smile lit up her face, and she ran straight for me, tackling me against Linus. “Aunt Grier.”
“Hey, Eva-Diva, what’s up?” I kissed the top of her head. “Broken any boys’ hearts today?”
“Eww.” She curled her lip. “Boys are gross.”
Despite the fact she looked like a preteen girl, she was physically only two and a half years old. Her hormones hadn’t caught up with her latest growth spurt, so she wasn’t boy crazy yet. But it was coming. How her parents would handle that, I had no clue. At this rate, she would be five or six years old but look like a high school senior. How did you factor crushes into that? Or dating? Or the S-word?