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“I’m not talking to you,” I told Percy, dodging the scaffolding so that I could retrieve my mom’s watering can.
“He didn’t trust me not to kiss you, and I can’t blame him. I don’t trust me not to kiss you. Look at you, so belligerent and fiery, like a volcano that ate a hot pepper.”
I whirled around to glare at the most beautiful, handsome, gloriously attractive man in the world. “I’m not kissing you until we get married. I want it here, in the healery with as few people as possible, and I want you to still want to talk to me and see me, even if you aren’t kissing me. Am I suddenly just a meaningless fling to you? You semi-stalk me for four years, but you keep me waiting for ten days while you do what? Hm?”
I crossed my arm and glared at him, which was hard to do because he looked so sweet and soft and snuggleable. His hands were also looking really nice to hold, strong, but not too strong, and big, but not too big, just right, perfect, necessary addition to my own sadly single pair of hands.
He sighed heavily, then shrugged. “I was unconscious. I’m glad that your dad didn’t tell you, because I didn’t want to worry you.”
I gasped. “You were unconscious? From what? You were just fine when I left you with my dad. What did he do to you?” I examined him, and he looked okay, not particularly pale or sickly.
He smiled and touched my arm, only the barest contact, but it sent a rush of absolute happiness through me. “I definitely overextended myself doing what I could to bring Song back, but using the book is what really wiped me out. And now I’m irrevocably tied to my family, so there’s no escape from my dad’s legacy.”
I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around him and squeezing the life out of him. He hadn’t chosen not to come and see me. Of course he hadn’t. He was just unconscious from the stupid book. Good thing I never got past the first page.
I pulled back, smiling happily. “I’m so glad to hear that!”
He snorted delicately. “Your father was worried that your own recovery would have been set back by your worry for me, but you don’t care at all.”
I smoothed his hair back and touched his silky skin of his neck while beaming at him. “I wish they had told me so that they could wheel me into your room and I could watch you sleep like a creepy stalker. How could I worry about you? No one is going to let the great Percival Marigold die from something like book reading.”
He licked his lips, slightly nervous. “It’s actually Jackson Percival Mackenzie Jr.”
I stared at him. “Jackson Mackenzie, and you chose to go by Percival Marigold? There is something seriously wrong with your brain.”
He bumped my forehead with his and stared into my eyes. “Were you serious about marrying me in the healery with as few people as possible?”
I bumped his forehead back slightly harder. “As serious as I am about interning with your mom in a big undercity criminal justice case.”
He pulled back, eyes wide, before narrowing dangerously. “Your dad is interfering with your life. One time I suggested that you might enjoy a vocation around criminal defense, and he decides that’s your life plan. No one tells you what to do, like no one tells me what to do. That’s why we’re so perfect for each other.”
I bit my bottom lip. “Except that I want to tell you things to do.”
He frowned at me. “Like what?” He sounded so suspicious, like he knew that I’d been plotting all kinds of torture for him.
“Like baking cupcakes with my dad every Tuesday, and rubbing my feet, and cleaning the cabinets, and?—”
He covered my mouth with his hand, looking shocked. He looked around the courtyard for construction workers that might overhear my shocking declaration. He leaned close and whispered. “And you’ll do things for me in exchange?”
“Like what?” It was my turn to narrow my eyes at him suspiciously.
He pursed his lips and slung an arm over my shoulder before scanning in front of us, like he was a realtor showing me a house, instead of the sad stone wall with the historical plaque crookedly hanging on it. “Defense, education, travel, music. I really want to make an actual musician out of you, so that we can talk theory like geeks together.”
I stared at him. “There is something wrong with your brain. You don’t want my body at all, do you?”
He raised a brow, then glanced down at my body, then up at my face. “I mean, it’s attached to your brain.”
“I don’t think that your brain is attached to anything.” I turned and got the watering can, shaking my head the whole way.
He grabbed my arms and whirled me around very dramatically, only spoiled slightly by his own weaving.
“Crap, you don’t look so good. Sit down before you fall down,” I said, leading him towards the bench.
“Red, Gabriela, Gabby, Doe, Bellham, I want your body. I want your gargoyle body, your silent stone body, your human body, and whatever other metamorphoses you come up with in the future. I have physically ached with wanting you since the first time I saw you. I’m incredibly superficial, and you are utterly irresistible. I wasn’t sure exactly how perfect you were until you danced with me wearing that incredibly thin slip, or maybe it was the rain that made your physical perfection so utterly obvious, but it doesn’t matter what you wear, or what dimensions your body takes up, I do and will always and ever want you. A lot. All the time. Like a rampaging monster roaming across the countryside, only you’re the countryside, and I’m the ravaging monster.”
I put my finger on his lips. “I think that you need to go back to bed. You clearly need more rest.”
He sat down on the ground and pulled me onto his lap, wrapping his arms around me the way they were supposed to be. “It’s just the family binding and new powers that go with it. I need you more than sleep or anything else. I’ve missed you so much, Red. Even unconscious, I missed you.” He nuzzled his head against mine and I breathed in the scent of his neck, like antiseptic and him.
