Lucinda’s bark of laughter was startlingly loud. “I like this one. Don’t fuck it up, lion.”
She retreated to the kitchen before Leo could respond.
“She knows you’re a lion?” Junie slid into the booth across from him, tugging her dress down with a wince. “Also, I’m pretty sure this vinyl is bonding with my thighs.”
“Lucinda knows everyone who comes through her door. She left pack life decades ago, but she still has a wolf’s nose.” Leo loosened his tie. Shrugged off his jacket. Rolled his sleeves to the elbow. “And yes, the vinyl does that. It’s part of the charm.”
Junie watched him transform from polished executive to someone more human. “You’re different here too,” she observed. “But the opposite of the restaurant. Less tight. More…”
“Not constipated?”
Her grin was blinding. “Progress.”
The food arrived. They ate in his rental car because Junie declared the booth “actively hostile to this dress” and because Leo had a sudden, fierce desire to sit beside her instead of across from her.
Grease got on the leather seats. Milkshake dripped on the center console. A pickle escaped Junie’s burger and landed on his suit pants, and Leo found he genuinely didn’t care.
“Tell me about your grandmother,” he said, somewhere between the burger and the fries. “The real version. Not the legendary potion-maker everyone talks about.”
Junie was quiet for a moment. The easy humor fading into vulnerability.
“She was chaos,” she said finally. “But the good kind. The kind that made you believe anything was possible if you tried hard enough.” She dragged a fry through ketchup, not quite meeting his eyes. “She used to say that disorder was just creativity the universe hadn’t organized yet. That my wildness wasn’t a flaw to be corrected.”
“You believed her.”
“I believed her.” Past tense, heavy with loss. “She died when I was twelve. Mom left right after. And I learned that wildness is exactly what makes people leave.”
Leo recognized that particular wound. The kind that shaped you into someone defensive without you ever realizing it was happening.
“My father was chaos too,” he heard himself say. “But the other kind.”
Junie looked at him then. Really looked. “Leo…”
“I spent twenty years making sure I would never be like him.” The admission scraped out of him, raw and honest in a way he hadn’t been with anyone in decades. “Built a life on discipline and distance and never, ever allowing chaos in. Became exactly what my father would have hated.”
“And tonight?” Junie set down her burger. Wiped her hands on a napkin. Turned to face him fully in the cramped space of the car. “What do you actually want?”
“I don’t know,” Leo said, because the full truth was too much. Too fast. “But I think… I think I want to find out.”
They talkeduntil the diner’s neon sign flickered and died. Until Lucinda emerged to chase them off with threats about parking lot loitering and a grudging “Come back soon.”
The drive to Haven Shores was quiet. Comfortable. Two people sitting with revelations, neither quite knew how to handle.
Leo pulled into the Siren’s Rest at nearly midnight. The inn was dark, most guests long asleep.
He walked her to her door. The hallway was dim, lit only by the low glow of ward-light along the baseboards.
Junie turned to face him. Her hair had come loose from its pins. Her lipstick was long gone. She’d kicked off her heels somewhere between the parking lot and the stairs.
She’d never been more beautiful.
“I had a good time,” she said softly. “Even the terrible fancy restaurant part. Especially the part where we abandoned the terrible fancy restaurant.”
“I should have known better. The microscopic portions were a warning sign.”
“You were trying to impress me.” Her smile was teasing, but her eyes held warmth. “It was sweet. Misguided, but sweet.”
“I’ll do better next time.”
