That’s new.
Usually it takes me fifteen minutes of stretching and one deeply undignified groan before I can stand fully upright in the morning.
I look at him again.
The warm cushion. The mineral-cool scent of him clinging to the quilt.
“Don’t make it weird,” I whisper to myself, and head to the bathroom.
By the time I come out, teeth brushed and hair twisted into a claw clip, Oz has risen to somethingcloser to sitting.
His form is loosely humanoid from the waist up, still pooled into the couch below that, and those gold-threaded eyes track me as I cross to the kitchen.
“Morning,” I say, filling the kettle.
“Morning.”
His voice is thicker when he first wakes up. Slower, like something surfacing from deep water.
I set the kettle on the burner and lean my hip against the counter.
“I need to run into town. Grab some lye, coconut oil, and labels. Maybe parchment if Crawford’s has any left.” I tick the list off on my fingers. “Should be an hour, hour and a half tops.”
Part of me wishes he could come with me, that I could show him my town.
It’s clear we both know that’s not happening.
“I’ll be here,” he says.
Crawford’s Supply sits on thecorner of Main and Pueblo, a flat-roofed cinder block building with a hand-painted sign that’s been sun-bleached into a suggestion of its original colors. The parking lot holds five vehicles, which qualifies as a rush.
I pull in next to Gary’s tan pickup and kill the engine, and I spot my neighbors before I’m out of the truck.
Mrs. Pritchett is standing near the entrance with a shopping cart full of terracotta pots, one hand on the cart handle while the other holds Gary’s phone screen close to her face.
She’s wearing a denim shirt with embroidered cacti on the collar and a sun hat wide enough to qualify as municipal shade infrastructure.
Gary stands beside her in his usual posture, arms crossed loosely, ball cap pulled low, five o’clock shadow that might just be a permanent feature at this point.
“Maisie!” Mrs. Pritchett spots me before I’vetaken three steps.
The woman has peripheral vision that would put a bird of prey to shame.
“Come look at this. Gary’s game camera caught something.”
“Morning, Deborah. Morning, Gary.”
Gary lifts two fingers off his crossed arm in a wave. “Maisie.”
“He claims it’s javelina,” Mrs. Pritchett says, thrusting Gary’s phone toward me.
The screen shows a grainy nighttime image of something low and bristled trundling past a fence post.
“But look at the size of it. The proportions are wrong. The head-to-body ratio.”
“It’s a javelina, Deb,” Gary says.
“Since when do javelinas have a two-foot shoulder span?”
