And the demons are calling her Lizzy?Lizzy?
“What in the bleeding skies are you lot doing here?” I ask, snatching a toaster pastry from Oliver’s greedy hand.
“Attempting to keep you on the straight and narrow,” he replies.
“By breaking and entering, harassing my guest, and pilfering my breakfast staples? And stop showing off. You’re in the mortal realm; dress like it.”
Shifting into his human form, Oliver steals the pastry back and scarfs it down in one bite, nearly taking my fingers with it. “You never call anymore. You never write. We missed you, love. We didn’t have a choice.”
“And we’re hardly harassing her,” Warren says, shifting into his usual well-dressed, male model aesthetic. “Merely entertaining her, since her less-than-magnanimous host apparently couldn’t be bothered.”
“Oh my god, you guys!Rude! Don’t listen to them, Dr. Sutherland,” she says. “You’ve beensupermagnanimous. Thank you.” Then, in a much softer voice, “For everything.”
She holds my gaze a beat too long, her smile tender. My heart kicks up in response. A thousand thoughts pass between us in that glance—the confessed crush, the walk home, the hours I spent watching her sleep, making sure she wasn’t ill.
And the question. The one I know she hasn’t forgotten. It’s written in her eyes, unanswered. Avoided.
What happened to you, Dr. Sutherland? Why don’t you like to be touched?
All the thoughts we’ll never revisit out loud.
This, I know, is for the best. We’ll chalk it all up to tequila and a slightly overzealous celebration of her academic accomplishments, and leave it at that. It’s the only rational solution. The one that avoids awkward apologies and simmering embarrassment for both of us.
So why does the thought leave me bereft?
Why do I long to tuck her into my bed again tonight? To listen to the even rise and fall of her breath, and take comfort in knowing she’s alive and unharmed? To answer that question for her, and have her show me another way, one in which the past no longer haunts me? One in which I might return her touch after all, without boundaries and limitations?
Why, after cultivating an existence around the exclusion of personal connection in favor of the acquisition of knowledge, padded with the comfort and safety of so many lonely days and even lonelier nights, do I suddenly feel as though I’m… missing out?
“Have a seat, Merri,” says Oliver, fishing in the box for another pastry. “We come bearing news.”
“Perhaps later.“ Finally dodging Miss Bonnivarde’s gaze, I crouch down and scratch behind Medusa’s ears. She repays thekindness by jamming her wet, garbage-stained muzzle directly into my crotch.
Always appreciated.
“It really can’t wait,” says Warren.
“It really must. Miss Bonnivarde and I have lots of work to do today.”
“We do?” she asks.
“Oh, yes. There’s the… the summoning and binding spell, that could use some fine-tuning, and another test of the portal boundaries. Not to mention the Tarot review—we still haven’t fully decoded the visions from your mother, and… Yes, the unit on elemental energetic signatures! We haven’t even scraped the surface.”
“It’s Saturday,” Miss Bonnivarde says. “Day off, remember? I’m bookstore-sitting for Helena today. Mary Shelley has a vet appointment.”
“Then you should probably focus on preparing for that, and maybe… maybe checking in with your sisters. Surely they must be wondering about your whereabouts?”
“They think I’m out for a walk. It’s fine.”
“But you didn’t return home last night.”
“We’re all adults, professor. We don’t keep tabs on each other. Do you guys?”
The vile demons snicker.
“Also,” she says, and she’s got that look in her eye, the one that has me girding my loins for an onslaught. “I’m a little jealous and slightly annoyed that you never introduced me to your friends before, despite the fact that they basically know my entire life story.”
“Yes, Merri,” Oliver taunts. “Why have you never invited us home for a cuppa? Are you ashamed of your best mates?”
