“See?” I cut in immediately, a grin breaking through my tears. “Youdoknow what good hands are.”
He let out a laugh. “I suppose you did teach me something.”
“Yeah,” I sniffled, wiping at my face with the back of my hand, “I’m very impressive sometimes.”
“You’re impressiveallthe time,” he replied, reaching up to brush the remaining tears from my cheeks.
“Thank you for coming to my rescue,” I said, still a little breathless, “but what were you doing here so early? How did you even know something was wrong?”
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “But Mina did. She mentioned someone had come into town asking questions about you, and you know how she is.” He smirked.
Of course she did. The gossip queen of Crescent Cove.
I let out a small, breathless laugh. “Yeah... I do.”
“Plus, the other night at the sushi place, with that waitress... something just didn’t sit right. Then a few days later, a mysterious stranger shows up asking questions in town? I just knew something was off. And when I looked toward your cottage and saw someone heading up the trail, I knew something was wrong.”
I stepped forward without thinking, wrapping my arms around him and holding him tighter than I meant to. “Thank you. Not just for getting here in time, but for trusting me to do this my way and still being there anyway.”
His arms came around me easily, one of his tentacles curling loosely along my back in that familiar way that always seemed to steady me. “Of course. You’re not owned by anyone, Kara. You can make your own choices.” His tone shifted slightly, that dry humor slipping back in. “Even if some of them are ridiculous.”
I blinked, pulling back just enough to look at him. “Excuse me?”
“Buying this cottage, for starters.”
I scoffed, giving his chest a light shove. “Hey, it’s in pretty good shape now.”
“Yeah, thanks to me.”
“Hey, I helped!” I protested, which only earned me a snort of laughter from him.
“Fine,” he conceded, a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. “You helped alittle.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” I shrugged, but even as I said it, the weight of everything that had just happened began to settle back in. My fingers instinctively lifted to the pearl at my throat, tracing its surface as Hugo’s words and Octavius’s earlier suspicions clicked into place.
The waitress.
She was the one who had tipped him off, and if she knew Hugo, then there was no doubt he had told her exactly what I was... or rather, what I wasn’t.
“Okay,” I said slowly, the earlier adrenaline beginning to fade. “I know I’m riding the victory high right now, but we still have a big problem.”
“What is it?” he asked, his expression suddenly hardening.
“That waitress. She knows I don’t belong here. And if she tells anyone else—”
“I already told you,” Octavius cut in. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. And if that means I have to bully the town council into letting you stay, then I will.”
A small giggle slipped out despite everything. “Thank you, but I don’t think that’s how it works.” I glanced around the cottage, then back at him as reality settled in again. “Technically, I can’t even be a citizen here, let alone own property in a town I don’t belong to.”
“You belong with me,” he said immediately. “And I’ll make sure they know that.”
“But would that even make a difference? Just because we’re dating? There has to be more to it than that.”
Octavius went silent. Not the tense, controlled silence I was used to, but something softer. Hesitant. Which, coming from him, was almost unsettling.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What?”
He glanced away for a brief moment, like he was deciding whether to say it, then let out a slow breath. “Well,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck in a way that felt strangely human for someone with eight extra limbs, “you’re right. There is a little more to it.”
