Page 108 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

I look up at their headstones, at the names I’ve loved my whole life.

“Mom. Dad. This is Orion. He’s my mate. My emergency contact.” A small laugh escapes me. “My giant dog.”

Behind me, Orion snorts.

“You’d like him,” I continue. “I mean, at first you’d think he was too serious. Too controlled. Dad, you’d probably try to make him play charades, and he’d be terrible at it because he can’t stop organizing the teams by skill level.”

“I would not…”

“You absolutely would. You’d make a spreadsheet.”

“Spreadsheets are efficient.”

“See?” I tell the headstones. “But then you’d see the other stuff. The way he organizes his spice cabinet by cuisine type. The way he checks locks in threes. The way he…” My voice breaks again. “The way he loves me.”

Orion kneels beside me. His hand finds mine.

“You’d see that,” I whisper, “and you’d love him. I know you would.”

He squeezes my fingers. Then, quietly, to the graves:

“Thank you. For her. For raising someone so brave, so stubborn, so completely unwilling to give up on anything she decides to love.” His voice is rough. “For every year she had with you. Every lesson you taught her. Every piece of who she is that started with you.”

I’m crying now. Not sad tears, not entirely. Happy ones too. The kind of tears that come when something broken starts finally healing.

“I can’t give her back what she lost,” he continues. “I know that. But I can promise to spend the rest of my life making sure she knows how loved she is. That she never has to carry anything alone. That she always, always, has someone to show up for her.”

We sit there together, shoulder to shoulder, watching the sun sink toward the horizon.

“They would have liked you,” I say eventually.

“You think so?”

“I know so. Mom would have interrogated you about your intentions, and Dad would have made terrible jokes, and they both would have decided you were acceptable by the end of the first dinner.”

“Just acceptable?”

“That’s high praise from my family.”

He laughs, and I lean into him, and we stay until the sun sets.

The emergency contact form is on the fridge when we get home.

I notice it immediately, a crisp white rectangle pinned under a magnet shaped like an orange cat. The handwriting is obsessively neat, each letter precisely formed.

EMERGENCY CONTACT FORM (updated)

I read the first line. My chest goes tight.

Primary Contact: Orion Halloran

The second line:

Relationship: Mate

The third:

Phone: 555-0194