Page 25 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

This is a bad idea. This is such a bad idea. He’s a stranger. A stranger who showed up at your hospital bed and alphabetized your chaos shelf and made you laminated coping mechanisms.

A stranger you’ve been living in the same orbit as for four days, who makes you breakfast and catches you when you fall and looks at you like…

“Dinner,” he says abruptly, turning back to the stove. “You should sit. Rest. I’ll cook.”

I sit.

Coward, says a voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like Millie. You’re both cowards.

Dinner is some kind of pasta situation that has no right being as good as it is.

We eat at his kitchen island, because of course he has a kitchen island, a big slab of marble or granite or whatever expensive stone rich people put in their kitchens, and I try to focus on the food instead of the way his forearms look when he rolls up his sleeves.

I never noticed forearms before this week. Now I’m apparently a collector.

“This is really good,” I admit, because credit where credit is due. “Where did you learn to cook?”

“Practice. I’ve had a lot of time to learn.”

“What, in your thirty-four years?” I raise an eyebrow. “Thirty-four years isn’t that long. My mom spent forty years trying to learn to cook and never quite managed.”

A shadow crosses his face, there and gone, too fast to read. “Some people are faster learners.”

“Some people are modest about their kitchen skills.”

“Modesty is overrated.”

“So is false humility, apparently.”

He smiles at that, full and unguarded, and I feel it in my chest, a physical impact. A warm hand pressed to my sternum and squeezing.

Stop it. Stop feeling things about his smile. This is a temporary situation. He’s going to stop showing up eventually. Everyone stops showing up eventually.

“Tell me about the bookstore,” he says, refilling my water glass without being asked. “How long have you owned it?”

“Three years. It was called something else before, Books and More, which is the most boring name imaginable, and I spent my entire savings on the down payment and rebranding.”

“Fable Tales. Because of your name.”

“Because of my parents.” It’s out of my mouth before I can catch it, and I freeze, fork halfway up.

Don’t go there. Don’t talk about them. He doesn’t need to know about…

“They named you Fable,” he says, and it’s not a question. Just an observation, offered gently.

“Yeah.” I set down my fork. “They were… literary people. My dad was an English professor. My mom worked at a library. They met arguing about Shakespeare in a coffee shop.”

“What were they arguing about?”

“Whether Much Ado About Nothing was a comedy or a tragedy.” I smile despite myself. “My dad said comedy because it ends with weddings. My mom said tragedy because all the funny parts are about how much the characters are hurting.”

“Who won?”

“They got married, so. Draw your own conclusions.”

He’s quiet for a moment, watching me with an expression I can’t quite read. Then: “You talk about them in past tense.”

Damn it. Damn it, why did I…