Page 74 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

“Pretty sure I’m living that one.”

Mira actually squeals. “Oh my god, you’re right. He’s so grumpy and you’re so…”

“Chaotic?”

“I was going to say sunny, but chaos works too.” She’s practically bouncing. “This is amazing. You’re like a real-life romance heroine.”

“I’m a mess who accidentally summoned a lycan king by writing down the wrong phone number. That’s not the same thing.”

“That’s exactly the same thing! That’s a meet-cute! That’s the inciting incident!” She clutches her hands to her chest. “The universe literally threw you together through a series of improbable coincidences. That’s fate.”

The word lands differently than she intended. Heavier. But I push the feeling aside.

“Your enthusiasm is terrifying and I respect it.”

“I’m going to put you in my book.”

“You’re writing a book?”

“I’m writing seven books. They’re all romance. You’re going in the one about the werewolf prince.”

“Lycan,” I correct automatically, and then catch myself. “Oh god, I’ve become one of those people.”

“One of us,” Mira says solemnly. “One of us.”

An older woman, Grandmother Esme according to my mental notes, the one who makes the really good lemon bars, pauses to pat my arm as she passes.

“Three hundred years of that man scowling at the horizon,” she murmurs, “and now he can’t stop smiling. You did that, dear.”

Her gaze drifts across the lawn, and something in it cools. I follow it to a silver-haired man standing apart from the celebration at the tree line, straight-backed, hands folded, watching me with an expression carved out of pure disapproval. He’s the only person here who hasn’t smiled once.

“Don’t mind Aaron,” Esme says. “Old guard. He’ll come around, or he won’t.” Her voice drops, and for a moment the twinkle in her eyes goes somewhere far away. “He wasn’t always like this, you know. There was a woman, once. Long before your time. Long before almost anyone’s time.”

“What happened to her?”

“That’s his story, not mine.” She pats my arm one more time and drifts toward the pie table, leaving the words to settle in my chest, a stone I don’t know where to put.

I look across the lawn to where Orion has abandoned his conversation and is watching me with an expression I’ve never seen him wear in public. Soft. Unguarded. Almost wondering, like he can’t quite believe I’m real.

Three hundred years. He’s been alone for three hundred years.

And he’s looking at me like I’m the answer to a question he didn’t know he was asking.

Something dangerous blooms in my chest. It feels like permanence. Like roots growing where I didn’t know I wanted them.

“You’ve got it bad,” Mira observes.

“Shut up.”

“I’m just saying. The heart eyes are intense. Both directions.”

“I don’t have heart eyes.”

“You absolutely have heart eyes. But it’s okay.” She pats my arm. “He has them too. You’re disgustingly cute together. I ship it so hard.”

“You can’t ship real people.”

“Watch me.”