Page 14 of Fake It ’Til You Mate It

That means that I’m up at four a.m., down at the bakery by five, and in bed by nine at the latest. I spend a lot of time with just me and Gus, and I don’t mind it. No. I’m not lonely. No. I’m not wondering what Max Lobo is doing right now…

Nope. That way lies danger, and instead of letting my mind wander, I change the trash bag out. I’d filled it up during prep this morning, and I prefer keeping it empty unless it’s too busy for me to rush outside to toss it in the dumpster.

Just as I’m knotting the big, black trash bag together so that it doesn’t spill, Gus perks up his head. He sees the trash bag, clicks his teeth, and stretches. Before I can even start for the swinging door that leads to the kitchen, he’s at my heels, chittering in his way at me to hurry up.

I heft up the bag, peering down at Gus.

“You my little guard opossum this morning? Okay. Come along.”

He doesn’t often join me on my early morning trash runs, but something’s been worrying Gus since last night. Maybe I’m ridiculous. It’s more than likely. Still, I trust his wild opossum instincts way more than my coddled inner beast. If he thinks something’s up, I don’t mind following him out back into the alley that houses the dumpster.

The moment I unlock the back door and step outside, I shift the weight of the trash bag, using my free hand to cover my nose.

Woof. It smells like a candy cane factory blew up back here. Peppermint overwhelms everything, and considering the dumpster is only emptied once a week and the trash tends to stink even though it’s mid-autumn, that’s a mighty impressive feat. I’m an opossum shifter and it completely blows out my nose.

At my feet, Gus is pawing his snout. He doesn’t like it, either.

I use my elbow to gesture behind me. The door’s still open. My voice comes out muffled, thanks to the way I’m pinching my nose. “Go back in, bud. You don’t have to smell this.”

Gus stops pawing his face, the pointed look in his beady black eyes telling me that, if I’m going to drop off the trash, he’s coming with me.

Fine. Let’s get this over with.

The peppermint is giving me a headache. I march over to the dumpster, tossing the trash bag inside of it. There. I turn, ready to head back in—and that’s when I notice a pair of legs… boots… something sticking out from the other side of the dumpster.

My initial impression is that someone is sitting up against the metal side, kicking their legs out. The shadow makes the fabric look dark. Black, perhaps?

“Roxy? If you’re pissed that I changed the lock on the back door and that meant you couldn’t break in, you don’t have to sit on the nasty asphalt and pout about it. All you had to do was knock at the front. I have some leftover almond croissants I saved for you.”

Huh. No answer.

So either Roxy really is pissed, she’s fucking with me, or… or that’s not Roxy.

I should go back inside. It stinks like Christmas in early November, my eyes are watering, and Gus is now pawing at my ankle, his tiny claws snagging on the fabric of my legging. Something’s not right, but I’m also not about to leave someone sitting in the alley when I can help them.

“Rox? Is that you?”

Still no answer.

Wiping my nervous hands on my thighs, I take a few steps and peer around the side of the dumpster.

It’s not Roxy.

It’s…

It’s…

It’s Declan, the wolf who made up the bulk of my sales yesterday.

And he’s dead.

There’s no denying it. Those are his dark blue jeans and his dark boots sticking out, connected to a male body crumpled on his side. His tan skin had faded to a waxy white. His face is halfway transformed; his nose is a muzzle, and his teeth are fangs. His lips are a deep blue. His eyes, open and wide and staring, are silver.

His hand is outstretched. In the few seconds that I catalog the scene, I notice that. He might have been sitting up against the dumpster, or maybe he was tossed behind it like trash, but before he died, he’d had one last treat.

Because there, mere inches away from his outstretched hand, is the cupcake I gave him yesterday. The fried apple and caramel confection I made specifically for Sheriff Lobo, that Declan said he’d bring to the Alpha… I don’t need my own snout to smell it. I know by sight that the cupcake is mine, as is the small white box stamped with Dough You Believe in Magic’s logo on the top.

The cupcake is missing one bite. A single bite. The near-miniscule smear of light brown frosting stands out against his blue lips. It’s the same frosting as on the cupcake leaving no doubt that Declan ate the magic-free cupcake I made for Sheriff Lobo.