Page 8 of Into Ember

“You keep saying words that don’t actually mean anything. You know that, right?”

He doesn’t answer that one. He doesn’t answer most of them. But here’s the thing I’m noticing, in between hating everything — he hasn’t lied to me once. Every question gets a no, or a not yet, or a soon, and I want to strangle him with his borrowed jacket, but not one single answer has been a lie. I’ve dated men who lied about their commute. This man won’t even lie about dinner.

My stomach growls.

He said “soon.”

I look sideways at him. It’s a long way up. He’s enormous, it’s a little ridiculous, and he’s got that face that gives away nothing. Somewhere inside that giant, unreadable man is the animal that sat on my chest this morning and judged my life choices.

“Muffin,” I say.

He closes his eyes. For exactly one second, this giant commander of whatever-they-are closes his eyes like a man asking the stars for strength.

I’m going to be having words with Erik about that. Three years of them.

“Leif.”

“No.”

“…Commander?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Muffin.”

Silence.

“I hate that this is happening,” he says, but I don’t think he’s talking to me.

“I know,” I say, because it’s satisfying to be the one who says it.

He looks down at me. “You are never calling me that in front of anyone.”

“Oh, obviously not,” I say. “That would be embarrassing for you.”

He nods, satisfied.

“I’m calling you Muffin forever.”

I grin because it’s the first thing in this whole stupid fantasy that’s mine.

The sound he makes is not a word. It’s not the growl from the clearing either — I would know, my whole body still remembers the growl. In detail. Too much detail. This is something in between, the sound of a man losing an argument with himself, and I decide I like it.

I want to hear it again.

Behind me, Erik has been quiet the entire time. He has no idea I’m plotting his slow painful death for all the things he kept from me.

Did I have a right to know? Who knows, but we are neighbors. And neighbors tell each other things. It’s just neighborly.

I can feel him back there. I’ve been able to feel him back there for hours, half a step behind my shoulder like the whole forest reports to him. I know exactly when he’s about to say something. I feel when he takes a breath.

“Are your feet all right?”

“I’m talking to Muffin.”

Silence. Long silence. Beside me, Leif’s mouth tilts up. I’m ignoring it.

I’m not proud of it. Okay — I’m a little proud of it. Erik knows exactly what he did, and I’m not ready to have the conversation where I stop being mad, because right after that comes another conversation about that jaw. It’s sharper here somehow. Some crossing-upgrade nonsense, probably. Because science. Hot becomes hotter, fantasy becomes reality, and I do not have the shoes for any of it.