Page 16 of My Faire Lady

This time, I don’t hesitate. “Be careful, don’t spill as you swallow for me.”

Scarlet’s shoulders stiffen, but her eyes never leave mine, even as I lower onto my forearms and bring our faces closer. The air thickens between us, and I tilt the can farther, watching as her mouth drags in the beer—the way she looks up at me through heavy lids.

My voice becomes breathless. “Good girl, you can take it.”

The can grows lighter, her swallows deeper, and her gaze flicks to my lips before returning to my eyes. She presses closer against the bar, her plates of armor the only thing keeping her from being flush to the wood.

I tilt the can the rest of the way, and she takes a final swallow, her chest rising on an inhale. She drags a forearm across her mouth, wiping away the beer that trailed down the sides of her chin, and only now do her eyes leave mine.

“Incredible,” Frankie says with a wide smile, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “When it’s busy, you’ll have a line winding all the way to the gate. And it’s the best way to get tips.”

I glance at Scarlet, but she’s turned away from me, taking a sudden interest in tightening the straps on her armor. Heat creeps into my cheeks, but I swallow down the blush before Frankie has a chance to spot it. Sucking in mouthfuls of air, I crush the can and throw it into the recycling bin.

“I’ll meet you around back,” Scarlet says, sliding her helmet off the counter.

Before I have a chance to respond, she disappears around the corner.

My pulse stops rattling in my ears, and another customer steps up to the bar, ordering a round of drinks from Frankie. I give her a quick wave and step through the swinging doors, into the back room of the bar. Scooping up my bag, I hold it close to my chest and step out the side door, my boots hitting the grass.

Scarlet is already there, waiting for me. She adjusts the neckline of her chainmail, shifting the helmet under her arm, and the words I breathed to her replay in my head.

I fight back a full-body cringe.

“I’m sorry about that,” I say, gesturing to the bar. I sling my bag over my shoulder, careful not to wrinkle the corset I shoved into it this morning. “That was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done.”

“Lottie, you don’t need to ever feel embarrassed with me.”

My name coming from her lips twists something deep within my core, and her gaze drifts over me. Heat climbs up my neck and spreads across my cheeks.

She blinks, and her face clears as she tilts her chin toward the path. “I’ll show you where the retail booths are.”

We head in the opposite direction of the entrance I came through this morning. The sun beats down on us, unforgiving despite it being the early days of the summer.

She doesn’t talk, and the muscles spanning her jaw strain. I chew on my words, fighting back the urge to apologize again.

We pass by wooden signs with arrows pointing in various directions. If we were to turn left, the path would take us to the mermaid cove, and a right would lead us toward the enchanted forest. Tree branches curl over us as we cross a bridge, and a breeze dries the sweat at my nape as a quad opens before us.

Scarlet turns right, and I follow by her side as she stops at a quaint single-story cottage. Red bricks line the arched doorway, and empty plant boxes sway—hanging from the eaves of the roofline.

I smile at the chimney jutting from the thatched roof. “This one is mine?”

Scarlet watches me carefully and fishes a key from her pocket, pressing it into the palm of my hand.

With a nod toward the blue Dutch door, she says, “If you want it.”

7

I’m going to kill Frankie.

I thought she understood the price of getting too close to humans. And now, because of her, Lottie’s face is burned onto the undersides of eyelids. With every blink, I relive the way her chest rose and fell as she breathed the words—how her eyes tracked each of my swallows, the maroon that swelled into her cheeks.

“I think the lock is stuck,” she says, jiggling the key in the knob. She huffs and throws her mass of curls off her shoulder, exposing the gentle curve of her throat.

I calm my breathing and sidle up beside her. She hands me the keys, and her fingertips brush across my palm, sending goosebumps up my forearm. Ignoring the lavender wafting from Lottie’s hair, I study the hairline cracks in the door.

Through generations, we’ve repurposed it. According to my limited knowledge, this particular one was the door to one of the dungeons the Murrell witches kept prisoners in, back during the war on magic.

How disappointed they would be to know it was sawed in half to create a Dutch door, and is now the entrance to a shop selling corsets and chainmail and plastic fairy wings.