Page 54 of My Faire Lady

Lottie grimaces and glances over her shoulder toward the back room. “I was hoping I could stay late and get started.”

“You can stay the night,” I blurt.

Kelsey lifts a brow, and Lottie turns back to me, eyes widening a fraction.

“Stay the night?” She scans the shoppe. “Here?”

I nod, shifting on my feet. “I have a sleeping bag I could bring in. For you. And you can borrow a change of clothes. My clothes. From me.”

Her lips tilt at the corners.

I blow out a breath and collect myself. “Kelsey can go home, and you can stay late working on your project. I can help you, too, if you want.”

Her smile widens. “Yeah, actually. I would like that.”

Kelsey mumbles something under her breath I can’t hear, but a blush sweeps into Lottie’s cheeks—a red so deep it sends my pulse hammering.

“In that case, I’d better get going,” Kelsey says, slipping through the door. “And yes, Lottie, I’ll let you know when I get home.”

Kelsey spares a smile as she brushes past me, twirling her keyring on a finger. I catch the door before it swings shut and step into the shoppe. A puddle forms around my shoes, dripping through the gaps in the floorboards.

Lottie wrings her hair with a small towel, then tosses it to the floor, mopping up the water. “How is Shadow doing with the thunder? She seemed on edge during the last joust.”

I shove my hands into my pockets and kick off my shoes. “She has her weighted blanket, so she should be good for the night.”

Crossing to the window, Lottie peers through the curtains and drags her lip between her teeth. “Is the storm meant to ease up tomorrow?”

Lightning illuminates the planes of her face, casting shadows in the hollows of her cheeks and the tired skin beneath her eyes. There’s a weight to her eyelids, and my chest tightens. Between the faire and working on her contest submission, it seems there’s been little time for sleep.

But fates, is she beautiful.

And here we are, having kissed hours ago, reduced to discussing the weather.

“The forecast says it’s meant to continue through the morning,” I say. “We might have a delayed opening, depending on the flooding.”

She nods, pulling the curtains shut. “My grandma used to drive Kelsey and I out of the city during storms, where we could watch the lightning for miles and miles.” A nostalgic smile tugs at her lips, and she scoffs. “Looking back, it probably wasn’t the safest thing, especially with two young children, but I loved everything about it. The summer storms.”

My mother’s face burns into the depths of my mind—the uninhibited smile on her face when she’d pull me to the top floor of the compound and tell me stories of the witches who’d control weather. Sometimes, on days closest to the full moon, she’d pull lightning from the clouds herself, in short bursts.

“Do you still go and watch the storms?” I say.

She pads to the back room and settles on top of a stool at the sewing machine. “Not since I’ve been alone.”

My heart catches in my throat. There are so few times I’ve seen her raw and vulnerable—so few times she’s allowed herself to be, that I want to hold her against me and ask her to pour out everything she has bottled up. I want the privilege of knowing all the parts of herself that she hides, just so I can protect them and ease the burden weighing down her shoulders.

I follow her into the back room and sidestep the bucket collecting drops of water leaking from the ceiling. “I haven’t had the chance to properly thank you for helping me with the joust. The crowd loved you.”

She rises from the stool, sewing machine untouched, and heaves herself onto the table in the center. She crosses her legs at the ankle. “No, it’s not me. You’re the one they adore. If I wasn’t there, the crowd wouldn’t know the difference.”

“I’d know the difference.”

Her lips part, and a swallow works its way down the length of her throat.

My eyes drag across the curve of her bare skin from her neck to her collarbones, toward a series of freckles that cap her shoulders. When my tongue traced across her teeth, there was a hint of cherry, as if she ate a handful of them for breakfast. But now, as I study the arch of her jawline, I can’t help but wonder what her skin taste like. A salty bite of sweat left behind from the day?

I shake away the thought. It doesn’t matter what she tastes like, or the breathy sounds she’d make. Not when there’s a limit on our time.

And right now, as I catch her staring at my lips, I’ve never hated time so thoroughly.