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“Thanks. You look okay.”

He smirked. “Gee, thanks.” He reached across the table and took a sip of her milkshake. “Why did you want to see me?”

“I thought you might want to meet your daughter.”

Theo choked on the milkshake, coughing and sputtering. “My what? Wait…”

Fee bit down on a giggle, watching as he did the math in his head.

“But we never … that’s not possible.” He looked at her wide-eyed and frantic.

She burst out laughing. “Just kidding.”

He slapped a hand over his chest. “Jesus, Fee. That is not funny.”

“I think we’d make cute babies,” she said with a giggle, taking her milkshake back. “But we would have to actually make them first.”

“You are a menace,” he said as a smile broke across his face. “But I really fucking missed you.”

She grinned back. “I missed you, too. No one else is as gullible as you.”

“Hey.”

“Theo,” she said with a shake of her head. “I nearly just convinced you that we’d had a baby and we’ve never even had sex. That’s pretty gullible.”

“I don’t know how you nymphs procreate,” he protested. “Maybe you grow in a cabbage patch or something!”

Fee laughed. “That’s definitely not it. We do it the same way you do.”

“Doggie-style?” he asked with a wink and Fee laughed so loudly she caught the attention of the next table over. Three women, two with dark hair and one blonde, glanced over at her and she waved back. Fee had seen them all around town before, had sold some teas and tonics to them. Ruby, Lena, and Eloise’s granddaughter.

Lena waved back before returning to the conversation with her sister and friend.

“What have you been up to?” Fee asked, turning her attention back to Theo. She wasn’t answering his question on purpose—the one about why she’d texted him yesterday, not the doggie-style one. It was on a whim really. She’d gotten back a few weeks ago and she just … she just missed him. And she knew he thought it was best to stay away from her, but maybe things had changed. Maybe things were different now.

Maybe they could be friends again.

Theo shrugged, the levity vanishing from his face.

“Things are still bad with your father?”

“Worse, probably. If you can believe it.”

“And your brothers?”

“They’ve bought into the whole damn thing. He says jump and they do. He says fight and they kick my ass. It’s exhausting.”

Fee hated how beaten down he looked, how sad. She remembered the young wolf that had stumbled upon her hidden house. She remembered how eager and sweet he was.

She was worried about him.

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“I hate to interrupt.” Lena’s voice from beside their table broke through the moment. Theo let go of Fee’s hands and slid back in his seat, arms across the back of the bench. He flashed Lena a charming grin.

“No worries.”

Lena’s cheeks flushed pink to match her sweater.