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She would stand at the back of the venue, mouthing along as she watched as the happy couple exchanged their vows, did their hand fasting, lit their candles, or broke their glass.I Tormand, take you Grace, into my heart and my home, to be my mate.She was able to still perfectly envision the way he’d looked, looming over her that day in the courthouse, repeating the lines the magistrate fed; was nearly able to smell the overpowering lilies she’d carried that day — an arrangement of stargazers — but she could not remember herself speaking back the vow.
She remembered the way they’d argued that morning, frustration with the car, a mishap with her bouquet, and the hastily purchased lilies. All signs of things to come, she should have known. The flowers represented wealth and ambition but said nothing of love or devotion, and she’d taken care to ensure the brides under her watchful eye had not made the same mistake with their own bouquets. She ensured thattheirbig days went off without a hitch, a promissory note for their futures, and she did so with a smile. It didn't matter to anyone that inside she felt as if she were screaming. Screaming in a locked, windowless room where no one could hear her, and even if they could, no one cared.
Work was her solace, and so she made work the focus of her escape plan. Finding a job had been the first step to emancipation. Find a job and secure housing, that's what she had read on the websites she scrolled through on the laptop at work — instructions on how to leave, what to do if there were children involved, shared pets, joint bank accounts. She was luckier than most, Grace assumed. They had no kids, no pets, and a single joint account. The only thing with which she’d be leaving was the mental exhaustion of half a decade of emotional bullying, and she was certain that was enough. She made dreams come true every week for strangers, put everyone's feelings before her own in her private life, and she was at the end of her tether. Running away seemed childish and cowardly, but she couldn't come up with a better plan, and the more she thought about freedom from her current predicament, the more running away had appealed to her.
She didn't want to run far. Her plan’s only requirement had been to put Bridgeton between the place she was leaving and wherever it was she was running. The big city seemed like an impenetrable moat between the life she was leaving behind and whatever the future held. She still wanted to be within a day's drive of her family in case there was an emergency, to be able to see old friends if the occasion ever arose and didn't wish to completely cut herself off from every contact she'd made over the years.
Working for a farm would never have been something that occurred to her. The job listing was technically for a social media director, which was not her specialty, but the whole thing had been clumsily worded, with only the vague shape of a recognizable position hidden within a quagmire of contradictory priorities. It was as if the person doing the hiring wasn't quite sure what they were even looking for, so she took a chance and responded and Cal all but confirmed her suspicions the day she'd interviewed..
She’d expected to be disappointed. Tormand had taught her that disappointment and recrimination lurked around every corner, and she expected them now, but when she'd arrived at Saddlethorne that first day, driving up the long, narrow dirt road, passing fields dotted with sheep and swaying crops, all she saw was possibility. Ahead loomed a large red barn, like something from a painting, and beyond it, Grace could see rolling green fields, dotted with picturesque outbuildings. She knew at first sight it was perfect. The big centaur knew, at least in theory, that they ought to have some sort of social media presence, to help people find them when searching for pick-your-own fruit farms, something more than the cursory profile pages Caleia had created and then promptly abandoned several years earlier. When she asked him if they ever hosted weddings on site, he told her about the grand weddings hosted by a winery up the road, wistfully adding that he wished they had the capacity to do something like that, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the farm already possessed everything it needed to become a community hub.
She liked to think that it was serendipitous, the fact that she had found the posting at all, and that she in turn was the one who had responded. She brought her years of experience and contacts and the gut-deep certainty that she could turn Cal’s operation into something magnificent, and Saddlethorne provided her with the safe haven she desperately needed: a fresh start, a distraction from her dumpster fire personal life, and a project to lose herself in.
It had been nearly three years, but the thought of putting her heart back on the line made her stomach tighten and her head swim.
"There’s just so much going on right now. I’ll start dating when things aren’t so busy," she promised.
Caleia just rolled her eyes. "You mean when the pumpkin patch opens and we’re doing apple picking and hayrides every day? The busiest time of year? Oh, okay, sure."
The rest of the week passed in the same busy blur as the week prior, a flurry of activities to direct and schedules to manage. The days skipped by, and before Grace knew it, her little foray into exhibitionism was nearly a week-old memory.
The details of that night had danced on the tip of her tongue as she sat across the table from several of her friends during the weekly tradition they tried hard to keep, meeting at one of the swishiest bistros Cambric Creek had to offer. The conversation over dinner had turned, as it almost always did, to their respective love lives. Ennika, giggling over her wine glass, encouraged Grace to download Growlr, a popular multi-species dating app, and she had laughingly protested that she wasn't in the market for werewolves.
"It's not just werewolves!" the goblin insisted. "Don't pay attention to the name. It's for every species!"
"Are you going to pretend you’d kick a single one of the Hemmings out of bed for shedding in the sheets? I think not," Caleia snorted, leaving the whole table wheezing in laughter. "I think they should bring back those charity calendars firemen used to do. Pose nude with nothing but your big firehose for a good cause, Trapp. Think of the children."
Grace dropped her head in her arm as the tiefling couple at the table beside them turned to glare in their direction as they all shrieked in laughter. The Hemmings were, without a doubt, the most attractive residents of Cambric Creek — a clutch of dark-haired werewolf brothers with sparkling eyes and wide, white smiles. Every woman who worked at Saddlethorne managed to find a reason to crowd into the office twice a year when the most handsome member of the town’s fire department accompanied the fire marshall as he completed his inspection. It was a wonder they weren’t setting fires on purpose just to bring him out more often.
Ennika and Caleia had insisted Grace download the dating app right then and there, screeching in protest when she attempted to use her work headshot as her photograph, insisting she use a cropped-out photo of herself wearing a low-cut dress sparkling with sequins from a wedding reception they'd all attended at the farm several months earlier. For the rest of the hour their table had cackled with laughter as they swiped through match after match, squealing when they recognized someone.
"This is the manticore from the bank! Iknewhe looked kinky. Anyone that meticulous over the bills facing the same way is going to be into spanking, that’s an obvious tell."
"What about a naga, Grace? I’m pretty sure I recognize him, he lives over by Sandmar. He says he works from home and his hobbies are gaming and foreign films."
"That’s probably code for he watches a lot of catgirl porn," Caleia cut in. “I say pass.” By then, one of the nearby tieflings was grumbling over their laughter, and was being shushed by his companion.
"Seriously though, we have to find you someone this summer."
"You're wasting your breath," Caleia interjected, earning Ennika’s scowl as she downed the rest of her bright blue drink. "Mushed peas and an early bedtime is all this one is interested in."
"I never said that!" Grace grumbled. "You're trying to get me to hook up with our coworker. I'm sorry if I have better judgment than you, that doesn't mean I'm eighty."
Across the table, Tula frowned. "You shouldn't bury a bone in your own garden, everyone knows that."
"Thankyou." Grace stuck her tongue out at Caleia, as a dignified response. "And aside from the fact that he's my coworker, that I have to see him every day, and that he is probably the last person in town I should even consider sleeping with, my ex was a minotaur! I understand, they're two completely different people, but this is a multi-species town. Frankly, I think I could afford to branch out a bit."
Tula raised her glass in a one-sided toast, and Caleia threw up her hands in defeat. "Fine, whatever. I give up! Enjoy your mushed peas and Wheel of Enticement. I'll bet Mr. Catgirl porn aficionado has some really cool body pillows you could borrow to help with lumbar support for your early bedtime."
The temperature outside had not dropped, and as she left the air-conditioned confines of the restaurant, Grace swayed in the humid night air, the conversation still ringing in her ears. She knew her friends were only trying to help; knew they didn't really understand her reticence over dating again, and how could they? She'd not disclosed the details of her failed marriage to any of them, hadn't talked about Torm or the way he treated her to a single person.
It was probably a mistake, she knew. She needed to find someone to talk to, needed to find a therapist to work through any lingering unconscious issues she harbored from the years of cutting remarks and gaslighting. She needed to find a way to get over this hump of not wanting to trust anyone with her heart again . . . but knowing and doing were two different things. Besides, as she told Caleia, shewasvery busy.It’s going to take someone really special, and really special doesn’t just drop out of the sky.
She was certain she wasn't ready to risk her heart. She wasn't sure if she was ready to use the app for dating . . . but she just might use it for some meaningless hookups. The itch Brogan’s flirtations had ignited beneath her skin had not abated; if anything, her exhibitionist evening had only fanned the flames. She didn't need to see a therapist to know that her actions were utterly preposterous — if she wasn't willing to risk her heart by dating again, whywasshe willing to risk her safety, masturbating for some unknown presence outside her window? She'd woken two nights earlier, certain she'd heard the sound of something heavy landing in the tree, but no further sound came. She’d had an early morning and rolled over to go back to sleep, and the thought that her voyeur had returned hadn't occurred to her until the following afternoon.
She thought about her mystery audience again as she trudged up the stairs of her little rental house, after she arrived home. She wondered if they were on the app, if they had potentially been one of the faces her friends had scrolled past that evening, wondered if they trulywereone of her neighbors. She pondered, as she pulled her dress up her body, if they had, in fact, returned to watch at her window, disappointed at the lack of a show. She'd only had two drinks that evening with dinner, two fruity little things that had barely made her tipsy, but she would still blame them in the morning, she thought while kicking off her panties and unhooking her bra. Kneeling in the center of her bed, knees spread shoulder-width, she cupped her breasts and arched her back. It was a balmy, humid night, but there was a bit of a breeze coming in her window, just as it had been that night earlier in the week. Her nipples hardened as she teased them, puckering into tight, rosy buds that she pinched between her thumb and forefinger, rolling until they twinged, a pull she felt behind her navel. Grace dropped her head back, letting her curls graze her back, as she bounced the heft of each breast in her palms.
She nearly missed the muffledwhumpin the tree outside her window, and might have been able to convince herself she had only wished she'd heard it, but as she stretched a hand down her body, a familiar chirrup sounded. Theyhadcome back, had possibly been coming back for days, she realized with a start. She wasn't as clouded by mindless lust as she had been the night she'd come home from the bar, and the rational part of her brain was quick to remind her that this was a bad idea. It was one thing to have done this once, but to escalate the behavior . . .
