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“Merrick! Are you stealing fruit?!”
“I’m checking it for aphids! You know, you're too used to the fruit on the farm, you have no idea what could be infecting this imported stuff. Did you know an entire town died from a single spider in a banana?” A cherry was his next victim, then another, and he chirped once more, his mantle puffing up as he hummed.
“That’s an urban legend!” she snapped, glancing around. One of the store employees had appeared, pushing a cart of apples in front of her, and the vampires were straining to overhear her conversation behind.Trapped. Definitely time to go.“You are incorrigible! Let’s get out of here, those vampires are watching you. I didn’t realize I was sleeping with a criminal!”
Now she pressed against his chest, listening to the happy near purr he emitted, his stomach full and her head heavy, at last ready for sleep. It was the happiest summer she could ever remember having, and she wasn't ready for it to be over. Autumn had been all she was looking forward to, and now its whisper hung in the air like a portent, the sun sinking in the horizon earlier and earlier each night, signaling the end of the season drawing near.
Her meeting with the head of the community boards planning committee had gone as smoothly as if she had scripted it — a beautifully sunny day without a cloud in the sky, the heat abating slightly, at least for that morning, all of the farm's employees on their very best behavior. The werecat had been impressed with her background in venue management and wedding planning, was mollified at the size of the southernmost lot and the additional area they would allocate for parking, surveying the fields where vendors would sell their wares and carnival rides would be erected for the long weekend festival.
When it had been all over, they had gone out to celebrate, back to Gildersnood, and she'd felt a little ripple of déjà vu. Going home that night to her empty house had felt all-too-familiar, and when she pulled her dress over her head, climbing to the center of her back, she thumbed open her phone, letting her audience know that the curtain was about to go up.
He was far from perfect, she had learned. Awkward and anxious, but also arrogant and assuming. He was passionate about his work, passionate about what he did, and his people skills were distant second, but she'd also learned that her first instincts had proven correct — he was very sweet, very considerate, and the soft sound of his chirps and clicks and filled in the gaps of her world that she'd scarcely been aware of until his presence in their place.
She'd nearly missed the softwhumpin the tree outside her window, the branches thick and heavy with leaves. All too soon they would begin to turn; green to gold, to red and orange, dropping from the branches the same way he would eventually drop out of her life, as unexpectedly as he'd dropped into it.
As her hands moved down her body, gliding over the soft curves he enjoyed so much, she wondered what she would do when he was gone. She'd gone and fallen in love, against her better judgment, even though she knew it was foolish. She'd not protected her heart as well as she had intended, and it would hurt when he left, a scoop of her heart that he would permanently take with him. It would probably hurt worse than when she had run away, she realized, for all she had been running away fromwashurt.
The love had died in her marriage years before she'd left, but this love was fresh, a recent brand on her heart. She shouldn't have let him in so deeply, shouldn't have spent so much time in his company and in his bed, but saying such a thing, eventhinkingsuch a thing felt wrong. She had met him and she had fallen in love, and she was glad for it, because it meant she was still able to do such a thing. She would miss him terribly when he was gone and her heart would unquestionably be broken, but Grace couldn't find it in her to wish that she'd done anything different.
Her fingers had found their way into her slick center that night of her triumphant meeting, and she performed for him the same way she'd done that night several months earlier. When his flickering tongue met her heated skin, it was no longer a foreign sensation. Familiar and pleasurable, touched with tenderness, she thought. When he began to suck her, her head dropped back, surrendering to the sensation. This was his favorite thing to do, she could deny him nothing. If he'd noticed the tears that ran down her face as she came against the suction of his tongue, he was considerate enough not to mention them.
"It's a very nice place, of course it is. That's why I love living here so much."
He had let himself into her house early the previous morning, shortly after the sky had begun to lighten with the dawn, and his agitated excitement had been so palpable, she'd woken up to see what he was pacing around over. The lab coat was designed for a winged species, slipped over the arms the way one would wear a normal garment, with Velcro sections that were left opened to accommodate wings, fastened once the wearer had pulled it on.
"Look what they did!" he'd exclaimed, his hands trembling with the adrenaline of such a gift. "Look what they got for me!"
He had never owned an item of adaptive clothing, she'd discovered the day she'd taken him shopping. All the clothes he'd owned had been created for humans, things he'd been forced to cut and modify, never actually fitting his long, angular body. If he'd been surprised by the other nocturnal and crepuscular employees at the school, the clothing stores that lined Main Street completely blew his mind. Shirts for people with multiple arms, saddle kilts for centaurs, pants designed for hooved and hocked residents. The pants they found him had been a touch a short, as he was uncommonly tall, but he'd marveled over the neat tucks that ended where his insectoid lower legs bent back. First pants, and now this lab coat. Grace could almost see his world getting larger, and she was glad she was there to witness it.
"Well, they must really like you. That's not surprising to hear, you're probably all a bunch of lab coat know-it-alls."
He'd stood in front of the mirror on the back of her closet door, examining himself in his new lab coat, wearing the pants they purchased for him, his nose scrunched.
"I don't know if I like this, Grace."
"Well, I do," she murmured, stretching up on her toes to kiss his sharp shoulder blade. "You look very handsome."
Her eyes fluttered open as she repeated that Cambric Creek was, in fact, a very nice place. The canopy was open, and above their heads a million and one stars winked in a cloudless sky. She was able to see flashes of lightning bugs beyond the netting around the balcony, the tree cover of the forest dense and black enough to blot out the light pollution from town. It was magical and soft, and although her heart would undoubtedly be broken when he left, there was nowhere else in the world she would choose to be.
♥ ♥ ♥
