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“Hey, Fallon,” Cherry said with a jaunty little wave before she came forward and enveloped me in yet another hug. Just like the last time I’d seen her, it caught me off-guard. But I kind of liked it. I wrapped my arms around her back and gave her a squeeze right back.
Cherry and Magnolia hugged, too, and Garrek watched this with a furrowed brow. I noticed he’d managed to get those goo-goo glowy eyes of his under control this morning. In the berry-blush of dawn, I couldn’t quite tell what their colour was.
When Cherry and Magnolia pulled away from each other, Cherry introduced herself to Garrek. Like I had done last night, she stuck out her hand, but she realized how pointless a gesture it was much faster than I had, dropping her hand with a little shake of her head.
Garrek acknowledged her name with a flick of his tail and yet another grunt. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his eyes didn’t go white when he looked at Cherry. That seemed to have been a Magnolia-only response.
“We should go,” Garrek said abruptly, eyeing the rising sun.
“Oh!” Magnolia squeaked. “Of course. I just need to grab my things…”
“But there’s food!” I found myself interjecting. “What about breakfast?”
“We can eat on the road,” Garrek said, already turning his big blue body towards the house and heading inside. A second later he reappeared with Magnolia’s bag, the straps held in one hand. It was a decent-sized duffel-style bag, but in his meaty hand it looked like a purse. “This everything?”
“Yes! It’s all packed. I’m wearing everything else,” Magnolia said. She had on her hat, her boots, and her jacket.
As Garrek headed for the shuldu with Magnolia’s bag, calling a reluctant Killian to accompany him, Magnolia, Cherry, and I went inside the house to pack up some of the food.
“Ooh! This is so cute,” Cherry said upon exiting the mudroom and entering the kitchen. She eyed the table with its various mis-matched chairs. “I see your place came furnished!”
“Furnished?” I asked as I started repacking a plate of cheese and fruit into a clean towel to bundle up. “What do you mean? Didn’t you move into Silar’s place? Or was it a new, empty house?”
“Oh, it was his house alright. But it basically had nothing in it. He just ate standing up with no table. Absolute bare minimum for all the domestic stuff. So I’m surprised to see how homey it feels here already! I’m sure Fallon hasn’t built all this stuff since your arrival.”
“No. It was already here,” I said. I thought back to the cozy quilts in the bedrooms.
“I wonder what Oaken’s place will be like,” Cherry said with a smile at Magnolia. “Apparently, he’s very excited about getting married. He voted yes to the bridal program right away. Just like Fallon.”
I felt a flush bloom in my cheeks. I could already picture how excited Fallon would have been when he’d first heard about the new bride program. Pretty much the exact opposite of how I’d felt in arriving here to get married.
“Really? Oh, that’s lovely to hear,” Magnolia gushed, squeezing her hands together. “I can’t wait to meet him. I barely slept last night!”
Apparently, I’d slept like the dead, because I hadn’t noticed if she’d tossed and turned.
“You think… You think he’s a good guy? Oaken?” I asked Cherry, a waver of worry creeping into my voice.
A sudden memory of meeting Massimo for the first time flashed in my head. The smack of his hand on my ass. The appraising leer. The way he’d told me that the first thing I’d have to do before the wedding was change my pink hair back to its natural blonde and that the second thing I’d have to do was lose ten pounds.
If Magnolia experienced something like that, I would ride all the way out there and fucking kill his cowboy ass. I was already living in a penal colony. Might as well earn it.
But Cherry was nodding.
“I truly believe the warden wouldn’t let someone participate in the bride program if he wasn’t reliable or decent.” Her face and tone went oddly sober for someone who was usually all smiles. “I trust Warden Tenn with my life.”
Well… that’s weirdly intense.
I didn’t get a chance to ask her more about her relationship with the warden or what had inspired that deep sense of trust, because a big pair of boots was stomping their way through the mudroom. Garrek appeared in the doorway. Interestingly, he was the only non-warden dude who consistently wore something on his upper body. Fallon, Silar, and even Killian were permanently shirtless, but Garrek wore an old, worn leather vest. It didn’t have any fasteners, so it hung open over his barrel-like chest, but his back was covered.
“Shuldu are ready,” he said to Magnolia.
And that was it. No polite inquiries about if she were ready. No telling her to take her time, to have a bite to eat, to make sure she was hydrated before they hit the long, dusty road.
I glared at him, but he didn’t see it because he was only looking at Magnolia as she finished wrapping up her little sac of food.
“Coming!” she said. “Oh! I almost forgot. Garrek, I have a small gift for you. It’s nothing big. It’s just a little something from home. To say thank you for bringing me along.”
She put down her food and reached into her pocket, pulling out something small and disc-shaped, wrapped in floral-printed paper. I honestly wondered if Garrek wasn’t going to take it, because he just stared at her for a long moment before he finally reached out his hand palm-up.
