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I chew my lip. “Won’t there be, I don’t know, hints? Since I don’t know how to behave correctly?”
Two men with lion tails count to three before skipping in time across the street and descending into a fit of laughter.
Someone is walking backwards. While reading. In a cocoon of her glistening, transparent wings. She yawns and tosses blue-green hair before looking up from her book, locating a coffee shop, and backing her way inside.
After another two seconds, someone else does a cartwheel that ends in the fountain basin.
Ollie hums. “What are you planning to do that would find itself so out of place?”
“I do not know.”
Someone with horns is sitting upside down on a bench, ankles crossed in the air, while they carry on a conversation with two giggling women.
“Maybe I’m not strange enough.” I straighten, whipping my attention toward Ollie. “Or maybe my thinking it strange is the strange part, and everyone will find my lack of oddities odd, because they aren’t actually odd, but I’m treating them like they are odd, which is odd.”
“Careful. You’ll give yourself a headache.”
I fold my arms. “I already have one.”
Tenderness sweeps into Ollie’s gaze as he lifts one hand from his pocket and offers it to me. “Don’t hurt anyone. That’s it. Anything else is fine. Everything else is fine, rather. Here, you’re free to exist as whoever you are.”
“What if I accidentally hurt someone?”
“You apologize.”
“What if they don’t forgive me?”
“Then that really says more about them than it does about you, doesn’t it? Come on, beautiful. Give yourself permission to be.” His fingers wiggle. “Once your nerves wear off, I’m almost positive this part is the easiest to accept.”
This part is easier than accepting that a beautiful man wants me for me, sacrificed a year of his life to pretend to be my chihuahua, dedicated hours to writing me love songs, and doesn’t show a scrap of interest in the fact his skill with music has garnered him an insane following because all the work he put into it was never about anything more than loving me?
Yeah.
I don’t think any parts could be easier to accept than that.
I let myself take his hand again. “Don’t sell yourself so short. No matter how amazing Faerie turns out to be, you’re what makes it worth exploring.”
His cheeks warm as his fingers close around mine. “Now I know you’re trying to unravel me.”
“I’m not, Ollie.” I dare to step closer. “You’ve made me feel more special than I think you understand. You deserve to know that the sentiment is reciprocated.”
“I…” He averts his eyes as he squeezes my hand. “…appreciate it.” Coughing, he violently clears his throat. “Okay. While I’m still functional, let’s get you some pasta.”
Mm. Pasta.
Magical Faerieland pasta.
This may just be the best day of my life.
Chapter 24
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Things are just better in Faerie.
Pressing my hands together, I hold my fingers to my lips and attempt to gather my senses. They are utterly failing me. Computing this could take generations. My children and my children’s children might still be loading their brains.
I am seated in the bed of a giant tulip. The piston and stamen jut up through a hole in the center of the table in front of me. Warm, adjustable, lights gleam from each anther. I kneel with my knees tucked quaintly under the table on the yellow part of the interior petal.
