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Like I’m about to bully a puppy into coming out of its kennel before it wants to. Or at least like I’m about to bully a very beautiful man with very brown, very deep, very innocent eyes into giving up all the things that scare him the most so I can assure him he’s worried over nothing and I’m more resilient than he thinks.
Heck, I was ready to give my entire life to Noah. Compared to that jerk…
Ollie is painfully sweet. Agonizingly sweet. Death-by-sugar sweet.
Ollie is everything I’ve ever wanted.
I just have to show him that we can simplify and consolidate the differences between us and get through whatever worries he is finding it difficult to say. I’ve learned nothing is as overwhelming as it seems so long as you break it all down into smaller pieces then ignore everything but the very next step.
After we get home, I don’t even bother unpacking the car as I go on a frenzied search for note cards, colored pens, and everything else I want for tonight’s discussion. Ollie brings the luggage inside while I tear apart a dozen drawers in search of crafts that will hopefully make scary things more palatable. As I set everything up in the center of the living room, he makes dinner.
And now that I’m finished, he strolls in and pushes a bowl of pesto spaghetti into my hands.
I stare between it and him while he surveys the Hobby Lobby vomit—including glitter—laid out across the carpet.
It’s precarious.
Dangerous.
Exactly what we need to work through whatever has been weighing him down.
“No chicken feet?” I ask as I lift my fork.
“They take more energy to make, so I put them in the freezer for later.” He lifts his bowl. “This is my go-to for when my attention is split between cooking and a chaos gremlin destroying the house.” Spinning his fork, he stares at the mess at our feet before plunging spaghetti in his mouth and eyeing me with a distinct do I want to know? looming in his eyes.
I spin my own fork in my own pasta—which smells amazing, and maybe gives me a touch of hope concerning the foreboding promise of chicken feet. “Aren’t you going to ask what all this is?”
He scans the array of yarn, and fabric, and pencils, and glue sticks, and pipe cleaners, and murmurs into another bite of spaghetti, “No, I’m frightened.”
“Seriously? I mean, you can’t lie, so you have to be serious, but…what do you think we’re doing?”
“Making me dog clothes as punishment.”
I hesitate. “As…punishment for what?”
His brows dip, pensive. Words slow, he murmurs, “I’m trying to figure that part out because you are too nice to punish me for the things I believe deserve correction.”
I puff a breath into the steamy, amazing, wonderful food this beautiful man—who thinks he’s somehow not all the above—made for me. “Okay. Well. We aren’t doing that. Let’s get started.” I drop into criss-cross applesauce and reach for a note card.
He remains standing. “I’m going to watch from a safe distan—” I frown up at him, and he sits. “I was joking…”
I pat his head, and red slashes across his cheeks. He might just be too precious for words. Clearing my throat, I say, “Okay,” with some façade of authority. “This is how this is going to work. The game is called…” I blink. Look at the mess. Nod. “Don’t Worry. Before tomorrow morning, our future will be organized into manageable pieces, I’ll understand more about what it means to be part fae and your mate, and we’ll know what comes next. It’s the perfect system to create the perfect plan.”
We are going to ignore my track record with creating perfect systems for perfect plans and forge blindly and boldly ahead with stars in our eyes. Just like every other time I have done this.
One of these days, it’s definitely going to work.
And today might just be that night!
Ollie attempts to flee, but I grip the hem of his shirt and yank him back down.
He protests, “Bri—”
“I’m scared of things, too, Ollie.”
“But you don’t un—”
“I will never understand unless you help me. So—” I pick up a strewn crayon and scribble on the nearest note card before shoving it in Ollie’s face.
