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It takes a lotlonger than I would like to hammer out the details for Dave to take care of Caelan’s homestead while he’ll be away. Apparently, there is a lot of work to do when living on a self-sufficient farm on the border of the middle of nowhere. Who knew?
I mainly ignore Dave and Caelan as they make plans for Dave and his younger brothers to take care of the homestead. Caelan mentions at one point he thinks we’ll be away for about two weeks, so there is a lot to cover.
A very small part of me feels guilty for coming and ramming myself into Caelan’s life and interrupting everything, guilting him into helping me. I know I didn’t manipulate him but it feels similar, like a verymy parents’thing to do, and that always gives me the big icks. But I shove the worry aside.
Finding Theo and making sure he is safe is more important. Because that feeling creeping in the middle of my guts, that he isvery not okayis growing, and spreading like a sickness. Not even the exhilaration thrumming through my veins from finally meeting Caelan could quash it.
If anything, the competing emotions are making me need to eat an irresponsible amount of chocolate. Or have an orgasm. Either one works. Or maybe both.
But it certainly wasluckyto run into Caelan, wouldn’t you say? About time my gift showed itself.
I roll my shoulders and stretch my neck. I am tense, like I need to go for a run or dance or scream into the void or fuck myself stupid. Between the whole Theo situation, the increasing shit show of a life left behind in Loqueaur City and finally meeting Caelan, I am all emotioned out right now. The scales hadbeen tipping for a while and now that I am here I am not quite sure what to do with the buzzing feeling under my skin.
I don’t want to play the poor me little rich fae card. I know I am privileged. But it comes at a cost. The glitter and shine had long since worn off, leaving only cold, sharp emptiness behind.
Thenhecame along. With his warm eyes and goofy grins and awful beanie. With each message, every late-night phone call, he had put a spark of warmth back into my world.
At first I had tried to flirt with him, seeing which boundaries I could push, but he never took the bait and we’d ended up as… friends. I guess. But when I had told him about other dates, other guys, I swear I had seen a flicker of something on his face. Like he’d licked ear wax or something. Then when I had casually mentioned that the dates had been a bust, he said all the right things. But there was always an air of happiness that contradicted his words.
And sure. I absolutely could have put on my big boy panties and had the conversation. That would have been the mature thing to do.
But one, feelings are gross and two… well, what if I was wrong? What if it is all some dumb fantasy I have built in my head about a lonely lumberjack, part wolf shifter in the woods, and he has no interest in me?
I mean, I know what I look like. I am not an idiot; I know I am pretty and my body is banging. But that is genetics and luck. What if he takes a look at me, past the thin veneer of the hot, party boy image I’ve perfected and grotesque generational wealth and sees that there really isn’t anything else worth wanting?
Nope, I had decided; it was definitely better to leave things the way they were and accept where we were at. But now, after that moment we’d had just now on the booth couch? I am seriously reconsidering that acceptance.
So far, there has been a level of tension between Caelan and I. Everything is a little too intense and laced with anxiety. Like neither of us knows what to do with our hands. After our easy friendship over the past few months, I don’t know quite what to do with all this tension.
And that near kiss.Fuck me. The feel of his hot muscles under my hands will be forever embedded in my brain cells. Considering Dave is essentially aidingour possible rescue mission, I shouldn’t be too dirty at him for interrupting. But I am.
Soon, but not soon enough, we pile back into our own cars and I follow Caelan up the mountain to his home. I shift uncomfortably in my too small seat and refocus my eyes on the taillights of Caelan’s truck ahead of me, winding me safely through the trees to his home.
There is definitely something watching us in those trees. Shaking my head again, I turn off the radio, my playlist no longer feeling appropriate. One of my favourite singers had tried her hand at a folksy storytelling album. The sad melodic storytelling had seemed like the perfect backdrop to the wintery woodlands but it is a bit depressing in the moment, so I drive in silence, which isn’t helping the whole “get out of my own head” plan. I am not sure what is going to happen when I finally pull up.
After the world’s dullest drive through pretty but repetitive woodland, the trees give way and the paved road turns into a gravel driveway leading to Caelan’s home. I follow his truck over the rise at the entry of the property and pull up beside him, my mouth dropping open.
I had seen the house, flower gardens, expansive vegetable gardens and henhouse all before in photos and video calls, but nothing had prepared me for seeing it in person. To one side, his log cabin sits in a patch of warm late winter sun, two thick, handmade rocking chairs tucked onto the porch, a whisper of smoke churning from the chimney that has a rather aesthetically pleasing lean to it.
The porch, adorned with climbing cottage roses that would be a riot of colour come the warm weather, faces a stone path that leads the way to the vegetable and herb garden that sprawls across the top half of the property, to the side of the cabin.
Sandwiching the garden is a smaller replica of the cabin, the chicken house lovingly built by Caelan and his grandfather when he was a teenager. He had told me about the summer they had built it with a blush under his beard and a smile on his lips. The chickens are still in their yard, happy and warm; I can faintly hear their clucks and squawks from inside my rapidly cooling car.
On the far side of the garden is a white framed greenhouse, the flower gardens, several small sheds, and tucked out of view behind the cabin sits Caelan’s workshop, where he had spent his winter crafting all kinds of things with those big, strong hands of his.
Beyond all that is the Woods, magnificent and imposing in the distance. I can almost feel the call of them some place deep inside of me, some place deep in the primal core of my being. It is… different. Not what I am used to. Fae magic is trickery, glamour, healing. A little luck and a lot of fun. We can make a flower bloom, or a breeze blow.
But this feels likemore. Like it is calling to me. Specifically.
Shaking off my thoughts, and yes, my procrastination, I look over at Caelan who has gotten out of his truck while I’ve been distracted and is now leaning against his door, ankles crossed and hands folded patiently in front of him. He looks delicious and his pose is relaxed but there is tension, nerves, holding his shoulders tight and creasing his brow.
Doubt hits me again, my hands flexing on the steering wheel of the car. Maybe I shouldn’t have come to him. He probably felt pressured to agree to help me. I know I didn’t compel him into agreeing, but Ididblindside him.
Waiting out in the cold, Caelan meets my eye and raises his brow in question. Shit, now I have been sitting in my car like a weirdo. Excellent. Fantastic first impression. One last deep breath and I open my door, focusing my glamour onnottumbling out of the car like the anxious fizz in my veins is pushing me to do.
I manage to get out of the tiny car with some level of grace and then stand there awkwardly, stuffing my hands into my coat pockets, scuffing my toe into the dirt. There, facing Caelan in his garden, I realise we are alone together for the first time.
