Page 21 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

“It seemed practical.” He says it like it’s nothing. Like preserving someone’s mental health strategies in waterproof plastic is just a normal thing people do. “Now it won’t get coffee on it.”

“I…” My throat is tight. My eyes are stinging. “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“It’s a laminated piece of paper.”

“It’s my laminated piece of paper. My mess. My chaos. And you made it…” I struggle for the word. “Sturdy.”

He’s watching me with those steady gray eyes, and I think I see a flicker of surprise, at my reaction. Like he genuinely didn’t expect this to matter.

“You’re crying,” he observes.

“I’m not crying. I have concussion tears. It’s a medical thing.”

“Is it.”

“Shut up.”

I clutch the laminated checklist to my chest like it’s precious, and I’m scrambling for the words to say, the ones that might capture the enormity of being seen like this, of having someone look at my mess and make it better instead of making me feel bad about it, when Orion goes very, very still.

It isn’t the normal stillness of a controlled person. It’s something else, sharper, more alert. An animal that’s just caught a scent.

His head tilts toward the front window, and his eyes do something I can’t quite track, a flicker of movement, a change in focus that doesn’t match any normal human behavior I’ve ever seen.

“What?” I ask. “What is it?”

“Delivery truck,” he says smoothly, turning back to the window display.

I look outside.

The street is empty. No truck. No cars at all, actually, just the quiet of Main Street at closing time, the last of the October light fading into purple dusk.

He’s lying. There’s no truck. Why is he lying?

“There’s no…”

“It already passed.” His voice is still smooth, still calm, but something about the way he’s holding himself has changed. More rigid. More watchful. “You must have missed it.”

I didn’t miss anything. There was nothing to miss. He heard something I couldn’t hear, and he’s pretending he didn’t.

I add it to the growing pile of things about Orion Halloran that refuse to add up.

“Okay,” I say, because I’m too tired and too emotional and too confused to push right now. “If you say so.”

He doesn’t respond. Just keeps his attention on the window, on the darkening street, on something I can’t see.

And then his hand brushes mine, reaching for the checklist, maybe, or just coincidence, and his skin is warm, impossibly warm, and I feel the touch all the way down to my toes.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “For the checklist.”

“You’re welcome.”

He’s still watching the window. Still alert in that strange, animal way. And outside, in the gathering dark, something large and low moves past the glass, a shadow, a shape, gone before I can focus on it, and Orion steps smoothly between me and the window, blocking my view.

“Time to close up,” he says, and his voice is still calm but his eyes are different now. Sharper. Almost gold in the fading light.

“What was…”

“Nothing.” He guides me gently away from the glass, hand warm on my back. “Just a trick of the light.”