Page 217 of In Somnis

“Ow.”

That’s new.

She bites harder.

“Stop it.”

The bite releases, but she’s still squirming like a feral cat in my arms, so I keep moving until we reach the tree. The swings creak softly in the night air. I lower her onto one, but not gently enough to be mistaken for delicate.

“Sit.” She almost stands straight back up, but I put a hand on her shoulder. “Sit,” I repeat.

She glares up at me like she might try biting again.

The fairy lights above us flicker, catching in her hair and the bright yellow of her dress. Her cheeks are flushed, and her nose is scrunched up so hard it’s doing that thing I like more than I should admit to myself.

Jesus. She was about to pull Sydney’s ponytail out by the roots for me.

I crouch in front of her, one knee settling between hers, and turn my arm over to look at the bite marks already blooming pink.

“You should have come as a vampire,” I tell her. “Would’ve been more honest.”

“She’s a fucking bitch.”

“She’s not.”

“You’re defending her? After what she said about you?”

“She’s drunk.” I shrug and run my thumb over the teeth marks. “And she’s just saying what most of this town thinks, which is also true.”

“That is not the truth.”

“It is,” I say it without any edge, because if you carry anger about every stupid thing people say in a small town like this, it’ll eat you alive.

“I struggled in school. They only let me finish so they could get rid of me. I can’t read well. I can’t write well.” I shrug. “It’s fine, I’m just stupid.”

Her whole face tightens. “You are not stupid. Not even close.”

I hold her eyes for a second longer than I should.

Then I look back down at my arm. “I know what I am.”

“Do you think that I’m stupid?” She leans forward on the swing.

I frown. “What?”

“I struggled in culinary school.” Her voice has gone quieter now, the anger finding somewhere more useful to go. “Really bad grades. I dropped out when my dad died, and we couldn’t afford the fees anymore, but honestly…” She hesitates. “I don’t even know if I would have made it if I’d stayed.”

“And yet.” She lifts her chin. “I’m still an amazing chef. I made my own way.”

Her hand finds my arm, and her fingers brush lightly over the bite marks she left there.

“You made your own way too,” she continues. “You’re running an inn and keeping your family together, and you’ve been doing it since you were a kid. You make people feel safe without even trying. Sydney doesn’t know shit.” Her mouth tightens. “This whole town doesn’t know shit.”

I look at her, and her eyes meet mine.

Her nose is still scrunched, her jaw set like she’s ready to fight the entire population of Vernonia if they disagree with her, and I think about what I told myself for a few days now. That she needs me as a friend, and the last thing she needs is someone else’s complications dropped on top of hers. That I have no free time, a sick mom, and a brother who needs me, and exactly nothing to offer a woman like her.

And then she bit me because she was so mad on my behalf, and she’s sitting here in fairy lights with her fingers on my arm telling me this town doesn’t know shit, and the whole careful argument I’ve been building—about timing, responsibility, not making her life harder—folds into itself.