“I should have gotten you flowers,” he acknowledged out loud, to have some kind of words between them. “That’s what fairies do.” Wolves didn’t, but Ray had already failed on that front. “I didn’t get a chance to buy any, but I have these.” In his pants pocket, far away from the contents of his coat pockets, he had a plain brown paper packet, which he took out and set on the table. “Cassandra’s gardener gave them to me.” Cal twitched, like he wanted to glance back toward Cassandra’s but didn’t dare move. “Wisteria seeds,” Ray explained. “For the yard. It will take a while for them to grow. Over a decade, the gardener said. They’re also poisonous, even to fairies in high enough amounts, so be careful. But they’ll grow.”
Cal slowly looked away from Ray to study the packet. He drew it toward himself with one finger, then looked up again.
“You don’t have to take them.” The urge to get up and run far was strong. With everything else going on, it might even be easy. There was a reason wolves didn’t ask questions like this. They shouldn’t have been necessary. But it was a human world they were in. “You don’t have to say yes,” Ray added, a little louder, because he didn’t like Cal quiet.
“Wisteria.” Cal spoke at last. “You’re giving me wisteria?” His voice was strained. “For our yard?” He tossed his head. “Marry you?” he asked, breathless. “But that’s so human? And you’ve only known me for three days—not even four! You were just attacked!” Cal’s thoughts must have been spinning. “You need time to consider everything when the world is less terrifying… or I suppose it will always be terrifying, that’s the nature of it. Ah!” Cal dragged both hands through his hair, then touched the tips of his fingers to the packet of seeds again. He looked up, blinked. “You’re a hero type who would probably snarl at a god if the god crossed you. You’re under a spell and you think—ah, magic and seeds and paper.Paper. You understand so much more than people think you do. This is about the future. Yes.” Cal took a breath. “What the fuck?” he added sharply, loud enough to bring Penn’s head up. “Yes, obviously, if you’re sure—oh. Oh, of course you are. Is that it? Is that the source of your brightness? Your shine?” Cal was on his feet and didn’t seem to notice. “You will protect me with all the tools at your disposal. You will give them no reason to deny me or uproot me. From the second you sniffed me out in that alley, I had to be protected at all costs.” He floated forward and descended into Ray’s lap to gently touch Ray’s face. “What if you never remember what we had?”
Ray settled him as carefully as he could. Then he put his shoulders back. “This is me choosing you again, Callalily.”
“Why?” Cal demanded immediately, then shook his head as if to dismiss the question for something he felt was more important. “This is a terribly human thing you are asking.” He leaned in until their noses bumped. His breath smelled like real chocolate and fake raspberries. “I don’t need it. But all that warm moonlight around you is the thought of taking care of me? I might cry over that. But not now. Were you scared I’d say no?”
Ray closed his eyes and let out a long breath. If something happened, Cal would still have the house, some money, some rights.
“You dork.” Cal’s hand shook as he petted Ray’s cheek and brushed back the hair at his temple.
“Human laws, human rules.” Ray quoted Penn with a grunt. “Let them benefit you.” He pulled back and opened his eyes. “I still have some friends at City Hall, if you don’t feel like waiting.” He’d like to get things rolling as quickly as possible.
“Raymond.” Cal’s tone was impossible to read, scandalized, maybe panicked. But his scent curled around Ray, a contradictory mélange ofpleased/confused/affection/affection. He did not seem inclined to get up. Then Ray realized why. “You’re worried about how much time is left.”
So was Cal, but Ray kept that in. “If nothing else, I want to do better with this second chance.”
Which reminded him.
He took one hand from Cal to reach into another pocket. The ring made of sugar was apparently watermelon-flavored. The wrapper was crinkly. Ray shrugged and cleared his throat. “I forgot flowers or real candy, or a ring, as humans do it. But there’s this.” He held it up.
“Hey, so Gary down at Rainbow is freaking out about the thing—” Benny came to an abrupt stop. Ray hadn’t heard him get out of the car, but Ray was a little distracted at the moment.
“He thinks he’s funny,” Cal said, apparently to Benny, with his gaze hard on Ray. But he snatched the candy ring from Ray’s hand in the next second and tore open the packaging.
The large, diamond-shaped chunk of reddish-pinkish-greenish sugar was pressed against Ray’s mouth.
Cal raised an eyebrow.
The glitter that burst from him when Ray scowled but sucked on the overly sweet “diamond” was almost worth the artificial, sort-of-melon taste on Ray’s tongue.
“What the hell,” Benny said, not asking.
“Benny, what does your afternoon look like?” Ray asked without taking his eyes from Cal.
“Devastating,” Cal told Ray in a whisper, and then slipped the warm and now wetly sticky candy between his lips.
Chapter Sixteen
RAY SAT in the front room waiting area of Rainbow Wings, where he had been since he, Cal, and Benny had arrived and Gary had dragged the other two to a back room for some sort of consultation on one of their cases. Ray suspected the situation, while important, felt more urgent to Gary today because of the barely controlled chaos nearby. Rainbow Wings itself had minimal staff in today, since everyone else was outside helping to set up for the event that evening. Ray was unclear on whether some helpers had not shown up, or if this had always been the plan but the event had gotten larger than anyone had expected.
Under normal circumstances, he would have gone out there to lend a hand. But then, under normal circumstances, he would’ve been anywherebutthe village, and would never have known he was needed. As it was, he wanted to stay close to Cal and Cal had forbidden him to wander off on his own anyway. Cal had even gone so far as to instruct the goblin receptionist, named Truman, to hit the panic button if anyone suspicious came in and talked to Ray.
Ray had not gone to the back room with the others for the consultation because apparently the matter was sensitive. He had refrained from pointing out he could listen in if he wanted to. Gary was tense enough.
“Panic button?” was all he had asked.
Truman, taking a thousand phone calls and coordinating some of the people outside, had chirped, “Some people don’t like us. We have an alarm button that warns everyone in the back to either take cover or run.”
He’d said it with a smile.
Cal had just added, to Ray, “We’ll get you some earplugs or something before we go home.”
Earplugs. Ray had managed to live in a city all this time without resorting to earplugs. He had done fine. But opening his mouth to argue about it had earned him a sorrowful look, and even knowing Cal had done that on purpose hadn’t made Ray feel any less inexplicably guilty.
