“Weres are more about offering you food than ripping out your throat,” Truman remarked when the woman turned toward him with a questioning look. Truman studied Ray for a moment before giving the woman a friendly, if sharp, smile. “Or so I hear.”
“You shouldn’t trust all of them,” Ray admonished. “Some weres are bad people, just like humans.”
The human woman dragged her gaze from Truman and brought it back to Ray, then dropped it to study the card. She picked it up to read it better. “Raymond?”
Ray wrinkled his nose. “Ray.”
“C.C.,” the woman returned, tapping her chest with the card.
“Ray Ray!” The shout came from one of the backrooms but was followed by the rabbity thumping of Cal’s heart growing louder.
Ray stood up, barely catching the granola before it fell. He sealed it carelessly and shoved it into his pocket a second before Cal turned a corner and appeared.
“We have a small lead!” Cal announced to the world, quieting only slightly as he went on. “Well, Penn does. She found someone who definitely had a stranger on a message board approach them with thoughts about—oh.” He stopped a few feet from Ray, taking in C.C. and her paper folder and the baggie of granola, and then Truman, observing it all. “I’ll tell you the rest in the car on the way,” he said only to Ray. “Time to regroup and then clean up. Maybe a rest?” He peered at Ray closely. “You look tired again, sugarwolf.”
Sugarwolf did not seem better than sweetwolf. C.C. made a choked noise. Truman coughed.
“I’m feeling a little better actually.” Ray focused on Cal rather than anyone else, but was relieved when Benny appeared, hunched over his phone and obviously focused on a conversation of some kind and not in any danger or distress.
“Oh yeah?” Cal linked his arm with Ray’s and tugged to get him moving. “Then it’s feeding time for the local werewolves and also the local Bennys. Right, Bens?” Benny didn’t even grunt in acknowledgement. He just trailed after Cal as Cal led them all outside.
Ray gave C.C. a nod as he went.
She gave him a bemused wave in return.
Ray paused at the desk. “Do you need to buy tickets to attend this thing?” he asked Truman, who blinked, then shook his head.
“Suggested donation. Some stuff inside costs money, though.”
“There you go,” Ray told C.C., and Cal gave Ray a look both puzzled and pleased before tugging Ray on.
Truman let out a long, slow breath right before the door closed behind Ray.
Chapter Seventeen
A MEAL AND a shower did not restore Ray’s strength, but they did help. All the same, Ray sat on the bed to put on his socks and shoes to conserve what energy he had without Cal catching on. Cal was currently pouting about Ray’s insistence that he’d want a shirt to stay warmer. Ray wasn’t wrong, which, he suspected, was why Cal was pouting.
Ray sort of wondered if Cal did this every autumn, denied the approach of winter as long as he could. It wasn’t as if they had severe winters in Los Cerros. Some fog and cold and rain, but nothing like snow. To the fairies, preferring bare skin and sunlight, resenting even pants and skirts, fall and winter must be nearly intolerable. They ought to live farther south, where it was warmer year-round, but Ray supposed history was the reason so many were here. Los Cerros had been one of the only human places to allow them, if not welcome them with open arms.
Benny was in the living room. They had stopped at his place before returning to theirs so that Benny could change. He had decided to turn the evening into a sort of date night with Divinity and wanted to look nice. He had also kindly reminded Ray that Ray had met Divinity before, and though Benny had explained some of the situation to her, she was still a little uncertain of him. Ray had solemnly promised not to tell Benny’s girlfriend that she smelled like breakfast again, to Cal’s amusement.
Cal was currently making a big deal out of wriggling into a tight t-shirt that had holes in the shoulder blade area that looked like the eyelets for buttons but larger. Ray got up to help him get his wings through the holes.
“I think fairies learned how to sew just to get clothes that fit us. And do you know what it costs to get them tailored for wings like mine? That is not off the rack! And some of us are not good at sewing!” Cal’s rant was quiet and well-rehearsed. Ray imagined he’d said it many times over the years.
Ray bent down to rest his chin on the top of Cal’s head. He inhaled deeply.
Cal shivered but stopped moving.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I don’t really have strong opinions on clothes, just the extra expense for me to live like humans want me to.”
“I wasn’t bothered,” Ray answered. It must be taking effort for Cal to stay still, but he might have found this position comforting too. What Cal had said was true. He didn’t care about clothing, not in the way that Benny did with his colors and prints, or how Penn did on her day off when she felt like dressing up. Cal didn’t even have much to say about Ray’s ties, which were fairly plain, and, as far as Ray remembered, all gifts from his mother and sister.
“Have you always pulled on my ties?” Ray wondered aloud just as Cal gave in to his restless limbs and stepped away to dig out a pair of socks from a drawer. Having the drawer open must have reminded him about underwear, because he grabbed a pair and slipped them on.
Cal glanced back at Ray before answering. “When I could get away with it. Which was pretty early on, actually.”
“But you don’t care about them.” Ray wasn’t sure if he was asking or not.
