His mom clucked her tongue. “A fairy andyou.”
Ray was a were from the suburbs, where no other weres lived. A werewolf in the city, Cal had said. With a pack who had… but he didn’t want to think of the hospital. “I don’t understand.”
“You could ask him,” his mom suggested. “He will tell you every reason, gleefully, in very fairy-like detail.”
“He’ll just say I’m shiny,” Ray grumbled, and didn’t know what to think when she laughed.
“That he would. And that only sounds ridiculous because someone hurt you and took away your knowledge of what that means.” She grew serious. “But what would you say about him?”
Ray closed his eyes and canted his head toward the door; Cal was back in the kitchen, probably mopping as he’d promised. “I don’t know him,” he finally answered in a whisper. “I would die for him.”
“Ah.” His mom exhaled, long and sad. “You tried to hide this from me before, the first time. You couldn’t, but you tried. It’s something now to experience it with you. I loved your father but he was not mine in the same way. There was no mate bond, so I am not much help to you on these matters. But I think, if you went to Callalily, and you told him that the way you didn’t tell him then, he would be very happy to have you get to know him.”
“He’s fairy,” Ray complained, although it had no teeth.
“And I am sure that is part of why he is yours.” His mother must have sat back, the couch cushions giving around her. “He promised me he would keep you after I once expressed a similar concern. They take that very seriously, Ray.”
Ray’s chest was tight. “What does that mean?”
“You’re going to have to ask him.” His mom clucked her tongue. “When that is settled again, I will come out to see you. But I know better than to get in the way of the newly mated.”
Ray opened his eyes. He said nothing. She didn’t seem to expect him to.
***
THE VEGETABLES were slightly crisp, the salmon slightly dry. Cal’s sheepish explanation that he’d forgotten to set the timer on the oven ended only when Ray had asked if Cal had eaten. They sat on opposite sides of their small dining room table to eat their dinners. After, Ray did the few dishes rather than use the dishwasher, while Cal exchanged texts with someone, or several someones.
Cal didn’t seem inclined to leave. He took another can of soda and some chocolate-covered peanuts into the living room-dual office space and sat on the couch with his laptop. He wasn’t doing much work. He watched Ray prowl around the room again, then go out into the backyard to prowl around there—a high fence stopped prying eyes but would be easy to scale. The security lights to detect motion were a little better for calming Ray’s nerves. A sign advertised an alarm system, but Ray wasn’t sure it had been set, and finally came back into the house to check that.
Cal volunteered the passcode in a low voice that had not held judgment, but he watched Ray open and close the closets, and read every single note on the whiteboard, and avoid the pictures by the front door, and made almost no pretense of working.
It was late. Ray should try to sleep. Sleep might help him heal. He flicked through the mail on his desk, then went back to the windows to look out into the yard.
“I’m okay,” he said to pretty half-fairy with a cloud ofconcernaround him.
“No,” Cal answered, impossibly gentle for someone who was just as tense as Ray. “You’re not. But if you want to keep that from me, someone you currently don’t know, I get it.”
“I would die for you,” Ray told him, louder than he’d said it to his mother. He clenched and unclenched his hands at the sharp hitch in Cal’s breathing. “But I don’t know you.”
“Someone attacked you today.” Cal was still gentle, although Ray could hear his panicked heart. “You don’t have to do this right now.”
Ray turned to him. “I didn’t then. If I don’t remember you tomorrow, you should still hear it.”
Cal’s eyes were wide and wounded. His lips were parted. He took a few breaths. “Would you like to know me? I can be very annoying.”
“You said you begged for me,” Ray snapped. “That makes no sense. You make no sense.”
“Ouch, I think?” Cal pouted, but then narrowed his eyes. “Do you think the fairies in the village are kidding when they fawn over you? That it’s just because you’re big, and they’ve heard me when you… well… that’s a discussion for another time. You… you and Penn… you’re as close to heroes as people get. Honestly, if you were both firefighters, you’d be swimming in all the underwear people would throw at you—don’t make a face because you’re imagining all the smells.”
Ray stubbornly wrinkled his nose.
Cal huffed as if amused despite himself. “You don’t have to figure me out right this second. Like I said before; I’m not going anywhere.” His eyebrows rose when Ray was slow to stifle a growl. “Is that what you don’t understand? That I’m staying? I… ought to be offended, but I’m too tired.”
Ray stared at him, trying to imagine what bewilderment looked like to fairy eyes. “I can tell that you care for me,” he said at last, more cautious than he had ever been in his life—that he could remember. “And that you want me. But I don’t want you to stay if you don’t want to, just because I’m… because I feel this.”
Cal narrowed his eyes and was silent for a while, puzzling that out or trying to be tactful. Except Ray didn’t think it was about tact when both of Cal’s eyebrows shot up.
“Sorry, are you implying that I am with you out of friendly pity or something? Or that we are in some sort ofhalfway matedsituation? Is that what you reasoned out in the shower? That I am here to be nice to you because I ‘care’ and don’t mind jumping your bones?”
