“Meaning?”
“Step one would’ve been to seven, then to five, and then to three. I shocked my system, and a shocked system can’t lose weight. It’s too out of whack. I need to do the right thing for my body.”
Love for him welled up, and I went warm all over. Before I realized it, I was blinking back tears.
“Hey.” He hurried over to the bed and caught my chin. “Why are you crying? If this is about the bacon, I can make the first step five slices.”
I wrapped my fingers around his wrists and laughed. “This is not about the bacon … although I do wish you’d start doing things in moderation, because I want you around for a very long time.”
“I promise I’ll do better.”
“Because you want your eight-pack back, not because you want more time with me.”
His eyes darkened. “I don’t like when you say things like that.”
“Sorry. I’m in a mood.”
“I can tell. What I don’t understand is why that mood involves crying.”
“It just hit me how much I love you. Sometimes that happens out of the blue. I try to hide it so you don’t think I’m schmaltzy.”
Landon looked exasperated. “Bay, sometimes things hit me out of the blue, too. Don’t hide it from me. I want to hear how awesome I am.”
That made me laugh, which was obviously his intention. “I’ll keep that in mind.” I swiped the tears off my cheeks. “I want to work with Steve.”
Confusion knit his eyebrows. “You are working with Steve.”
“I mean I want to work with him because I think it’s important, and not for the same reasons I wanted to work with him when he first broached the subject.”
Landon waited for me to explain.
“Before, I wanted to help. I thought it would be great to have access to the FBI database. It was nice to feel important. I felt special.” My expression was rueful. “My ego was stroked.”
“Bay, if you expect me to be irritated about that you’re bound for disappointment,” Landon countered. “I like my ego stroked too.”
“Yes, but you’re a man. That’s typical for your gender. Women aren’t supposed to like that.”
“Says who?”
“Everyone on the internet.”
“Screw the people on the internet.”
It wasn’t something I should care about, and in the grand scheme of things I didn’t. The reasons I’d made my decision were important, though. “I liked feeling special,” I reiterated. “That’s what got me into this. Now, after what happened last night, I realize I have a different purpose.”
“What’s that?” Landon’s forehead creased as he tried to puzzle it out.
“Someone has to teach them that, just like with humans, there are good and bad paranormals. We’re not all monsters.”
Landon pursed his lips. “Bay, I don’t think he sees you as a monster. If anything, he’s a little smitten with you.”
“I don’t mean it like that. In his world, witches are mostly human, so he looks at them differently. You saw him last night. He got a rude awakening with Millie. He saw the light and dark side of magic. With the naiad, he didn’t understand what she was. In his mind, the humans were automatically innocent. We need to work on him with that.”
Landon took several seconds to consider it. “I get it,” he said finally. “You want him to see the paranormal world the same way he does the human world. I’m not sure he can do that, Bay. It’s hard when you’re an outsider looking in.”
“You did it,” I pointed out.
“Because I fell in love with you and realized you were the most human person I’d ever met. You might find that insulting, but no one loves deeper than you. Nobody cares more. Nobodyfights harder. I don’t want Steve to learn the same way I learned … with kisses and naughty rolls in the hay.”
