Tired as I was, my mind spun with possibilities. Cupid had briefly stopped by Ordinary not too long ago, but hadn’t been back since. I wondered why he was so interested in the spell book now. I wondered if finding it would be made easier or harder now that we had the missing page.
I wondered what part Ordinary would play in his hunt for it.
“Now, I really must be going,” Xtelle said. “I cannotbelieve you forced me to hide my magnificence in a bush. I shall expect my reward in diamonds, rubies, and gold. A crown would be appropriate, a tiara sufficient.”
She unstuck herself from the brush, made a couple wet kissy sounds, then she and Avnas trotted off into the night.
Telling me a god was looking for the god spell book wasn’t really the intel I’d wanted. I didn’t even know how reliable her sources were. She could be making it all up, just to see if I’d actually give her a crown.
She was going to be so disappointed.
I pushed the whole thing out of my mind to deal with tomorrow. Tonight, I needed to face the monster hunter in my home.
Game face: on. Shoulders: still sore. Determination: ready to rumble.
I opened the door.
The soft swaying blues ofThe Sky is Cryingflowed through the house.
I walked in, my shoulders dropping, my feet moving to the rhythm of the song as I dropped my bag at the door.
The lights were low, but I didn’t hear laughter, didn’t hear voices.
I walked into the space between the kitchen and the living room, and just stood there.
The sky was dark, a twinkle of lights across the lake winking through the window. The flames in the fireplace twisted and hissed. Dragon pig slept with its feet straight up in the air, an empty roll of tin foil across its round little belly.
Spud looked up from where he lay beside his buddy, and tapped his tail on the floor before putting his head back down on his paws and closing his eyes.
I didn’t see Ryder in the living room, didn’t see him on the patio, didn’t see him in the kitchen.
Then the floorboards in the upstairs bathroom creaked, water shut off, and I closed my eyes. I tracked him from the sounds he made. That twisting pivot on the ball of his foot as he shifted around the bathroom door like he was navigating an obstacle course instead of just walking down the hall.
The double step he took outside our bedroom door, so he could three-point shot something onto the dresser, the pat of his palm on the newel post at the top of the stairs.
All of that was Ryder. Every movement, every sound a part of him filling my life.
I breathed it in, this awareness of him in my life. The space he took up in it. The space he took up in me.
I loved it.
I loved him.
He thundered down the stairs like a spilled bag of rocks and hit the bottom almost silently.
“Delaney,” he said. “Damn it.”
I opened my eyes. “It’s like poetry when I’m with you.”
He rubbed his hand over his hair, messing it up, and grinned at me. “Yeah?”
He was barefoot, and wore a pair of old sweats that hung low on his hips, and a Pink Floyd T-shirt that had holes all the way around the collar.
It was a good look on him. Relaxed. Loose. Comfortable. He fit here. In this house, with me.
I wanted to touch him, hold him, be held by him. So I walked toward him.
“I was going to have a glass of wine waiting for you,” he said.
