He noticed and grinned. “I’ve had a lot of experience with hardheaded gargoyles and garhettes. Sorry about taking over in there, but it seemed like you needed a helping hand.”
“No, don’t apologize. You handled that much better than I could’ve. You got Mr. Tom off my back without hurting his feelings and Edgar out of here without him asking to be retired. Where have you been until now?”
His mood darkened. “Mistaking where you needed me most.”
Our training wasn’t going well. He couldn’t seem to get in tune with me, and I didn’t know enough about his flight plans to figure out where I should be and when.
I put my hand on his arm in support. “We’ll get it?—”
He brought that hand up to cough, just once, before shifting his weight and looking down at the diary. He’d effectively removed my touch.
I clasped my hands in front of me. “Sorry.”
“I’m not worried about the touch, and neither is Alpha Steele,” he said, turning a page. “I prefer it, actually. Gargoyles in general do. But you and I both need to practice shifter rules if we want to seem natural in the moment. The packs will notice.”
“Right. Definitely.”
He flicked another page. “Mr. Tom wrote down your heart’s desires.”
“What?” I inched forward to see, putting my hands behind my back.
He chuckled. “That’s not really advertisingnatural.”
I pushed my hands to my sides. “None of this is exactly natural for me.”
“Yes, I’ve realized that.” He flipped to the most recent page, and his finger traced down the lines before he snapped the diary closed and handed it over to me. “One of your heart’s desires is a house in a meadow with a white picket fence and a window box with an apple pie sitting on it.”
I looked down at the diary in bewilderment. “A window box has plants and flowers in it.”
“Usually.”
“White picket fence?” I whispered. “Where did he get that?” I shook my head and handed the diary back to him. Trying to figure it out would make me dizzy. “Not my problem. This isyourproblem now. You took the job.”
“Um…” He hesitated before closing his fingers around the diary, his expression confused. “I…must’ve gotten it wrong? It seemed like you didn’t actually want Mr. Tom taking over your schedule…”
“I didn’t.”
“Nor Patty.”
“Correct.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, trying to read me, and then sagged in defeat. “I don’t understand.”
I laughed. “Yes, I caught that.” I took a deep breath. “I thought I was doing fine managing my schedule, but there’s a reason Austin told Mr. Tom to help me. He passed it off as a joke, but clearly, I’m not being as punctual as I probably shouldbe. Practice, remember? He was probably trying to protect my feelings, but shifters tend to be incredibly punctual, and I allow meetings and trainings and whatever to run long. I always feel bad cutting someone off, whether it be Edgar explaining his flowers or Mr. Tom trying to give me one more cup of coffee in the morning to improve my mood, or lengthening training when someone is right on the cusp of getting a maneuver.”
“You don’t like being the bad guy,” he surmised, his eyes glowing brighter.
“I really don’t. I’ve gotten better, but…” I shrugged. “You’re clearly very good at handling people, as I’ve just seen. And you’re always hanging around, anyway, watching. Well…now you get to take an active role. Maybe if you can get me through a day, then you can get me through a battle.”
He huffed. “You’re reaching.”
“Yeah, I am, but I do think I need help with this, and I really don’t want that help from Mr. Tom or Patty. Aurora is busy, Nessa is gone—and besides…” I put my hands in my pockets. It was a sign of trust—for shifters, anyway. Practice. “You’re my flight commander. My beta. It makes sense for you to give commands for me and organize the day-to-day.”
He nodded slowly. “I did something similar as the lead enforcer for my old cairn, Gimerel, but only as it pertained to the guardians within the cairn. I didn’t manage Nelson’s personal life.”
“Yeah, well, Nelson probablyhada personal life. I am the job. It’ll be fine.” I pulled down the spell and started walking toward Patty. “It’dbetterbe fine, because I cannot have Mr. Tom insulting every person who tries to meet with me. That’ll be a nightmare with the shifters.”
I heard his dark chuckle. Tristan probably wanted to see that.
