A hard lump rose in my throat.
Fuck.
“Morrie, I—”
Morrie stood up. “You should go, Mina. Thank you for this stuff. Sherlock and I will get to work. Keep me posted.”
Tears pooled in my eyes.We can’t leave it like this.I reached for him, but he sidestepped for me and moved to stand beside Sherlock, who shot me a gloating look.
“Don’t ruin your life for me, gorgeous,” Morrie whispered.
“I’m not giving up on you,” I shot back.
Morrie turned away, burying his face in darkness. “Tell the birdie I love him.”
Sherlock patted his shoulder, cooing something comforting in his ear, the wanker.
“He already knows.” I sucked in a breath. The pain of seeing Morrie like this and knowing I had to leave him here with Sherlock in this state burned at me – a deep, physical tremor in my bones. I tore my gaze from them both and yanked the door open.
The frigid air bit my skin as soon as I stepped outside. A dark shape fluttered down from the tree and rested on my shoulder. “Croak?”
“I’ll be fine,” I muttered, picking up the pile of Quoth’s clothing from the stoop and holding it out to him as he fluttered down to the porch and transformed back into his human form. He leaned in to wipe the tear from my eye, but I ducked under him.
“You’re not getting near me, cockroach breath.”
We picked our way back through the darkness in silence. My head spun with thoughts I tried to shove back. Twice, Quoth stopped me to flutter off into the undergrowth and procure himself a snack. Just when I thought we must’ve been about to walk off the edge of the world we’d been hiking so long, Quoth stopped.
“There’s Sam.” Quoth tipped his head to the side. “And is that… Heathcliff?”
Sure enough, the two men clung to each other in the middle of the clearing, naked and singing off-key. Oscar bounced between them, yipping along with their song.
I groaned. “We need to get them to bed. You get Teacher’s Pet, I’ll try to wrangle Sam.”
As I grabbed Sam under the shoulders, he threw his arms around my neck. “Oh, Mother, Mother, I love you so much. I’m sorry I yelled at you because you didn’t invest in my hemp business.”
“It’s…” I remembered from wrangling a drunk Heathcliff that sometimes it was best to play along. “That’s fine, dear. I’ll make you a mug of hot cocoa and put you right to bed—”
“No, not cocoa! The chocolate plantations are destroying the rainforests…” Sam lunged for the pot on the fire, toppling over and bringing me down with him. His head bounced on a log, and he went still.
“Sam?”Shite.I shook his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Sam blinked. I breathed a sigh of relief. He sat up, his eyes swimming as he rubbed his head. “M-M-Mina? What’s going on?”
I opted for a blatant lie. “You nodded off before we started building our shelters. You look a bit sick. Perhaps it was something you ate…”
“No time for building shelters now. There’s an emergency tent in my rucksack. You just have to… pull the cord and it’ll… pop right up.” Sam winced as he touched the side of his head. “I had the wildest dreams. A giant bear attacked me and then Allan turned into a bird and fairies enticed me to sing their forest songs—”
“It’s okay, they were just bad dreams.”
“I feel awful. I was supposed to be teaching you about survival, and I’ve gone and fallen asleep.” Sam rubbed his eyes. “We didn’t even check the traps or—”
“Don’t worry, I’ve learned so much already this weekend,” I grinned. “For example, I now know that I should only get lost in the wilderness if Heathcliff is with me.”
Speaking of Heathcliff… I turned toward the fire, only to see my boyfriend staggering around the clearing, his hands over his head as he pirouetted like a ballerina. A wreath of wildflowers circled his head, and someone – probably Sam – had woven more flowers into his beard. “Dah-dah-dah-duuuum,” he cried as he attempted a graceful ballet jump and crashed into a tree. “Pardon me, madame,” he stepped back and took a deep bow, before twirling off for another ecstatic dance.
Quoth stood at the edge of the clearing, his phone held up to his face as he filmed Heathcliff’s mirth.
“What are you doing?”
