“Well.” Emmy pressed her lips together, trying not to smile. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but…”
The poor, gorgeous, sweet, funny not-a-robot man blushed for the second time in under a minute. “That bad?”
“You don’t smell,” Emmy assured him. “But you look a little…street-urchiny, maybe.”
“I’m too old to be an urchin. I could be Long John Silver, though.”
Emmy clutched her heart in delight. Her rabbit squeaked in alarm, and said heart tripled in rate, but Emmy beamed at Hiking. “RandomTreasure Islandreferences in the wild! You get a ten percent discount for that.”
The relief and joy of being understood slid across Hiking’s face in a huge smile, although it immediately dissolved into alarm. “I’m not horrible, though. Fagin’s aterriblecharacter. I wouldn’t want anybody to think I was actually like him at all.”
“It’s all right,” Emmy promised as her rabbit realized there was nothing actually wrong, and began to calm down, “You can be Marius. Slumming it with the revolutionaries, but cleans up well.”
“You have to be Cosette, then. I couldn’t bear it if you were Éponine. No tragic love stories here, okay?”
Emilia said, “You really are perfect,” right out loud.
Ooooooh NOOOOOOOO.Her rabbit tucked its face into its paws with embarrassment and hid. Emmy felt like doing the exact same thing. ‘You really are perfect’ was not the kind of thing people said to total strangers. She started an apology, but Hiking was smiling at her.Sucha smile. A smile that suggested he didn’t mind a random lunatic telling him he was perfect. Emmy, reassured, said, “Let’s get you checkedin,” with a pause before the last word to make sure she got it right, and, having gotten it right, went on to say, “and then we’ll get you showered,” which was not right at all. “You,” she said faintly. “You will shower you. I will…not.”
Her rabbit shuddered.Baths are nasty.
Yes, I know, but no one is makingyoushower,Emmy promised. Rabbits did not like getting wet. Rain was tolerable, because one had to tolerate rain, but baths were right out. Emmy hadn’t had one in years. She could just about convince her rabbit that a shower was like rain, but submerging in a nice hot bath made her rabbit worry, andLord, but rabbits could worry. It was exhausting when it was happening inside her own head.
Hiking looked like he'd gotten caught up on the idea of her showering, or possibly her showering with him. After a moment he cleared his throat and nodded. "Yes. Okay. Good."
Emmy waited a moment, then, carefully, said, "Your name?" as a reminder.
"Karl! Karl Sutton. I'm sorry. I can't believe I forgot to tell you that."
"Well, we had important literary references to get out of the way first." Emmy smiled at him encouragingly. Karl. Karl was a nice name. "How long will you be staying, Karl?"
"A…night? I don't know. I wasn't planning to be in Virtue at all. I had an encounter with a rabbit."
Conflicting emotions crashed through Emmy. Disappointment that he was only staying a night sank her stomach, while a giggling thrill rose through it as she accidentally said, "I know," about the rabbit.
"It was trapped in a no-kill ca…you know?" Karl smiled uncertainly.
"Oh! I mean! Um!" There were plenty of shifters with human mates in Virtue. Emmy had never asked any of them how to get past the initial awkwardness of explaining that you could turn into a rabbit.
Although most of them were much cooler animals than rabbits. It might be way easier to admit you could turn into a wolf or a bear than a rabbit. Rabbits ate carrots and ran away from headlights, for heaven's sake. It wasn'tsexy, being a rabbit. And she owed Karl an explanation that he wasn't getting, while she worried about whether being a rabbit was hot or not. She tried, "I knewwww thaaaaaat yooooooou… didn't look like someone who planned to stay in Virtue? All your gear?" and Karl's expression cleared.
"Oh. Right, yeah. It's been a long walk. You don't get a lot of through-hikers here?"
"We don't get a lot of anybody here." Emmy's smile had felt forced and exaggerated, but now it went rueful and truthful. "Virtue's a pretty quiet town." As long as you overlooked the fact that it was full of shifters.
"You're here," Karl said in a low, warm voice. "I don't see how anything else could matter."
Heat rushed through Emilia and her heart began beating—well, rabbit-fast. Maybe explaining she was a rabbit shifter wouldn't be so hard after all. "Well, that's very nice of you. Thank you."
She thought his answering smile might qualify as 'dippy.' It sure looked like a smile that meant what he'd said. "I better pay for my room, huh?" He took out a credit card from one of several thousand pockets in his hiking pants, and his fingertips brushed hers as he slid it across the counter.
Emmy shivered, and her rabbit positivelyquivered. Karl's hands were soft, and both she and her rabbit immediately leaped to thoughts of those soft hands stroking her. The rabbit imagined flopping on its belly while he petted it from ears to tail.
Emmy supposed that technically, she was imagining something similar, just considerably more R-rated. It took all of her concentration to pre-authorize the card rather than linger on exceptionally delicious thoughts of being, um, stroked. "There. All set for tonight." She offered the card back, trying not to let her hands shake, and smiled up at Karl. He was so lovely andtall. Andfit. He looked like he could do those super-impossible weight lift jumps that the guy on thatArrowtv show did. Salmon runs, she thought they were called.
Karl could run her salmon any time.
Her rabbit stared at her. Emmy blushed from the weight of its combined bewilderment and injury. It was not, it informed her, afish. Karl might be her fated mate, but he could not run hersalmon.
