A laugh ran through him. Live with his parents, he guessed, until things progressed far enough with Stacy that they might talk about moving in together. Which was a big step for a relationship that hadn’t quite made it to the second date yet. Especially a relationship that had a stag-shaped secret yet to be shared.
But not yet,his stag whispered tragically.Not until I’m beautiful again.
Buddy, I’m sure she’ll love you anyway, but we’ll take it as slow as we can,Keith promised the stag again.I know you’re dealing with a lot.
Or without a lot, he guessed, since the whole problem was the missing rack, but mostly, he just wanted to be sympathetic to his animal self. He really was confident that Stacy would accept the stag antlers or not, but it wassosad at the idea of showing off its antler-less self Keith couldn’t bring himself to insist. Maybe the poor vain creature would become more comfortable with the idea in a few more days or weeks.
A sudden rush of orders came through and everybody in front of him cleared out. Kate called, “One more minute!” to him, and barely a minute later, handed over two bags of food. “The coffees are in that one, be careful.”
“Yes’m.” Keith waved a bag as he headed for the door, remembering to duck so he didn’t knock his antlers off. The main porch had a high roof, too, but he didn’t duck far enough under the awning Kate had put up, and the antlers scraping it sent a shudder right down into the bones of his neck. It was like getting branches or ivy tangled in antlers: sometimes he didn’t notice at all, and sometimes it felt like an actual attack.
His stag shrieked,There’s something in my antlers!and tried to throw its head to get thesomethingoff. Keith, vividly remembering what had happened last time he tossed his head, tensed his neck and shoulders at the same time his feet hit an icy patch on the sidewalk, and…
…the truth was, he didn’t know exactly what happened then. He knew he learned fast that hitting an icy patch while holding his neck and shoulders rigid was a Bad Plan, and that there was a terrible cracking crash and splinters and a billowing awning, but after that he really didn’t know much of anything until he woke up, sore-headed, on a cold metal table with a bright medical light glaring down at him. He started to sit up and a woman’s voice said, “Nope!” so stridently that Keith immediately gave up any plans to sit up, possibly ever again.
Once he was under orders not to move, he slowly realized they were good orders. He hurt in an awful lot of places, especially around the neck and shoulders and, now that he was thinking about it, the head.Especiallyaround the head. He gathered himself to ask a question like a capable adult, and instead whimpered, “What happened?” in a pained tone.
“You wiped out spectacularly,” the woman reported. He couldn’t really see her beyond the light. “The whole Looney Tunes thing. Feet in the air, landing on your head, bringing the entire awningandhalf of Kate’s porch down with you. You’ll be fine, but you’re lucky your sister was in the square and came to help you. Apparently Noah Brannigan got it on film. You’ll be social-media-famous by tonight.”
“Oh, God, no.” Keith groaned. “Can somebody stop him from posting it?”
“I already did, actually.” His sister put her head between him and the light. For a second he couldn’t see anything, but it was better than the glaring brilliance. Then he could see her more clearly, her cloud of red hair helping block the light and giving her something of a halo he was pretty sure she didn’t deserve. “Noah’s a good kid, and his stepdad’s one of us, so he knows better than to go around posting things that happen in Virtue without making sure it’s okay with everybody. Also he’s like seven and his mom limits his internet access so he can’t just go around uploading things willy-nilly. Keith, are you okay? That was really scary.”
“I’ll be fine if I could just…” Keith didn’t want to finish the sentence because he had no idea who the doctor was, and it wasn’t safe to go around sayingshiftin front of most people. “Oh my God! Stacy! I missed our date!” He tried to sit up again, and this time Kendra pushed him back down.
“You heard the doctor:nope. Stacy, who’s—Stacy? The hairdresser? You had a date with her?”
Keith clutched Kendra’s shoulder, pulling her close to whisper, “She’s my fated mate, Kendra. I knew it as soon as I went into—”
“Oh my God why didn’t you tell any of us! Oh my God! That’s so exciting! That’s amazing! And you stood her up?” Kendra’s eyes opened wide. “Dude, you better call her! She’ll understand but why didn’t you tell us? OMG! I have to tell Mom, she’ll be so exci—”
“This is why I didn’t tell you!”
“Don’t make my patient strain himself,” the doctor said sternly. “He’s probably got a concussion, and I need him to rest a little bit before we get him on his feet to get this dealt with.”
Kendra had the grace to look abashed. “Sorry. But it’s important for him to call his date. Do you know what happened to his phone?”
“This one?” The doctor’s hand came into view with Keith’s completely smashed, wet phone in it. “I don’t know which was worse for it, him landing on it or the puddle he landedin—” That was when Keith noticed he was wet as well as cold and in pain. “—but I don’t think he’s calling anybody with it.”
“You have to go over to her salon,” Keith said wildly. “Go explain, please? Tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can. And that I’m sorry about lunch. And, oh, God—”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Kendra put her hand on his shoulder. “Hey, big bro. It’s okay. I’ll go talk to her. It’s gonna be fine, all right? Rest until the doctor says you can get up and then you can get fixed up.”
“But—”
“Trust me,” Kendra said, and scurried off.
CHAPTER11
Stacy was almost relieved when Keith’s younger sister burst through the salon door.
No, not almost. Shewasrelieved: it was after one, when he was supposed to have come over with lunch around twelve thirty. Maybe it was a little self-centered, but Stacy honestly didn’t think he would have been late for a date with her unless it was an emergency. So part of her was genuinely relieved when Kendra threw the door open and stepped inside looking a little wild-eyed.
The rest of Stacy knotted up with terror, though. She whispered, “Excuse me,” to her client and put the scissors down with suddenly shaking hands, which she dried before crossing the room to Keith’s little sister. “What happened? Is Keith okay?”
A look of sympathy and kindness made Kendra’s face the nicest one Stacy had ever seen. “He’s fine. He broke his phone and wanted me to come tell you as soon as he woke up.”
“Woke up?” Stacy’s voice rose and broke. “Heoverslept?”
