Keryth cracked up laughing, and his laughter was contagious, so I plunked down on my bed and let it out.
It felt good to laugh.
This latest mission had been a tense one, so laughing with my fae bestie was very much needed.
When we both calmed a little, Keryth sighed, saying,“Seriously, Oak, you look beautiful.”
That made me smile as warmth gathered in my chest. For too much of my life, I’d been told I was never good enough, that wearing makeup was wrong, that there was no such thing asnonbinary, that everything I felt, everything I was was wrong.Iwas wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
My mother and her people had abused me my entire life, and I hadn’t even realized it was as bad as it was until my father was able to get me away from them.
Keryth knew a little about my past, although I’d never told anyone everything that’d been done to me, so he always seemed to reinforce his compliments to me. Like he wanted to make sure I’d heard him, that I believed him. At first, I’d thought he was only being nice, but as I’d gotten to know him better, I realized he actually meant the things he said.
So I believed him now, and it made me all warm inside.
I smiled down at my phone. “Thank you.”
“No prob.”
A knock on the door interrupted us. “You ready to go, Oakley?” Roman’s voice was deep yet soothing, and if I let it, it would give me chills.
But I couldn’t let it because, well, Dad’s best friend.
I cleared my throat and called out, “Yeah, be out in one minute.”
“I’ll wait in the living room.”
“Okay!” To Ker, I said, “I have to go.”
He sighed.“Please be careful.”
“I will. Talk to you later. Bye, babe.”
“Bye. Love ya.”
“Love you too.”
We hung up, I applied one last layer of lip gloss, and packed up my bag. I checked all the spells I had on my phone, made sure they were intact, then double-checked that they were undetectable for anyone else.
With all that good to go, I stuffed my phone and wallet into the pockets of my jeans and headed out the door with my bag in tow.
Roman stood the second I entered the living room, holding his own bag, and my breath hitched.Ho-ly shit.He was the hottest man I’d ever seen in my entire life. His red hair was dark and styled in that sort of messy way that still somehow looked put-together, his blue eyes were shining bright, reminding me of the color of his dragon, which was the most beautiful color of the rainbow, and he was wearing shit-kicker boots, black jeans, a tight black t-shirt that left nothing to the imagination, and a leather jacket. He honestly looked badass, like a biker dude or something, and hot as all fuck.
My tongue was practically salivating at the sight of him.
He was just so damn lickable.
Like, who in the world was this lickable? Honestly? It should be illegal.
But because I needed to remind myself that I could not, in fact, just walk over there and lick him, my mouth opened up with, “That’s what you’re wearing?”
He crossed his muscly arms—mm, yum—over his broad chest and lifted a brow at me. “Yes. It’s fine.”
“You look like you’re about to go biking across the country, not go to a nightclub.”
“I do just fine at nightclubs looking like this, thank you very much.”
The grimace that crossed my face was involuntary. I didnotwant to think about Roman in a nightclubdoing just fine. I did not want to think about him with other people. No way. No how. Ugh.
