The front window gave me a view of Main Street, where Ashvale continued to exist with the cheerful obliviousness of a town that had no idea it sat thirty miles from a compound full of twisted evil.
The diner was open. The hardware store had a new display. Mrs. Tenley was walking her ancient beagle past the post office at the same glacial pace she’d maintained for the entire duration of my residence here.
Normal. Aggressively, persistently normal.
A woman I recognized from the grocery store passed the window, glanced in, saw me, and did the double-take that had become standard since I’d stopped hiding. No brown dye. No contact lens. Copper hair and mismatched eyes on full display because I’d spent enough of my life making myself invisible and I was done.
She waved. I waved back. She hurried on with the particular speed of someone who had information to deliver to the next available ear.
The town’s gossip network had been operating at peak capacity since the three most popular firefighters in Ashvale’s history had resigned simultaneously. Broke the town’s heart, apparently.
Percy told me that two separate women had cried at the station when they turned in their gear. Solomon said the fire chief had stared at them for eleven seconds without blinking and begged Lucian not to leave as he was their greatest captain.
Of course, it went in his arrogant head after.
Now the gossip had a new engine: the visibly pregnant bookshop owner who’d been living with all three of them and showed no signs of clarifying the situation.
I’d heard the betting pool existed before I’d confirmed it. The diner had a running wager on which firefighter was the father. Percy was the favorite at three-to-one, because the town had decided his golden retriever energy was “the most likely to result in an accident.”
Lucian was the dark horse at eight-to-one. Solomon wasn’t even on the board because, as one regular apparently put it, “that man is too scary.”
If they only knew.
The answer was all three, the mechanism was a supernatural heat cycle that resulted in triplets. But Ashvale wasn’t ready for that conversation and neither was I, so the betting pool continued.
Percy had placed twenty dollars on himself. Walked into the diner, slapped the bill on the counter, and said“me”. The waitress hadn’t known what to do with that.
Solomon had placed his bet on Lucian. When I’d asked why, he’d said, “Statistical misdirection,” which was Solomon for “I think it’s funny.”
Lucian had refused to participate on principle. Then, two days later, I’d found a receipt in his jacket pocket. Fifty dollars. On me.
When I’d confronted him, he’d said, “If anyone in this arrangement is responsible for the outcome, it’s the woman who told three alphas to take their clothes off.”
He wasn’t wrong, but I’d thrown the receipt at his head anyway.
After the month I’d had, I deserved entertainment that didn’t involve guns.
The bell chimed again. Percy walked in carrying a paper bag that smelled of grease and sugar.
“Pancakes,” he announced. “From the diner. Because every batch I’ve made this week has been a personal failure and I’ve accepted my limitations.”
“I wanted the burnt ones.”
Percy blinked. “You wanted the burnt ones?”
“The crispy black edges do this thing where they crunch and then the middle is still soft and it’s the only thing I’ve been thinking about since I woke up.”
“That’s a pregnancy craving. Your body is using my failures as a food source.”
“Make me burnt pancakes, Percy.”
“I can’t burn them on purpose. The burning is an accident. That’s the whole problem.”
“Then have another accident. Tonight. Three batches. Extra burnt.”
He stared at me for a long moment, caught between offense and delight, then set the diner bag on the counter and leaned against the shelf beside me. The shelf I’d been reaching for, specifically, which put his arm directly above my head and his chest directly in my sightline and his cologne directly in my lungs.
The pregnancy had done a number on my hormones.
