She wasn’t in Manhattan anymore. Taxis weren’t just milling about all the time. She wasn’t even sure if therewas a subway system to use. Not that she was a fan of those. But it would be better than being stranded.
“Iris?” Finn’s voice was soft and coaxing.
“What?” she asked. She turned to him—arms crossed, body language closed.
“I have a car down at the corner,” he said, gesturing.
“Oh.”
“We’re going to the same place. Might as well go together. For the environment,” he added with a smile that she could only call self-deprecating.
“Well, it wouldn’t be good optics to say one thing and do something different.”
She hadn’t meant for that to be cutting. But there was a slice of something across Finn’s eyes that made her wish she could suck the words back in.
They climbed into the car and drove in silence back to Manhattan.
He dropped her out front of the building so she wouldn’t have to walk back from the parking garage where Finn kept his car.
She was glad for the distance—both physical and metaphorical.
“Monty!” Iris yelped when she walked into the apartment—trailing sand—to find Checkers at his bubbling water fountain with the pelican walking up behind him, beak open.
“I wasn’t going to eat him.”
“Then why do you keep checking to see if he will fit in your beak?” she asked, scooping up Checkers.
“I was trying to measure him. For science.” Monty fluffed his feathers and lifted his head—giant beak andall—appearing above such a thing as eating house cats, despite the evidence otherwise.
“What kind of science is that?” Iris pressed, placing the cat down on the back of the couch.
Monty ignored that, deciding to change tack. “I see your handsome human found you.”
“Yep,” Iris said, popping the ‘p.’
“He was worried about you, you know,” Monty said. He followed her down the hall and into the bathroom, where she sat down in the tub and used the shower wand to wash the sand off her legs.
Her tail emerged half-heartedly before she started to wash off.
“He has a lot invested in me,” she said, reaching for a towel.
“Oh, my sweet sea child,” Monty said. “No. That was not a politician worried about his campaign. That was a man upset that the woman he cares for was missing.”
“Sure, Monty,” she said, rushing toward the bedroom in a towel.
She heard Finn come home as she slipped into her clothes, half-listening to Monty tell her about the day’s escapades. She had every intention of avoiding her fiancé for the rest of the night.
Until there was a loud crash followed by a curse.
She sighed before making her way out, only to find Finn on his knees beside a large box, his shoulders hunched, his breath coming in fast, shallow bursts.
“Finn?” she called, concern slipping into her voice. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Finn panted out between ragged breaths.
“What happened?”
“Was putting that box down,” he said. “Threw out my back.”
