The alternative being the Alpha across the street who had said the word mine out loud in front of witnesses and then looked me dead in the eye and denied it three times in a row.
I put on my cardigan, pulled my hair into a braid, and opened the front door to get some air.
There sitting on my porch railing, was a steaming cup of fresh coffee. And I knew that it was made exactly the way I liked it because I could smell the vanilla wafting out of the cup and into the atmosphere the second I picked it up. Slowly, I dared to look across the street.
Azrael was watering the small cluster of flowers near my mailbox with the calm efficiency of someone who had decided this was simply part of his morning now and saw no need to discuss it.
"You know," I called out, "normal people knock."
He didn't look up. "I wasn't delivering coffee."
"Then why is there coffee on my porch?"
"Because you complained yesterday that you were out of creamer."
I picked up the cup and held it with both hands and looked at him across the quiet morning street. "This is getting dangerously thoughtful."
He set down the watering can and finally looked at me. "I'm trying to be less terrifying."
I laughed before I could stop myself. "You're not doing a very good job."
Something moved at the corner of his mouth that might, under generous interpretation, have been a smile. He picked the watering can back up and went back to my flowers, while I stood on my porch in my cardigan with my coffee. I didn’t want to blame the good mood I was in on Azrael but it was something about watching him work in my yard…
I took another sip of my coffee and immediately made a face. The vanilla suddenly smelled...wrong.
I rolled around in my mouth, feeling to sweet and maybe to rich.
My stomach seemed to thrash around in the most unpleasant manner leaving me feeling queasy.
I stared at cup in my hands, suddenly so put off. “Hmmm…”
Across the street, Azrael looked up and called out to me, “You alright?"
"I think so." I frowned down at the cup. "For some reason, coffee suddenly sounds awful."
He tilted his head. "You alright?”
Grinning, I replied. “I know. It's deeply concerning."
I set the mug on the porch railing instead of taking another sip.
"Maybe I'm coming down with something."
His gaze lingered on me for a second longer than usual before he nodded once and went back to watering the flowers.
I shrugged it off because it was probably nothing.
Debbie had texted at eight fifteen to say the farmer's market started at nine and she would meet me there by eight fifty. So after I finished my coffee, I went back into the house, pulled my hair into a braid and brushed the coffee out of my mouth.
The Farmer’s Market was just a few blocks away and I decided to walk and pull my cart along. What I had not anticipated was Azrael falling into step beside me as I reached the end of the block. He offered up no explanation and it felt like the most natural thing I the world for the two of use to be walking together.
The market stretched along two blocks of Main Street, vendors set up under white canopies selling produce and honey and baked goods and candles and things made from wool, and the whole thing smelled like autumn and fried dough and something herbal I couldn't identify. It was exactly the kind of thing I had imagined when I pictured small town life, warm and unhurried and full of people who actually knew each other.
What I had not imagined was watching a tall fine as hell Alpha, get his cheek pinched by a woman who could not have been under eighty years old.
"Ruthie," Azrael said, with the patience of someone who had been having this interaction for a very long time.
"You look thin," Ruthie said, and handed him a loaf of bread.
