I laugh. It hurts, so I stop, putting a hand to my chest. “I’m too old for the female. Besides,” I look away, “I had a mate. I had my turn,” I tell him. “Carla and I are friends.” The word sits wrong in my mouth, but I leave it there because it belongs.
Flint is quiet for a moment. “I’ll go and see her after this,” he says.
“Good.” I shift, wincing. “Get her flowers.”
He gives me a look. “Easy. I don’t want to scare her off before it even starts.”
“She doesn’t scare easily.” I know this better than most. “And I happen to know she likes you.” I wait a beat. “She was looking forward to getting that coffee. She mentioned it more than once while we were out there. You were one of the reasons she was in a hurry to get back to Draig. Now all you need to do is show up and ask her out already.”
Something shifts in Flint’s expression. He nods once, and when he speaks, some of the caution is gone from his voice.
“I was terrified when I saw that animal carry her away,” he says. “I was too injured to do anything. Fuck! I hated feeling so damned helpless. I’m glad you went after her. I’m glad it was you and that you made it…that both of you made it.” His voice turns deep with emotion, and his throat works.
I feel his words deep.
Flint gets to his feet. He straightens and gives me a nod. “Get better soon. I’ll take care of things until you are back.”
“I know you will, but don’t get too comfortable because I won’t need more than a day…two at the most, and then I’m coming back.”
“I’m counting on it.” Then he goes.
I picture him buying those flowers and sitting next to Carla’s bed. He might hold her hand when he asks her out. Seeing him holding her close on the back of that dragon nearly had me shifting. I was in no state, but I almost did it anyway.
My dragon wanted me to rip his throat out, and Flint is my friend, dammit.
I grind my teeth together, trying to calm the fuck down.
I’m so damned jealous that it is almost laughable, and I have no right to feel this way. Carla is not mine. She never was. She never will be.
I need to move on.
It’s as simple as that.
27
Carla
The knock is light.
“Come in,” I call.
The door opens, and Flint fills the frame, broad-shouldered and slightly hesitant. He has a bunch of sunflowers in one hand, wrapped in brown paper, and a look on his face that is somewhere between hopeful and unsure.
“Oh, hi! This is a surprise. Come in,” I tell him.
He holds them out when he reaches me. “Probably not very original bringing flowers to a hospital room, but I brought them anyway,” he says.
“They’re beautiful.” I mean it. I take them, putting them on the table next to me. “I’m leaving soon, so I’ll leave them just like that and put them in some water when I get home. Thank you for thinking of me.”
“I have a confession to make,” he says, and the corner of his mouth pulls up a little. “I had advice on the flowers.”
“Did you?”
“Magma told me to bring them.”
I keep my face easy. I take a breath in through my nose, slow and small.
“Oh…um…” I frown. “That was kind of him,” I say. “So are they from him or from you?” My heart beats a little faster.
