Page 16 of Elves and Espresso

“Why, I most certainly have!” I countered, then stopped as I blushed. I’d been more engaging with him than I had with any man before. Even I hadn’t realized how much I encouraged him until just now, so how would I expect him to realize it?

An eyebrow raised as he grinned at me. “Have you now?”

The moment was lost as I swatted his shoulder and kept walking. “You’ve lost your chance, Aleixo. One you very well may never get back.”

“Is that what you think?” His hand caught my arm just barely before he spun me, my hands flying up to brace them against his chest. He was inches away from me, a smirk on his face I’d never seen before. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?”

“No,” I said curtly, pushing off his chest and putting distance between us. “We will certainly not.”

Chapter Fifteen

Raindrops continued to hit my face as my annoyance increased. We wouldn’t be able to travel if such weather continued, but there was no way I could afford to delay an extra day with Aleixo. Things between us were changing, and if I wanted to remain in denial about such things, I couldn’t remain with him longer than absolutely necessary.

“I think there’s an inn up ahead.”

He was right, of course. “The Cosy Lamb,” he muttered. “Well, that sounds downright jolly.”

“We will not be stopping.”

My feet sloshed through a puddle, and I bit back a groan as water seeped into my boots. How completely and utterly miserable. I hadn’t changed my clothing in four days, my hair no longer trailed like a beautiful stream down my back, and I felt in such disarray that I was certain even my pointy ears were sagging a bit. This was what it felt like to be a sopping wet dog…no offense to sopping wet dogs.

“What do you mean, we will not be stopping?” Aleixo mimicked my voice, and I glared at him.

“I don’t sound anything like that.”

“Perhaps not, but you do sound ridiculous. It’s pouring rain—”

“It’s not pouring rain.” A torrential downpour started just as I spoke, and I heard clicking from under my cloak.

“Even Dewdrop is complaining, and she’s the happiest creature I’ve ever laid eyes on!”

“Hey,” I started. “She could take offense to that!” More clicks sounded and a head popped out with a little smirk. “Okay, okay, fair enough. She might not, but I do.”

“It’s not as though you’re a particularly happy creature.”

Grumbling as more water stuck my hair to the back of my neck, I stomped onward. “Never mind that.”

“So we’ll stop, then?”

“We don’t need to spend the night here. We’ll make a burrow.”

He swung his pack, which was getting heavier from the water with every passing second. “Oh yes, a sopping wet burrow. Just what I’ve always longed for after walking through a river falling from the sky.”

“We will manage.”

His eyes narrowed as he walked closer to me. “Why? Are you scared of spending a night with me?”

Suddenly fuming, I spun around on my heel. “Allow me to make one thing clear, Aleixo.” I jabbed my finger into his chest to punctuate every word that followed. “There will be no spending of the night together, I fear very little, and,” one final jab, “you are not on that list.”

“That’s just what I needed to hear.” Before I could protest, he turned me in the direction of the inn and we were suddenly walking into a foyer with a smiling innkeeper looking between us. I could kill this man, and the innkeeper, for that matter.

Her gray hair sat atop her head in a neat bun, and her blue eyes sparkled with delight. She was a self, which I was certainly not in the mood to deal with today. A riddled self was quite possibly the worst sort to come across when one was in a mood such as I was. They could speak for miles and never grow weary; they could riddle until they were blue in the face. Another strike against Aleixo and his silly inn obsession today. What harm could a little rain do, after all? My squeaking boots on the floor was something I was attempting to ignore as I pondered that.

“Hello, and welcome! My name is Suzette, and I run the Cosy Lamb. Would our darling little traveling lovebirds like a room together?” she began. “We have the honeymoon suite, we have the bridal suite, we have the family suite, which has an adjoining door if you’ve got any children in tow; we have—”

Fearing she’d run out of oxygen if she continued, I cut her off, “The family suite will do.”

“Oh, you do have children! How wonderful!” Before we could correct her, she took a key from the hooks behind her and led us up the stairs. “Now for our meal options as you stay here, we have lamb and potatoes, we have chicken and carrots, we have rice and…”