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“Have you seen his back’ne?” Mesmer wiggled his fingers.
Back acne?
“Ooooo.” Jess circled around Lex and aided Mesmer in going after my shirt until I found myself pinned to the ground, shirt pushed up and looped over my head, trapping me.
“Get— Stop!” I struggled until Lex’s stifled laughter quieted them.
“Awww, no blackheads…” Jess prodded at my back as Mesmer gave a hopeful squeeze to my shoulder in an eerily familiar way. “But, man, Lex claws you like a cat!”
“Wait? What?” I struggled to fight my head free and peeped out, trying to look over my shoulder.
“I saw you had some breakouts, so I swapped my body wash with one of those salicylic acid ones…” Lex cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to say anything, and you were already using my body wash… And I was afraid I’d scratch one and it’d get infected or awkward…”
“Ugh, I’m going to say it— This is one of the reasons I’m falling in love with you, Lex.” I sighed as the two relentless pickers slid off of me and I sat up.
“For swapping out the body wash?” He raised a brow.
“For not picking at me.” I stared at him, my cheeks flushed with heat as he gave me a crooked smile.
“Precisely why I swapped out the body wash—so I wouldn’t.” He sighed, regret clear on his face.
“But let’s talk more about those scratches—you’re an animal!” Jess made a little squealing noise as I pushed her a step away from me.
“Pervert.” Lex and I said the word in unison and dammit, I was falling in love faster than I could ever imagine.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lex
Walking in on my mate being accosted in a precarious situation by a former lover had been a momentary shock, but the reluctance on his face and the reticence had been apparent. My anger? Not a drop of it aimed toward Zeke.
The creepy clone of Edna meets the berries and cream boy… Yeah. I wanted to hate him but we had a weird vibe.
And it was true, I’d noticed a mild breakout on his shoulders, thinking it mostly a product of unfamiliar detergent on my bedsheets. So, I swapped to something gentler and tossed in the medicated shower gel. But that seemed like such a small thing as compared to the adoring look in his eyes.
Honestly, I just liked clawing his back up while he railed me until I went limp like a rag doll.
I’d never thought things like that before and the sudden realization made me uncomfortable. I wondered if our chemistry was that good, or it was the novel’s changes that had made me that way.
Or even if what we had together possessed any substance.
“Apologies, dear.” Mesmer’s flat voice broke me out of my thought as he smiled that professional-yet-annoyed smile one tended to give when they were doing something they found irritating. “Now, I believe Zeke has answered all my questions, but I want to make sure your side is settled.”
“O-oh. Okay.” I flinched as Mesmer took me by my arm and walked away, leaving Zeke and Jess, my only comfort sources, behind.
We didn’t go back to the circulation desk but rather the drop-off room, where I went daily to get the bins of returned books. He tidied up the surface of a small stack of books and sat while inviting me to do the same. I glanced around and upended a plastic bin and sat on it, crossing my ankles as we sat. He leaned over to play with the switch and sneered up at the unresponsive light with irritation. “Well, in the dark it must be!”
I cleared my throat nervously. “Apologies for this whole thing, s-sir.”
“Honestly, someone’s gotta have kids, and the sheer staggering ratio of rainbow to monochrome in this stupid realm is unheard of. I mean, even if you’re straight, the likelihood of you finding a partner you can settle down with in the community is strikingly small. We can’t tell the mundanes, obviously. Their minds evolved to not comprehend it. It fills in the blank spots with things that make more sense. We’re freaks that come from all walks of life, and I feel like our gifts blossom from the adversity. So, as it stands, we don’t often have children, and the true issue lies in the odd woman becoming pregnant by a character from a book.” He stared me down.
“I—technically it wasn’t? The character I took the place of wasn’t the character that Zeke assumed. He only assumed himself with… the body of that world.” I avoided his gaze and tensed up, only to relax when he chuckled.
“I hold no assumptions that you were impregnated by a character—by any means.” He gave me a stern look that I still avoided, cheeks burning as I thanked the stars themselves that the dim light wouldn’t show my fierce flush.
“Why would that be an issue? Not that I considered it or anything. For informational purposes.” I cleared my throat.
“Same thing we worry about with requisitioners. Bringing back something that could break reality… Creating hybrid children of creatures that shouldn’t exist. Paginations—they say that archivists could be the result of long ago when deus had children with another supernatural and the bloodline only activates under certain circumstances. Research hasn’t really given us more information as to why.” Mesmer leaned over his legs and folded his arms. “So, we’re not truly upset you’ve managed to become pregnant. We ask that you be discreet about it. Financially you’re fine. Zeke is, at least.”
