Page 63 of Faun Over Me

“Okay, so now I’m super lost. Why?”

“For your family.” Cricket stiffened beside her, ears twitching. “We can’t clear the land, something about a sound barrier with Green Bank so close, but mom has some ideas about shelters and running water and power to—”

“What?” Cricket’s ears jolted upright, and she twisted to face Avery, looking so stunned she couldn’t help but laugh.“Wait, hold up, what?”

“My mom’s family owns a construction company in Pittsburgh,” she explained. “They’re looking for a ‘philanthropic endeavor”—she lifted her index finger from the mug, crooking it at the words—“and when she learned what my dad was doing … and then I told her about your family.”

“Aves,” Cricket breathed her name. Goosebumps rose along her arms, and she watched the faun out of the corner of her eye.

“As long as Mac runs the camp, as long as this camp exists, the land can’t be sold or developed. No one can force them out, and they can integrate as far as they’re comfortable. My mom called my grandmother before she left, and she’s going to work on the board, but they’ve never been able to say no to her.” She grinned, her cheeks aching and eyes raw from the tears of shock and joy she had already shed. “And Mac is going to need help, renovating an entire camp, overseeing new construction, it’s a big job. She’ll need her assistant director around to…”

Cricket blinked, and in the low light, Avery realized the soft down beneath her eyes was damp. “You’re not leaving?”

“I’m not leaving,” she confirmed. “At least, not until Carnegie at the end of next summer. I hope.”

Cricket rubbed the heel of her palm under one eye, the other, then turned the full brunt of her wide, watery gaze on Avery. “I really want to kiss you right now.”

“So why don’t you?”

Cricket wasted no time, closing the slight distance between them. Her lips pressed against Avery’s as her arms banded around her shoulders. A light, chaste press of her lips that Avery chased, angling as best she could on the stairs to fit her body against Cricket’s. She flicked her tongue along the seam of her lips, and the faun opened to her immediately.

She swept her tongue in Avery’s mouth, kissing her in a slow, drugging way Avery was coming to love, luxuriating in the kiss as if they had all the time in the world.

And with the sound of laughter from the campfires and the stars twinkling overhead, Avery realized—they did.

Epilogue

“Are you ready?”

Cricket looked at Avery, her blue eyes bright and hopeful. Her stomach twisted with nerves, and she grabbed Avery’s hand. “No.”

“Come on, it can’t be that bad.”

Cricket huffed, ears flicking. “You’ve never met my father.”

“No,” she conceded and squeezed back. “But compared to mine, how bad can a Deer Daddy be?”

“Oh, my Gods, I will pay you to never refer to my father as ‘Deer Daddy’ ever again.”

Avery giggled, and the joyful, bubbly sound settled Cricket’s nerves.

It had been a surprise, that giggle. So different from the self-deprecating huffs and tiny smiles Avery had shared with her at the start of the summer.

As the weeks passed, and the phone calls from policemen and federal agencies tapered off, that giggle had grown from a tiny snort to a burble of glee. And then her mother’s lawyers had called, reporting that Meander’s had responded to their subpoena, and that Avery’s signature on the receipt matched the forged signature on that last batch of sales.

Cricket had no head for the intricacies of human law, but the phrases “conclusive evidence” and “irrefutable innocence” were thrown around, and Avery had burst out laughing. The same joyful, bubbling giggle she let out now.

Cricket held her breath and faced her parent’s dwelling, exhaling as she raised her hand to knock on the birch door. It flew open immediately, and her mother, Thistle, rushed out.

“My baby!” She enveloped them both in a tight hug. “My sweet doe.”

Cricket and Avery were half drug, half escorted into the dwelling where her father, Bosk, loomed in the center of the room. The ceiling was highest here, able to accommodate the spread of his antlers without the points scraping the thatch. Parcels and filled baskets lined the walls, and what little had accounted for decoration had been removed and wrapped in linen, ready to be moved.

“Cricket.” Bosk nodded, his deep basso rumbling through the room.

“Hey, Dad.” Arm tight at her side, she waved her fingers in his direction, feeling every inch the doe her mother had called her, and not a grown faun. “I, um, this is Avery.”

It was a cheap trick, she knew it, but it didn’t stop her from pushing Avery in front of her. By Avery’s own admission, her dad was way worse than Cricket’s. And she was a big girl. She could handle herself.

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