Page 131 of Bride of Choice

He had to have had help. That crazy Celuk, I guessed, because that was one hell of a treasure hunt. Or… I’m just that stupidly transparent to him at this point.

How he found it in the end, I had no fucking clue and wasn’t going to ask, but that was his stipulation to leaving me alone for another hunt of any kind. Despite my promises I was shit with a gun, I think it became a weird, if unrealistic, kind of reassurance he needed, to know I stood some sort of chance against a future Krampus run in. One too many knife lessons with him, realizing how squeamish and weak wristed I was, no matter how hard I tried, had somehow convinced him this was the way to go.

Whatever. I kept it unloaded with a box of bullets clinking around in there in my purse with it and he got to go run around with the hunting parties repeatedly seeking him out at all hours for every kind of hunt under the sun. Krampus. Food hunts. Critters too close to the village making a nuisance. There was always something.

I’d never had a taste of what it was like to have a worried male following me around like he had the first few weeks. He never followed me directly into Rosa’s when I visited but preferred to hang around outside, parting ways with me before anyone noticed, to rejoin me and escort me back to our place as I started off towards Dorothy’s to meet back up with him. It wasn’t the silliness of Rek, he wasn’t trying to wear me down, but something had to give. The poor guy wasn’t doing much else. Following me around could not be all the fool ever did. Ever. The Krampus incident had made him feel guilty about leaving me alone, and dare I even say it, fearful?

He’d needed time to work through his demons on that whole sitch and I was accommodating, guiltily giddy as I basked in his care. Maybe Kooky-wooky didn’t love me love me, but he definitely loved me. It soothed my ravaged being in ways I couldn’t begin to explain. With all my eccentricities, my faults, flaws, don’t give a shits, give shit too much, he loved me.

If holding onto McClintock got me back to my hut while he was out of town playing wild hunt guy and knowing this made him feel like I was safer, praised be the silly fool and his false sense of security in that shit.

A small smile tipped my lips thinking about him and this other half of him he shared with me I wasn’t sure anyone else got to really see. If only there was more to it.

That smile dipped into a frown. Fuck me, I’d take what I could get. Maybe he was one of those peeps that didn’t feel romantically inclined towards anyone and I was girding my loins to bark up an uninterested tree.

Maybe he just didn’t like me like that and I was delulu in the usional to the umpteenth degree.

Stopping just outside my hut, I couldn’t pinpoint why exactly I was hesitating like I needed to be invited in. I guess I hadn’t really thought of this place as mine, for real, for so long now it was odd.

Shoving past any odd misgivings, I opened my door and walked inside like I owned the place. Except… What the hell was this?

New floors, some sort of brick with a square pattern with alternating bricks, like Tetris gone mad. The walls, they were now a pretty, sandy, plastered white but… was this room larger? Was I imagining that it was smaller before? The bed looked bigger, fuller. I wasn’t imaging that.

Setting my things down, I got started on a fire in the hearth, and I even had to stop myself there. It looked scrubbed clean, no black marks or soot smudges. The place looked spic and span, like new.

A small blue and white swirling vase with fresh pink flowers in it had me walking towards it to pick it up and give it a sniff.

Bum-bum. Had he done all this?

Popping back outside, I spied my flowers looking well-watered and hearty. Someone’s been watering them.

In search of answers, I’d set out, going on a few hours ago now, thinking to find Bum and Gopher to ask what the heck was going on with my hut, but, man, was that its own whole-assed side quest. Dismayed to learn they were both MIA, I was prepared to head to maybe pop in to Rosa’s for a chat, when a commotion on the far side of the village drew my attention. Nosy bitch that I can tend to be when the mood is right, I had myself a little peekaroo.

It was that whole other dimensional bridal hunt thing going on right now, if I had to guess. I must have missed the memo. This gave me a brief moment of pause, wondering if Kooky had said he was Krampus hunting but really he was just sparing my feelings as he went in search of his own bride to hunt.

No. No. Not my Kooky. He’s never lied to me. He wouldn’t. He’d never. We were cool like that. We told each other everything. It was one of the things I loved about him— he didn’t BS me.

The whole bride kidnapping thing left an awful taste in my mouth but I bit my tongue.

One day some bridey poo was gonna learn their groomy poo and learn them good.

Color me surprised when I spied Booger with a woman trussed up like an offering to a god, giving him what for.

My heart about stopped when my gaze caught on my own personal pain in the ass right there along with him. “Just what the hello Dolly is goin’ on around here?” I demanded to know, stomping forward, sass on high. My bitch-o-meter was starting to shoot up as my temper rose.

Rek’s gaze met mine and I’d swear, despite the fact he looked to be muttering under his breath, there was a hint of panic, maybe fear in those swirling chips of peridot.

Damned right there better be! What the fuck?!

That pain in the ass was MINE!

“Jo-jo-knee.” Rek tried to say it under his breath but it came out a snarl.

You done got caught, bitch, what now? Like his body was put on alert, the hair on his neck stood on end. He looked like a static clung shaggy sock come to life.

Their “guest” wasn’t keen on the way they were tied up.

As if I didn’t damn well know, my hands slapped to my hips and I demanded to know, “And just where have you two overstuffed marmots snuck off to?”

---