Page 28 of Knowing Trust

“It’s all on the fly and amazing. They create dishes right there according to your tastes and even the mood they get from you. And there’s always festivals in Faerie. Street markets and—we’d dance all night. We’d eat and dance outside and it would be magical in a way you’ve never seen. That’s what I want for our first real date. Not a hidden sneaky something.”

I nodded as he talked, but I had to bust him. “Plus, you want sex.”

“Plus, I really want sex.” He chuckled when I wasn’t upset with him. He reached up and tucked some of my hair behind my ear. “If everything was different, this would be a different conversation, baby doll. This is not about you being easy or wanting things to just—it’s not like that anymore. I was stupid. I was a stupid fairy.”

I swallowed loudly as he said that, knowing exactly what he was implying and that I cared for him enough to include him in that like I did the other guys.

Stupid fairy.

I focused back on my food and I knew he saw it, but luckily my stomach covered for it. It wasn’t so much what he’d said but what I’d caught in his mind.

It was good because I completely, totally, and utterly believed Neldor now that he didn’t want to be with me because it was easy or he thought he deserved me because of fate or whatever.

It was also complicated because now I knew one of the main reasons Neldor wanted to be with me was because I never saw his mother when I looked at him. I didn’t see the prince of the dark realm. I didn’t see a Donovan and his past, family, or history.

I just saw him. I only saw Neldor, and he never knew how much he’d needed that in his life—how important that could be to him.

I didn’t know what to think about that. It wasn’t exactly something related to me, Tamsin as a person, but just someone who did that.

But wasn’t that a lot of how relationships worked? Neldor gave me a lot of what I needed or wanted from someone, but he had the combination of everything together that made him him and what I might want.

So wasn’t that what he was thinking as well and I just caught one part of it that could be a bit odd and hurtful?

Telepathy really was a horrible, horrible curse that I would never be able to fully handle.

“Tams?” he whispered a bit later.

Or a lot later. I glanced around and realized I’d eaten everything in front of me and more that he must have set out because there were containers just piled up.

And I was trying to eat air.

I sighed, wiping my hands and sitting back in my chair. “I just need to think. Sorry, there’s just so much that my head feels like it’s going to explode some days.”

“That’s fair. Yeah, I did the same.” He studied my face. “But you’re leaning towards…”

“It all making sense,” I told him honestly. “I just need to… I think I need to get a few things out of my head to get the brain power to really get this settled and handled in my head.” I nodded, thinking that was best. “Yeah, thanks for the talk.”

I mentally winced when he frowned.

Thanks for the talk?

Yeah, I hurried to get out of there. Idiot.

But then I caught a thought that he worried I’d caught his thoughts about me seeing him only as Neldor and he wondered if that was why he loved me instead of loving me as Tams.

So yeah, not the best thing to hear and alleviate my worries. Not at all but again, I worried the same about the others and if they loved me because of fate and the gods or for me.

And vice versa.

I headed out and actually found myself at the baked potato place in Vegas that I’d first tried on my trip there but had gone back to with Luke. I snickered as I sat down with my overloaded tray. It was like the supe version of pouring one out for my homie, but instead of booze it was our bottomless pits.

My security sat around me but left me alone to stare out at the strip and just get lost in my thoughts.

Ara got my attention and shook her phone at me, signaling we had to go.

I nodded with a sigh. Right, the meeting I’d set up. Idiot.

I ordered more to go and we arrived loaded up. I handed a potato to Shael and gave her the nod to handle it.

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