Page 35 of Shifters in the Night

“You’re a good man-friend type person,” Jon told him. “If only you could find a way to propose to one of greatest women on planet Earth.”

“Shhhh!” Will hissed. “She’ll hear you! Keep it up, and I’ll ask all sorts of questions about Lia and why she says you haven’t seen each other all week.”

“Shhhh!” Jon hissed back.

Bael helped them carry the food into the living room, because frankly, there wasn’t room around the table for so many people. But it was sort of nice, everybody perching on couch arms and mismatched chairs as they pored over Founder’s Day plans. A lot of stuff was decided very quickly about the number of stall spaces available and how many different types of boudin could be legally allowed for sale without violating some sort of public health policy. None of it made much sense to Jon, but Lia was in her element, giving suggestions and explaining why some ideas just weren’t feasible. While she might attribute her success at work to her emotion-reading gifts, he could see that she had a real gift for this sort of detail, for seeing the big picture out of a bunch of tiny pieces he couldn’t track.

For a while, the conversation buzzed around Jon and he was able to bury his face in his stew and relive fond memories of Gran making this dish for them on Sundays. But then he heard Lia’s voice pipe up over the din, “OK, so I’ve heard you make vague references to the town’s ‘origin story’ a few times, but no one will tell me what exactly that is.”

“Well, I’m glad you asked!” Zed exclaimed, positively beaming at her while nearly everybody else in the room groaned.

Bael sighed, “He’s going to tell the story.”

“I happen to like this story,” Sonja objected. “It’s like a fairy tale, but with more nudity.”

“Clearly, you didn’t read the original Grimm versions,” Jillian told her.

“And he’s so happy when he tells it,” Dani said, patting Zed’s arm.

“Thank you, abeille,” he said, smooching her loudly before setting his empty bowl aside and using his best backwoods narrator voice, “Our town’s settlers didn’t intentionally build their town next to the rift. The humans just knew that life was a little strange there, especially after the first magique started slowly filtering into the place early in the 1800s. It wasn’t what you might call a coordinated effort. Up until our Cordelia closed the damn thing, the rift drew us here like a beacon we couldn’t say no to — shifters, fae folk, witches, anything otherworldly. Of course, now we know that it was the lady in the box, calling us here because she was lonely.”

Jon watched as Lia absorbed this story like a child, chin balanced on her hands and eyes wide and bright. And he realized he wasn’t in danger of falling in love with her. He was already in love with her.

He was in so much trouble.

“In the early days, the magique did their best to pretend to be human, because the locals didn’t know for sure that we existed. But those locals were already pretty suspicious of this sudden population boom and there were just too many sightings of strange creatures in the woods. So my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaddy led some of the heads of the magique families to meet with the humans to try to explain what they were. They didn’t believe him, of course. It’s possible that my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaddy was already known as a prankster, even after a short time in town. So great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaddy—”

Will groaned. “The number of ‘greats’ seems to change every time you tell this story.”

Zed finished without commenting on the interruption. “Dropped his drawers and changed into a big brown bear.”

“I’m assuming the response was pretty similar to the Pope Lick Monster thing,” Lia said.

“Yeah, but with more people yelling in French,” Bael noted.

“Finally, everybody calmed down and handed around glasses of homemade moonshine and they talked like grown-ups. Then my granddaddy— ” Zed paused to give Will an eye roll. “Promised them that their new neighbors had no intentions of doing anything evil. The magique just wanted to live a quiet life in a safe place where they were comfortable. The families who agreed, stayed, and those who didn’t agree, left. And over the years, the humans adjusted to having us around, especially when the fairy folk helped the crops grow and the shifters lent their strength anytime a big physical task came up. Soon enough, we all started to marry each other and have children. Everybody tries to cooperate, but we’re people just like anyone else. We try to get past our differences faster than other towns, because it’s more important here. And that’s what we’re trying to celebrate with Founder’s Day, everybody putting their own bullshit aside and getting stuff done together.”

Eva turned to Jon, absolutely beaming at him with a smile that might have made his heart fail if she wasn’t his purely platonic engine-fixing buddy. “I’m so glad I came tonight. Thank you for bringing me.”

Jon nudged her, pleased that his friend felt so welcome.

“Well, let’s get this cleaned up so Sonja and Will don’t get left with the mess,” Jillian said, prompting everybody to stand and troop their dishes into the kitchen. While everybody else re-organized the living room, Jon and Bael worked their way through the mountain of dishes. After sorting the silverware into the drawer, Lia stood near one of the kitchen windows, staring at the moon shining on the water. Zed approached her, cradling Dalinda.

“You all right, bebelle?” he asked quietly. Jon tried not to listen, but if she was bothered by something, he genuinely wanted to know what it was … unless it was him. Maybe he should join everybody else in the living room? Bael seemed to like doing dishes.

“Just looking at all this space and being sort of envious,” Lia told Zed, her voice wistful. “My living situation is feeling sort of … close quarters right now.”

“Are you sure that’s it?” Zed asked, shifting the baby so she was sleeping on his shoulder. “You seem bothered beyond claustrophobia.”

“I thought I was supposed to be the one who read people’s emotions,” she said. “My closest neighbor is my boss’s nephew. And he … notices a lot. I get this weird feeling he’s keeping watch over me for my boss, because my boss is a control freak and I hate putting Jeff in that position.”

Jon’s temper flared white-hot at the idea of Lia being made uncomfortable by her boss. He didn’t give a shit how much of a “control freak” he was – she shouldn’t be made to feel bad because a coworker was spying on her. He gripped the edge of the counter to keep himself from dashing out of the house to rip the doors off both those assholes’ trailers. He took a series of deep breaths to bring his anger under control. The last thing he wanted was for her to see rage pouring off of him and think she caused it.

“Well, that’s not normal,” Zed told her, earning Jon’s gratitude.

Something was very wrong with Lia’s boss. He hadn’t even met the man, but the way he treated Lia, like she was some useful piece of technology for his exclusive use, it was just unnerving. But since Zed had met Victor Bannister – and from what Jon had heard, that had been a disaster – maybe it would mean more to Lia coming from him.

“You want me to talk to him?” Zed asked.

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