Page 75 of By the Fae

“What’s it like, your new apartment?” I asked.

Holly looked up and assessed me again. Those warm brown eyes trained onto mine, and the night’s temperature rose to uncomfortable levels. I kicked my legs out from under the duvet and let go of her hand.

“First, you don’t mind if I like you. Now you want to get to know me. What’s changed?”

My fingers found a hole in the cushion and dug their way inside. Still a little damp in there.

“Goldie!” The word another reprimand.

“You have a date with Seth on Saturday.” Holly had the decency to look embarrassed, glancing down in her lap, and even in the dim light of the moons I could see her blush. I wanted to kiss those pink spots. “I guess that means our deal will be over in a week, seeing as you won’t need my help anymore, and I’m pretty sure Seth won’t be happy to share you.”

She said nothing. Silent for the longest time. We both cast our eyes out over the city, watching the ferris wheel on the pier go round and round.

Eventually, I broke the silence. “I’m not ready for our deal to be over.” I whispered it. It felt like something I shouldn’t admit to.

Holly pulled her lip into her mouth and continued staring at the waterfront. “Me neither,” she said, after the better part of a minute. “I’ll still help you with your game, though? We still have a week.”

I said nothing.

“You know, when I was sixteen, I went to the Bordalis InterRealm Games Convention and you were there. You signed my poster,To Human, stop stealing my magic, Goldie. I think you broke my heart that day. I cried for weeks.”

I remembered it. I remembered her. This little dungaree wearing goofball.

Why was I the way I was?

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m an awful person.”

“Was,” she whispered, reaching for my hand again. She cleared her throat, and spoke in a normal volume, “So, one week left of our deal, yeah?”

I brushed the hair from Holly’s face. I wanted to say,I want longer.What I actually said was, “Can I kiss you now?”

“We’ve been kissing all evening.”

“And I’m going to kiss you until the sun comes up.”

Chapter 25.

Goldie

“Wakey, wakey.” Holly shook me. “Goldie, look.” Her voice sounded like syrupy tea.

I snapped my eyes open, remembered where I was, realised my shoulder was wet.

“Oh, no, I’m drooling!”

“I know. Isn’t it wonderful?” she said. “I can’t decide which is better, seeing you, a perfect fae, being perfect all over your own t-shirt,”—I laughed, and wiped my face—“or this . . .”

She moved off from me to reveal the view, coming to rest at my armpit, her head dangerously close to the puddle of dribble.

And what a view. Orange everything. Orange sky, orange skyscrapers, orange ocean. Everything glowing, looking, if at all possible, peacefully aflame. The city birds warbled their cacophonous dawn songs from gutters, and ledges, and roof gardens, and every other little hidey-hole. After almost seven hundred years, I should be used to seeing the sunrise, but it still stole the air from my lungs.

We watched in silence. The duvet pulled up around her neck and my chest. The summer morning chill and damp. The kind of weather Mal would say,It’ll burn off in a few hours.And it would. It’d be boiling later, but in that moment, she had snuggled her soft human body into my unyielding one, her cold little fingers tucked into the waistband of my jeans.

“Are you purring?” I asked.

She lifted her head to me and smiled, a sleepy, stoner kind of smile. “I could do this every morning with you.”

My heart flipped over in my chest. If Holly would have been fae, she’d have heard it.

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