Page 2 of Frostbite, Lovebite

This made no sense. Connell had never had a problem with his pixies before, why wouldn't he come talk to him first?

Folding the note up, he shoved it into his back pocket, unlocked the door, and hastily went about storing his flowers in the fridge, checking on the pixies and giving them some extra food because he probably wouldn't be home their normalfeeding time, before hastening back to the car. Whatever was going on, the office was closed for the day so there was nothing he could do until morning. He would enjoy his night with Ronan, then go and see Connell first thing tomorrow morning. Probably he'd just put it on the wrong door or something stupid like that. It was all that made sense.

Forcing his anxiety and worry away, determined not to bother Ronan or drag down their evening with whatever the hell this mess was, he mustered a smile as he slid back into the car. "Miss me?"

"Always," Ronan replied easily and leaned over the center console to give a much more thorough kiss than the previous, nipping and licking and tasting, leaving Match shivery and achy in all the best ways. Nobody kissed like Ronan, and after three months he was more certain than ever that he never wanted to kiss anyone else ever. "Coffee and then my place?"

"Sounds perfect."

Smiling, Ronan drove off, humming idly in a way he never had before in all the years they'd known each other, except apparently he had always done it just not often around other people because growing up he'd been made fun of for it.

When they reached the coffee shop, Ronan parked and said, "You want anything to eat?"

"Nah, I'm good."

"Be right back then."

Once he was gone, Match pulled out the eviction notice, grimacing at the construction worker orange of the paper. Why was that even necessary? What the hell?

What the fuck was he going to do? Despite three months of effort, the city council had not budged on increasing his pay. Mostly they'd just been playing a long, tedious game of we need paperwork, we need more paperwork, oops we lost it allresubmit, we'll discuss it at the next meeting, we didn't get a chance, next time, so on and so forth.

Benny had said the matter was going to get decided soon, whether the assholes liked it or not, because he was done behaving, but what was he going to do? Threaten to quit if they didn't give Match more money? No way was Match letting anyone do something like that, not when Benny and Traci had three kids to raise and were so closely tied to this town and so many other reasons. It wasn't worth it.

On the other hand, he'd never get a new place to live on what he made. Thirty-eight thousand was certainly better than most made, but not in this expensive ass town where he'd never get anything for less than fourteen hundred a month, not unless he went for a studio that wouldn't have anywhere near enough room for all his tools and ingredients, nevermind his pixies. Maybe it was time to just give up on that, sell the pixies to someone who actually had the money and space to care for them, even if the idea of losing them made him want to cry.

There was also his bike and all the costs that went with that, though he could sell the bike if he had to and just walk everywhere or ask the others for rides in a pinch. Of course then he'd have to explain why he sold his bike, but that was a problem for later, because he'd avoid selling it for as long as possible.

The coffee shop door rang, Ronan striding through it, so he shoved the paper into his bookbag and forced the misery away once more. Tomorrow, he could figure all of this out tomorrow. "Smells like it's perfect."

Ronan laughed. "How do you tell so quickly? But she knew it was for you, pretty boy, so she made those espressos with love and care."

"Oh, please. Probably tried to give you her number."

"Nah, all you, no matter how hard you try to brush it off. I keep telling you, this whole town talks about you. You just don'tnotice 'cause you live in your head so much, or in the woods picking flowers."

"Yeah, yeah." Loved him so much they paid the bare minimum and were fighting desperately to keep it that way. He knew how town gossip worked; Benny's ugly fight with the council and the reason for it would be all over town by now, but he hadn't heard a single peep of support from anyone, not even when he made his usual rounds to re-up wards and other protections. The town fawned over the others, but no matter how surface-level friendly they were, people rarely ever fully trusted a witch.

When they reached Ronan's house, the shiny dark green SUV his uncles always drove despite having like three cars to choose from wasn't there. "That's weird," Ronan said. "I was just talking to them while you were in your apartment. They said they'd be here. Uncle Rick wanted to show you some latest bit of wank on a gardening Facebook group he follows now. Can't tell you how delighted Uncle Phil is you got him back into growing their own herbs, let me tell you."

Match laughed. "I didn't do it on purpose. It's not like they didn't know I'm a hedge witch and herbs are like my whole thing. You have to admit fresh herbs grown yourself always taste better than all the generic, mass produced stuff sold in stores."

"You're such a fucking hippy." Ronan climbed out of the car then circled it to open Match's door for him because he was an adorable dork. "Come on, I wanna see why they aren't home and didn't text to tell me the change of plans. Hopefully everything is okay."

Inside, everything was brightly lit and nothing was amiss. There was a glass of wine at the dining room table, and a cocktail at the kitchen bar, so it looked like Phil had been chilling at the table talking while Rick worked in the kitchen. Ingredients for some sort of pasta had been set out, so they'd planned on eatingbefore heading out for their party. But they hadn't left with any obvious urgency. "Well nobody was hurt that I can see."

"Oh, there's a note on the fridge," Ronan said, moving the cartoon onion magnet holding it in place. "Ah, there was a caterer crisis for the party they're attending tonight, they went to help Marge put out fires and secure new food. They could have just texted or called." He rolled his eyes, ditched the note, and turned his attention to the ingredients on the counter. "Why was he going to make dinner when they were going out in a few hours anyway? Weirdos."

"They like feedingyou, dumbass."

Ronan scoffed, but was smiling as he put everything away. "You want the abandoned wine or the abandoned cocktail?"

"Cocktail." It looked like the cranberry spritzer thing they'd drunk a lot of over Christmas and New Year's, and the sprig of fresh rosemary must have come from the little pots of herbs kept over the kitchen sink now. Normally they didn't grow so well in the midst of winter, obviously, but Match had helped them along just because Rick seemed so happy to have a little garden growing successfully after trying off and on over the years and always failing miserably.

His poor iced coffee he stashed in the fridge for later, before following Ronan out to the sunroom. There was a little woodstove there that Ronan immediately set to work on. Match left him to it, sprawling out on a bed-swing type thing that he'd loved right from the start, admiring the snowy backyard that, come spring, he'd promised to help Rick turn into a real, full-fledged garden.

Once the fire was going, Ronan stretched out on the bed. "So Valentine's Day is in like two weeks. Are we doing something fancy?"

"No, because everything will go terribly wrong somehow, I can feel it. We'll plan a romantic dinner and wind up fighting the abominable snowman or something."

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