Page 89 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

Most nights, he slept so soundly that even his dreams were quiet, but sometimes, like tonight, he tinkered with the layers of his inner core, pretending to recover. He deluded himself into thinking I couldn’t tell. Even if my telepathy hadn’t grown a hundred-fold, I’d know.

“You know, if I wanted, I could drag you out of your inner core and make you go back to sleep,” I whispered as Milo lightly snored, playing innocent. Okay, not playing because his body was actually asleep while a piece of his conscious mind made mental repairs. “Let me fix this at the very least.”

I tugged the blanket out from the vise grip Milo’s thighs had and then delicately wrapped him back up in the covers.

Milo moaned, turning onto his side and cuddling with the closest pillow.

“That poor little pillow never stood a chance.” I shook my head at the death squeeze Milo used to crush the stuffed plush in his arms. The dislocation in his shoulder still ached, but not as much as the broken bones.

Carefully, I slipped into the bed and scooted in close behind Milo. I pressed my crotch against his butt, pushed my knees behind his legs, and positioned myself lower so my arms wrapped at his waist where the aches wouldn’t disturb him. There was less bruising at his waist than the rest of his torso. When we spooned like this, with my head pressed to the center of his back and our bodies touching, Milo slept so much better.

Maybe I slept better. I took comfort in helping Milo, being with Milo, even in small ways.

With my schedule more flexible in the wake of so much devastation, I used a lot of free time to quietly cuddle up to Milo. I offered him soft whispers while he worked. I gently awoke him when he needed to eat, to take his medicine, to bathe away the grime of sickness. I would stay here and tend to him forever if he required. I would do anything for Milo.

“I love you. I promise I will always protect you.” I kissed his back right in the center, and then I returned my head to rest against him. Against the warm, soft skin. “And yes, I know that’s your line, but I can occasionally pull off the heroic hero stuff.”

“I like it,” Milo said, groggy and sore and definitely in need of more rest. “We gotta get you a cape, make it official.”

“Rest, please.” I scooted up and kissed his shoulder gently as both still throbbed with burning pain.

“I’m fine.” Milo turned his head, giving me a weak smile. “Besides, I gotta start working on your heroic comeback. Emphasis on the cum.”

I snorted. “You’re insufferable.”

“We’ll start your campaign by bringing back the sexy stage name: The Ubiquitous Present.”

“Christ. You obviously have more head damage than I realized.”

Milo laughed, wincing and wheezing from the strain of his muscles moving from the joy that swelled inside him. I nuzzled the crook of his neck, kissing him. It offered the tiniest distraction from the pain, from the stress, from the surrealness of events that’d unfolded over the last few days.

We lay like this until I finally passed out, until all that remained was Milo and me until the sound of the entire world fell silent. Milo continued proving he was the world, my world.

Chapter Twenty-Six

It’d been two weeks, midway into April, and Gemini Academy had issued the lowest form of a stopgap in regard to the lack of a building. We’d moved to online classes. Not remote learning, not virtual classes, but simply teachers posting assignments online and students making their “best efforts” during this difficult time. And I didn’t want to hold anyone to the same expectations as I had before the attack on the academy, but I also didn’t approve of how administration had dropped the bar. Not even lowered it. Oh no, they’d dropped it completely on the ground and started kicking dirt over it.

This was equivocally an extended early vacation that’d completely screwed up the education of our students. At least the third-year students were still able to report to their internships, and first-years would have a chance to make up for this lost time. But what about second-year students? What was my homeroom coven going to do? It was hard enough getting guilds and enchanters to take individual accommodations seriously when setting up internships. But it was fucking laughable to think they’d make accommodations for the entire student body.

Sure, guilds might promise they would, but then the news would die down, and the immediate tragedy of the events wouldpass—maybe something new and awful would land on national headlines—and people would return to their lives unable to really care about a situation that didn’t personally affect them. I already heard thoughts across the city falling back into place for normalcy.

With my telepathy already soaring every which way, I used this time to check in on my homeroom coven. I couldn’t rein in my psychic magic if I wanted, so this seemed like a helpful way to assuage my concerns.

The first psychic pin I dropped was with Katherine and Caleb while he lay out on the couch, and she rifled through the pages of a grimoire in the center of the floor. For a living room, it was nearly as spacious as Milo’s penthouse layout and a reminder that the Harris family had a lot of income thanks to the success of their enchantment company.

Katherine had eight grimoires of different sizes and bindings spaced around her. Delicately, she used tools to unravel the pages and cut them from the spines. She kept stacks of pages in an arrangement of various piles meant for storage, clutter, sentimental, and her new grimoire. Sentimental because even the silly spells she’d written as a kid couldn’t be tossed out. She’d never use the crayon sharpening spell, but she fondly recalled how proud she was of that wordy little wonder.

Right now, though, she wanted to pull from her old, mostly unused grimoires to recreate the one she’d sacrificed during the attack on the showcase.

“This makes absolutely zero sense.” Caleb huffed, becoming visibly frustrated with some of the online assignments he worked on.

One glimpse into Caleb’s aggravated thoughts revealed the shitty classwork he contended with. Talk about teachers who dropped the ball. I spent hours modifying lesson plans to help account for the fact no one could really ask questions or work with their peers. Some teachers simply copied and pasted their original assignments without an ounce of forethought—like, say, the fact it required using a classroom textbook that students didn’t have access to anymore, but it didn’t seem to deter Caleb, who used every online search engine to read up on the information.

Caleb was sprawled out on the couch, lying on his stomach with the laptop in front of him, while he kicked his legs back and forth. The kicks were meant for training, but his strides got more aggressive, and his muscles flexed harder than intended, so Katherine swooped in and snatched away his weighted training blocks.

She looked at the erratic pulsating glow of her carved enchantments and knew her boyfriend was a few kicks away from breaking another set.

“Sorry.” Caleb grimaced.

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