Page 25 of Prayers for the Prickly

“You’ve just uttered the correct password,” he said, grinning as he stepped aside. “Enter, please and thank you so much for not coming empty handed. The moment you mentioned food my stomach decided to perk up and declare that we were fuckin’ starving.”

“Mine did the same thing when I sat up from putting the finishing touches on a carving,” I explained as I waited for him to direct me to a small table in the corner of his kitchen before I moved.

While he turned his attention back to what he’d been working on, I opened both containers and the pops, laid out the plastic cutlery and took the lids off the assortment of dressings I’d brought along. I always poured creamy French and buttermilk ranch over mine, but not knowing if he’d just want to add more sweet chili and onion to his or something different meant I brought back several others, just in case he preferred something else.

A few seconds later he plopped down into the seat across from me, took one look at his salad, and started squirm-dancing in his seat.

“You got me crab Rangoon, that’s my favorite! How’d you know I’d love that one?”

“From the way you ordered your pizza the other night?” I replied.

Wait a fuckin’ moment.

Were my cheeks actually getting hot in the wake of the adoring look he shot me?

Naaah.

Wolverines did not blush.

It was just the heat of the kitchen hitting even after he’d turned off whatever he’d been cooking.

I turned my attention back to my salad, adding a drizzle more dressing, but not before I caught a glimpse of him giggling at me.

Guess wolverines did blush after all.

“Thank you,” he said before we dug into our meals, too ravenous to bother with conversation after the long hours we’d put in.

When we finished, I stilled his hand when he went to clean up. “I’ll get it, you get on back to what you were doing.”

Nodding, he went up on tiptoe to kiss me, lingering long enough to let me kiss him thoroughly before I turned him loose to get back to work while I cleaned up the table. I didn’t ask how much longer he’d be because I always hated the question when someone asked me. I just disposed of the trash, wiped the table down with one of the disinfectant wipes I spotted in a container on the counter, and parked myself in my chair. I always kept my sketchbook with me, so I pulled it and a couple pencils out and sharpened them while I watched him move around his kitchen.

From this spot, I had the perfect vantage point to witness his precision and efficiency. With old school Nirvana filling the room, he worked while I observed, occasionally sketching a little.

While carving people wasn’t my favorite type of sculpture to do, I could picture myself presenting one to him and asking him to pick out the perfect place in the house to display it. I wanted him to see what I saw while I watched him work. The focus and the grace as he moved from counter to stove to a contraption that allowed him to twist large ropes of already twisted candy. I’d felt the sleek muscle in my mate’s arms when I’d caressed them, but seeing them at work was different.

He made each movement look easy, though I knew, from my time as a deckhand, that it took time before twisting with such steady pressure and precision became second nature and no longer caused your muscles to jerk and strain. He made it look like a dance, then he pulled the taffy across his chest, stretched it, then fed it into a different machine, the whole motion so fluid that I found the pose that I wished to capture, adding a bit of whimsey as I began adding hedgehog features to the human ones.

Though August kept both feet on the ground, I took liberty there and sprinkled a bit more movement in, as I sketched him balanced on one foot, tipped a bit to the side with the other one off the ground and the taffy ribbon stretched across the front of him like a scarf or a sash.

In the sketch, I drew him looking happy, carefree and laughing, while the man across the room wore a scowl to rival one of my own as he scrunched his nose and seemed to snarl down at what the machine spit out.

When he tossed it in the trash and stomped back over to the counter, I decided it might be best to settle in and get comfortable. It looked like my prickly little hedgehog was in for a long and potentially frustrating night.

Chapter 10

August

Exhausted, I stared across my kitchen at Gregor wiping down the far counter, unable to believe that my mate, who had to be back in his shop in a few hours, the same as I did, had stayed up all night while I’d perfected the twisted candy teardrops I’d needed to complete the rush order that had kept me busy for most of the day.

Fortunately, my cousin Sierra had been able to man the counter for me so I could focus on filling the order. I’d been so stressed about running out of time that I’d forgotten to eat and would have probably still been starving if Gregor hadn’t showed up. And with a salad. I’d make sure he knew how much that meant to me the moment I wasn’t too exhausted to express myself properly.

“I think we’re all set,” Gregor said as he disposed of the wipe he’d been using.

“Yup, I’m all done over here, too,” I replied, yawning as I leaned against him.

The moment I did I instantly regretted it as exhaustion overwhelmed me. My body swayed and I might even have hit the ground if he hadn’t wrapped his arm around me and tightened his hold the moment I started sliding down his body.

“Bedtime,” he declared, lifting me and carrying me around the room to collect my things and turn out the lights.

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