Page 56 of The Jorogumo

Nodding slowly, I decided to share my worries with him, if only so he'd stop worrying about his mate for a few.

"I'm going to ask Liam to move in with me today. And I'm just worried he'll say no."

Khush blinked, then smiled widely. "Hey, man. That's awesome. Congrats! And I'm sure he'll say yes. He looks so excited every time he's here. I think he'd love to live here."

"Yeah?"

Khush nodded quickly, then tilted his head. "Did you talk to the headmaster?"

I nodded. It was the first thing I'd done after I made my decision, and the headmaster had been happy, though I hadn't really liked the dark circles under his eyes. He was working himself to the bone, and something needed to change before he destroyed himself.

"Speaking of, have you noticed how tired he looks these days?"

Khush frowned. "Yeah. I tried talking to him about it a few times, but he keeps blowing me off and acting like everything's fine."

"I noticed a few more... glitches around the Sanctuary too," I murmured. They'd all been small things, really. A randombush that was bright pink instead of green, a patch of sky that showed daylight when the rest of it was night. Things like that. Something was up with the headmaster's magic, and if it wasn't resolved, things could get so much worse.

"Yeah, so did I. Keoni's the only one who's been able to talk to the guy, and he says the headmaster is 'working on it,' whatever that means."

"You know, for someone who taught us to work together and depend on each other, he's really bad at doing it."

Khush snorted. "Right? We might need to perform an intervention or something at some point."

If things got any worse, we might just have to.

My phone buzzed, telling me Liam was at the door, and I patted Khush's arm.

"Liam's here."

"Go, go. And Haruto?" I paused, glancing back at him. "Don't worry, okay? He'll say yes."

The confidence in Khush's voice made me smile, and I nodded gratefully.

Liam smiled widely when I opened the door, like we hadn't just seen each other yesterday morning. He hadn't come over last night so he could finish his chores and spend all of today with me, and I couldn't fault him for it, even if I'd desperately missed him.

I pulled him into a kiss as I shut the door behind him, and he hummed, wrapping his arms around me. I wanted to wrap him up in my webs so he'd never leave again, but since I wasn't a monster, all I could do was ask him to stay and hope he did.

We made our way back to my place and reached it without being stopped once. Khush had disappeared, probably off to stalk his mate some more, and no one else was around.

We settled on my hammock with the bag of premade popcorn Liam had brought—"A movie-watching experience isn't complete without popcorn, Haruto!"—and his laptop, which he'd also brought so we could watch the movies on a bigger screen.

We'd been watching theMarvelmovies in chronological order, and Liam started the next one and placed the laptop on the perch I'd made for it so he wouldn't need to keep it in his lap.

He snuggled into my side, sighing softly as he wrapped an arm over my stomach, and I slid my arm under his shoulders, pulling him into me.

"This is perfect," he murmured, placing the bag of popcorn on my stomach.

"It is," I agreed, and for a while we just watched the movie while munching on popcorn. It was amazing to see characters I'd read about in live action, to see their adventures in a completely new format. I felt like I was meeting my favorite characters for the first time all over again.

Even as we watched the movie, though, I couldn't focus on it completely. The question I wanted to ask Liam danced on the tip of my tongue, and I had to swallow it back more than once. I knew I wouldn't be able to rest until I popped the question, but all the courage and determination I'd felt earlier seemed to have deserted me.

I blinked when the screen went black and text started scrolling through, startled to realize the movie had come to an end while I was stuck in my thoughts.

"Haruto? Are you okay?"

Of course my sweet mate had noticed my preoccupation. I turned to meet his concerned gaze, and smiled, hoping he couldn't see just how nervous I was.

"I wanted to talk to you about something, and I've been trying to find the best way to say it."

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