Page 17 of Forget Me Not

Ray sat back, frowning with confusion. Perhaps if he’d been less exhausted, if the interior of the car had smelled like less sugary pears and the hint of salty tears, he might have growled. “I don’t ignore my needs for the sake of others.”

Callalily raised his eyebrows for an expression so full of disbelief it was almost mocking. “’Are you cold?’” he echoed Ray’s last question to him while making exaggerated finger quotes, then crossed his arms to huff. “Asks the guy with the line of pain between his eyes.”

Ray took a deep, sweet breath. “Listen, Goldenrod—”

The gasp from Callalily stopped him. Before Ray could recover or think to try, Callalily thrust a hand in front of Ray’s face and held it there. “Take another breath, Fido—no, I shouldn’t say that. Not if this whole time you’ve been… take a breath, Ray Ray.”

Ray’s attention fell to the slight hand, the warm wrist, bare and fluttering with life as much as Callalily’s tiny wings. Callalily was built on more human lines than most fairies, broader, with the faintest dusting of hair along on his arm that might have shined brown and green and gold like the hair on his head if there had been more light.

Ray inhaled. Callalily was flesh and blood, a tangible, living creature who smelled like anxiety and stress and some sweet, caffeinated drink he must have downed in the hospital lobby. He also smelled of candy apples, sticky and warm, and grass under sunlight, and fresh apples as well, every kind but green. He smelled of theideaof apples. Nothing at all to do with dirt or grass or fruit or trees.

Ray took another breath, leaning in to nearly brush the thin skin of Callalily’s wrist with his nose. He didn’t. But he didn’t lean back, either.

His head continued to throb, but Ray was watching glitter fall in and out of the world in the air around Callalily’s arm. It fell to Ray’s lap, twinkling even in the dark to Ray’s eyes, and then popped out of sight.

Ray uncurled his fist and turned his palm up to catch them. He felt nothing. There was nothing to feel.

He breathed in again, deep and slow. Marshmallows and chocolate. He wondered if Callalily had ever been camping, and closed his hand as if he could catch and hold any of his sparkle.

“Some people say it tickles,” Callalily commented, his whisper soft and true now.

“It’s beautiful,” Ray whispered back, tired and aching and not particularly concerned with their audience in the front of the car. “You’rebeautiful.”

When the silence that followed his words became enough to pull Ray from his study of Callalily’s radiance, he looked over.

Callalily stared at Ray in a way that made Ray want to howl, or take him someplace dark and safe.

“Did you think that the first time you met me?” Callalily peered at Ray as though he could see him in the dark, then answered his own question. “Oh, you did, didn’t you? You resented it then, but you thought that I was beautiful.” Callalily swallowed. “Sometimes, I still don’t understand you. I was a brat back then. I know that. I was angry, in my way. Not at you, but then you were so… sodifficultthat teasing you just became what I did.Although what else was I supposed to do, Ray, when you shimmered for me and found me no matter where I was, but wouldn’t approach me?I don’t understand why you’d say it now, this way, but not then, even with all of that. But—oh. Oh, I didn’t say to you either, did I? Not in a way you would believe.” Callalily released a small breath, a sigh and a laugh together. He lifted his hand without fear to brush his fingertips along Ray’s jaw. “You’re beautiful too.”

Ray had a crooked nose that had not healed right after an imp had accidentally broken it. He had a great deal of gray in his short black hair. He was big and broad and fierce as most werewolves were, and people desired him for that, but he was not beautiful.

“You’re really for me?” he asked despite himself.

Callalily pulled back.

He wiped at his face, the corners of his eyes glistening and bright. He sniffled, but only once. “You don’t even know the half of it.” He was ferocious, then purposefully lighter as he added, “Your eyes are glowing, you know. They’ve been glowing since you came into the lobby.”

Ray startled. “Sorry.” He pulled in air, debated opening a window to drown out sugar and the knowledge that everyone in this car used the same detergent on their clothes to make things easier for Ray. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Scared? I appreciate you trying to be gentle with me, but the wolf in you does not scare me.” Callalily wiped his eyes one last time while continuing to stare at Ray as though Ray were some kind of marvel.

“I don’t know you.” Ray felt like he was arguing, but the words were slow and he wanted them to land gently. Fairy tears were beautiful, but he did not like them. “I don’t know what’s going on… or how long I will remember this,” it had to be said, even if it made Penn stifle a gasp, “but I want you to know I did not Reject you.”

His hands were in fists though no claws emerged. The air was too sweet for that.

Callalily went still, then shifted forward to resettle his wings. He propped his chin on his hand and regarded Ray from this new, odd angle. “How do you define that?”

He was almost sarcastic.

Ray turned away.

A hand carefully settled on his leg.

“You weren’t happy to find your mate was a fairy.”

The hand disappeared when Ray jerked back. Callalily was facing the window again when Ray faced him.

All Ray seemed to do was fail him. It was no wonder Ray had been left with this… half a bond, or whatever it was. This fairy who was not really his.

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