Page 72 of Partnering with the Artist

“Well…” I murmur, all snuggled up, engulfed in his scent, “I could call them? Right now. And ask.”

He stiffens. “Wh-at?”

“I could call my mom. Tell her all about you. And ask what she thinks.”

He shakes his head. “Absolutely you will not wake your mother up in the middle of the night. That’s sure to make her hate me.”

“Moms are supposed to be woken up in the middle of the night to settle their children from nightmares. It’s the job they signed up for.”

He peers down into my eyes, gripping me tightly. “But…she’s not my mother, and I haven’t had a nightmare.”

I kiss his nose. “If we get married, Zakery, she will be your mother. And panic attacks are kind of like awake nightmares.”

“I don’t want a mother.” He grips my night shirt, balling his fist in it. “I don’t.”

“She’s a good mother.”

“I don’t care.” His voice wobbles, strangled. Then, forcibly, it softens. “I…do not want one, Maelin. Please.”

My heart hurts, the pain exacerbated from the helplessness I can’t quell. I nod. “Okay. No mother then.”

“I’m sorry…”

“You’re okay.”

“I’m not.” He takes in a labored breath. “I ruin everything. How can I expect you to join my family if I am unwilling to join yours?”

“You’re healing from what your parents did to you. Maybe, someday, you’ll want to adopt my parents. Maybe not. They’ll love you as a person and a son whether you claim them or not.”

“You don’t know the half of what my parents did to me,” he whispers. “What if I never heal enough? What if I’m always right on the brink of this soul-crushing fear? I can’t expect you to live with that. Not if I claim to love you.”

“Live with what?” I ask. “A person? A complex person with trauma and baggage andfeelingsjust like everyone else?” Drawing his hand to my lips, I kiss as I hold his eyes. “You might not experience emotions the same as everyone else, Zakery, but you still feel a whole lot. And I am not going to fault you for that. Ever.”

“What if youshould?”

“Are you going to start telling me to shut up when I talk too much?”

His brow furrows. “You never talk too much. Sometimes you talk too little, and I lose the context between when you paused and when you start up again. I wish you’d say every thought in your beautiful mind, so I could let your words lull mine away until all of this pain is a memory lost to me.”

“Covering the pain doesn’t help you address or heal from it.”

“Perhaps not. But it does help me get up in the morning.”

I let my lip jut. “I thoughtIwas here to help you get up in the morning.”

He exhales a soft laugh. “No, Maelin. I’m positive you will convince me nothing in the waking world could possibly compare to staying right here in bed with you.”

I’d be inclined to agree, if Morana would not walk all the way out here and kill us both if someone doesn’t pick her up before she’s supposed to start work. In…roughly six hours.

I wish there were something I could say or do to make everything better, but, after Harry, I’m unwilling to promise that I’ll get married regardless of what my parents say. I mean, all things considered, they approved ofHarry. If they don’t approve of Zakery, I’m extremely blind, and I should probably stay single forever because my ability to judge characters is abysmal, and…

I blink.

“Zakery.”

“Yes?”

“My parents approved ofHarry. Are you really going to lie here and tell me that you’re scared they won’t approve of you—a celebrity comic book artist with an estate full of mansions and millions of dollars at his fingertips—when they approved of a burgeoning wolfkin who has worked at McDonald’s for the last four years?”

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