Page 37 of Goblins Don't Count
“The snuggle? You can’t call it ‘the snuggle’,” I said, hesitating before I sighed and relaxed against him. It’s what I wanted to do, and I could fall back asleep.
“Noted. What else?” he murmured, adjusting the blanket over my shoulder.
“You’re supposed to be relaxed. Goblins are usually not.”
He slumped, arm over me, completely limp. “Like that?”
I smiled and shifted against him until we were in the perfect position. “Pretty good.”
“Anything else?”
“Sh. I’m going to fall back to sleep.”
“Okay,” he whispered.
And then I drifted off until my door opened and in walked my brother, eating a breakfast burrito.
I blinked at him, feeling weird. Had all of that been a dream? Sashimi wouldn’t have stayed with me all night, except that he was unconscious. He certainly wouldn’t stay with me while I slept, just to snuggle, but there was something over my hip, warm, like an arm or a raccoon. It was probably the raccoon.
I’m going to sneak up on him and bite his ankles.
I looked over, and there was Mr. Raccoon in my kitchen, a box of cereal in one hand, while he peered at my brother with a snarl on his mouth.
“No. You can’t bite him or he’ll bite you back, and you have no idea where his mouth has been.”
Tarn looked from me to the raccoon and back again. “I thought it went away.” He shook his head and scowled at me, pointing behind me. Where Sashimi probably was. No way he was sleeping, but he didn’t twitch. “What are you doing in bed with that filthy goblin?”
“It’s not a bed,” I said immediately, not that it helped. “We were just snuggling.”
He looked even more shocked. “Goblins don’t snuggle.”
“I know. I was teaching him how to snuggle. It was a bit of an ordeal, but I think he finally nailed it. You were right about goblins being rapacious, though. He ate my dress.”
Sashimi made this small sigh I could feel more than hear. “And now everyone’s going to think that goblins run around eating random people’s clothing. That dress was made out of…”
I cut him off. He’d eaten my dress. The details were unessential. “So, are you just going to stand there staring at us, or are you going to bring us breakfast burritos?”
Tarn had the most shocked look on his face. “I’m not bringing you and your lover breakfast burritos! Are you completely insane?”
“Then you should leave. You can’t just come in here without sharing. It’s rude. Also, we aren’t lovers, we’re seriously dating. Sashimi, that is, Corcarn the Goblin Authority, is my boyfriend. Exciting, right? Thus, the need to teach him how to snuggle. I wouldn’t bother with just any rapacious goblin. He’s special.”
My brother shook his head, speechless for a moment. Finally, he pointed at my hair. “And that? What evil sorcery did that to your hair?”
I patted it. “You don’t like it? Clary put this amazing product in it, but turns out it was?—”
Sashimi covered up my mouth, cutting me off as he sat up behind me. “Your sister is still uncharacteristically talkative from the dangerous spell we ran into last night.”
I bit his fingers. He didn’t flinch or remove them.
My brother scowled at him. “So, you aren’t actually dating?”
Sashimi sighed. “We are dating. Yes.”
My brother threw his breakfast burrito at Sashimi, who caught it, with the hand not pressed gently over my mouth.
“You swore you weren’t stalking her! You made me learn how to fix her car when I caught you working on it! All these years of manly bonding and it’s a lie?”
Manly what? And Sashimi’s the one who had been tuning up Hatchet? Well, of course he had. I was under his protection. Still, fixing my car seemed a little much.
