Page 34 of Panther's Magpie
She ducks her head, her hair falling in front of her face, but I don’t miss her smile.
A revving motorcycle makes us look up. Valley, one of my brothers, waves as he drives by.
“There’s a lot of people out and about on a random weekday,” she says after a moment.
“That’s the curse of living in a mountain town. Everyone wants to come here on their days off before the weather gets too bad.”
“Makes sense. Better than hanging out in the city.”
“This is it,” I say, pointing to the bakery.
I open the door.
“Thank you,” she says as her body presses against me as she passes by.
“You’re welcome.”
“Oh, these are gorgeous,” she says as she starts studying everything in the glass case.
I have to stop myself from laughing. Yeah, they look good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s food.
“Anything look good to you?”
“I mean, duh.” She looks over at me, a carefree smile on her face.
“Let me rephrase, do you see any that you want to get?” I ask, not bothering to hide my amusement.
“That one, with the gold foil on top.”
“You know that’s not real gold, right?”
She rolls her eyes. “Obviously, but it’s just so pretty. I want it.”
“You’re like a magpie.”
She gasps, placing her hand over her chest. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Especially when they find out I like shiny things.”
Chuckling, I shake my head. “All right, Magpie, let’s get you your shiny little treat.”
“Can I have more than one?” she teases.
“You can have whatever you like,” I tell her as the worker approaches.
“If you don’t watch it, Calloway, you’ll never get rid of me.”
The way she says my name has my heart kicking up a notch in my chest. I don’t think I ever really thought about my real name before. It didn’t seem special.
Yet when it rolls off her tongue, I feel like a fucking king.
I bite my tongue to stop myself from telling her that doesn’t sound as bad as it would have a month ago. In fact, I kind of like the idea of her sticking around.
“Thank you for waiting. What can I get you two?” the teenager behind the counter asks.
It doesn’t hit me until much later that I didn’t just give her a nickname, but I assigned her future road name to her right there in a bakery off Main Street. I don’t regret it, not one bit.
CHAPTER
NINE
