“She didn’t send me.”
“I know.”
“Eli says we need more horses. Did he send you a shopping list?”
Rian swallows, presumably at the mention of Eli, not the prospect of buying horses. But then he laughs, still sounding just a little overwhelmed. “Not to me.”
“All right, then. You can help me with mine.”
I drop my hold on him. Rian picks up and swings his backpack over his shoulder, and we turn back down the empty corridor. Greg hovers near the exit to the stairs, looking everywhere but directly at us.
“So … Mirth, you, and me …” Rian prompts. “And Lord Elias Hereford? Just the three of us?”
I glance over at him. “No. Though nothing has been solidified yet.”
“I guess that’s a conversation for Mirth and me,” he murmurs.
“Some of it,” I say. “But this, today, is about you getting some answers you need, right? About your dad?”
Hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans, head slightly bowed, Rian nods. But he doesn’t continue the conversation.
“Coffee shop?” I ask Greg as we near.
The cat shifter nods, types something into his phone, then opens the door to the stairs. Rian and I trail behind Greg down to the first floor, crossing toward the main entrance. Classes must have started because fewer students than before traverse these lower corridors, barely glancing our way. My suit, rather than my blue hair, likely stands out more on campus.
Rian brushes his shoulder against mine in that tactilely casual shifter way.
And I know, no matter how much I want to be Mirth’s shadow right now, that I’ve made the right choice in coming to support him.
Armin should be with us too.
Maybe all of this wouldn’t feel so disjointed, so rushed, if Armin were still with us. Mirth wouldn’t have been forced to choose anything at all. All of our relationships — as lovers and friends — could have unfolded more naturally.
Hot tears spike behind my lashes, my cheeks flushing with restrained emotion, restrained grief.
Rian brushes his shoulder against mine again, intentionally this time. He presumably can smell my grief, though he doesn’t know me all that well yet.
I clear my throat, and we don’t acknowledge it further. Neither of us can do anything about any sense of what should have been involving Armin anyway.
Accordingto the map Greg has pulled up on his phone, the University College Dublin has a few small coffee shops spread throughout the campus. Rian matches my stride, not bothering to hurry or to duck or cover his head in the rain, driven now by a rising wind, any more than I do as we cross from the building that houses his mother’s offices to a nearby bustling cafe.
As we push through the glass doors, students in a range of ages take one look at Rian and me and get a little stuck.
A hush momentarily falls throughout the space.
It’s enough to unnerve Greg just a bit. The cat shifter had fallen slightly back to give us an illusion of privacy, but now he slips forward to place himself between us and the seating area as we join the line at the counter.
Understandably, really. Mirth doesn’t have a few million followers on her socials, then make a habit of wandering into college-campus cafes.
Heroically, both Rian and I attempt to ignore Greg as the cat shifter continues to stay between the two of us and everyone else as we order, while also trying to blend in. He’s unsuccessful. But then, so am I.
“Spanish latte,” I say to the cashier, not bothering to scan the menu.
Sporting an adorable septum piercing, she just gulps and nods before turning wide brown eyes on Rian.
“Triple espresso,” he says. “Straight.”
I give him a little amused look at the pointed ‘straight,’ but he doesn’t catch it. Or he deliberately ignores it. “Greg?” I ask.
