Page 32 of Did It Have To Be Gnomes?!
He sighed. “Not really.”
“Want me to start throwing names out?”
He snorted. “Sure.”
“Okay, hmm… Ember. Tova. Petal. Sunshine. Sparkle. Cinder.”
He chuckled. “How the hell did you come up with those so quickly?”
I tapped my temple with my finger. “I’ve got a mountain of useless information stored up here, including random pet names. She’s not a pet, but…” I trailed off with a shrug.
“Do you want more pets? Is that why you have all those names on hand?”
I grinned. “I’d love more.” After a few seconds, I decided to tell him the truth even though it was embarrassing. “When I was locked up, I used to use my computer time to look at rescue animals a lot. I’d pick out the ones I wanted to adopt and lookup the meaning of their names if it wasn’t obvious. Sometimes I’d pick new names for them. It was dumb, and I was lucky no one else ever caught me doing it.” I snorted. “I knew I couldn’t actually adopt any of them, at least not any time soon, but it was nice to… pretend for a little while.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “I bet it was lonely in there.”
I huffed. “You wouldn’t think so since you literally have zero privacy and are almost never alone, but yeah. It was. It was difficult to trust anyone else, so…” Not wanting to stay on this topic, I blurted, “What about Solara? It meansof the sun. Kinda goes with the whole fire thing, right?”
Miles let me get away with the subject change after only a brief hesitation. “Solara? That’s pretty.”
“Agreed. Could do Sola for short.”
“I like that.” He turned his eyes to the firebird, and her head swiveled to meet his gaze without hesitation. “What do you think, pretty girl? Do you like the name Solara?”
She let out a trill of happiness, making Miles—and me—grin.
“Do you like Sola for short?”
She let out another trill, and I couldn’t help but laugh a little. How in the hell was she so intelligent? It was clear that she understood at least part of what he was asking her.
After fussing over Sola for a bit longer, Miles turned to me and asked, “Do you want to stay for dinner? I’m just ordering food because I’m too worn out for cooking, but I’d love for you to stay so we can… talk about everything.”
“That sounds great. Thanks.” I shot him my most winning smile.
We quickly picked out some food, and Miles placed the order for delivery, all while Sola hung out on his shoulder. She kept staring at me, so I kept reaching over to give her pets.
She was darling, so I didn’t mind, and I liked that it kept me close enough to Miles to smell his shampoo.
I should probably stop perving on the guy, but I seriously couldn’t seem to help it. He was just so damn pretty, and he didn’t even realize it.
When we sat on the couch, I realized he had his gloves on, so I said, “You can take those off around me. I can’t set you off.”
He glanced at me, then stared at the coffee table for a few long seconds before he finally pulled them off. Slowly. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he was taunting me on purpose—making me picture him taking off the rest of his clothes that slowly—but I could see on his face how difficult the move was.
Miles had gone through his entire life needing to protect himself from others’ emotions. It wouldn’t be easy to let his guard down, even after seeing how I could stop the emotions.
Once his gloves were off, I held out my hand in invitation. He stared for several beats, so I slowly reached for him, asking, “May I?”
He blew out a long breath and gave a small nod.
I took his hand in mine, and he tensed. Since I knew he’d been worried I could still set him off, I rubbed my thumb over the back of his hand, giving him a chance to realize exactly what it meant being around me, touching a null.
He huffed out a loud breath and let out a small sort-of laugh. “Wow. I… you… I really can’t feel anything.”
Meeting his gaze, I sent him a tentative smile. “I’m a null.”
“I know… I know you explained it, it’s just… I spend so much of my life… avoiding…”
