Page 72

He grunted into his soup. “I’m not counting my chickens until the ritual’s over and done with.”

“True.” Luna sighed. “It’ll be weird not having that little squirmy warmth in my chest. I was getting used to it.”

“Yeah, well.” Oliver opened his mouth like he was going to say something else. Then he crammed another spoonful of soup into it.

Luna resisted the urge to push at the bond and see what he was holding back on. She stretched out, her toes skimming his leg. “Then again, it’ll be good to get back to normal. No more being stuck together. No cold front when you dare go more than a dozen feet away. No more feeling you get annoyed when that dog food commercial comes on.”

“A border collie would never abandon its owner for a treat,” Oliver replied. “They’re very loyal.”

“I know,” Luna said, her throat going thick again as she contemplated a future where she never talked to him again. She swallowed until it was gone, then repeated more softly than she ever meant to, “I know.”

Twenty-One

“Iknow this is a lot of work,” Oliver said as Jackson flipped through the notebook. “I can pay you your usual rates.”

Jackson shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, alright? Everybody needs help when they’re settling in. I’m not hurting for money.”

He flipped through the plans Oliver had given him—replacing the carpet, windows, wallpaper—coming to a stop on the insulation page. He tapped the bullet-point list Oliver had scribbled. “Look, foam’s a lot faster to install. But you’ll run into problems down the line. Better in the long run to fix insulation boards to the exterior walls and cover ‘em with new sliding.”

“You’re the expert,” Oliver said.

Jackson kept flipping. He landed on the fireplace page and chuckled, tapping the sketch. “Thatone might be difficult. I’m not a sculptor.”

“We’d just need you to get the fireup and working again,” Oliver said. “You don’t have to do the, uh, flourishes.”

The bond in his chest flared with warmth. Oliver turned to see Luna turning the corner into the guest common room, lighting up when she saw who Oliver was talking to.

“Jackson!” she yelped. “Just the dragon I was hoping to see. Are you looking at the fireplace?”

“Sure am,” Jackson replied. “This your work?”

He held out the notebook. The fireplace in the sketch had been decked out with fangs and bricks painted to look like dappled scales.

Luna grinned, swanning over to admire her sketch. “It is! I wanted to check in with you—dragon mouth fireplace, cute or offensive? Or just gaudy? I really want to lean into the monster themes, but is it too much? What do you think?”

Jackson tucked his scaly hand into his overalls pocket, tail swishing behind him. “Think I’m not an interior designer, ma’am. But I think it looks neat. My granddad had one just like it.”

Luna shot Oliver a smug look. Oliver shot her an eye roll back. He’d been teasing her when he suggested the dragon mouth fireplace might be offensive. Mostly.

“Well,” Jackson said, loud enough to make Oliver realize they’d just been standing there making faces at each other. “I better go get those supplies ready. I’ll come over in a couple of hours. We’ll do insulation first, then windows. Start from the bottom, work our way out.”

He handed Oliver the notebook back. “By the way, how’s your grandmother doing?”

“Fine,” Oliver said automatically. Then he remembered he was trying to give less one-word answers to the townsfolk when they asked this question since they just keptaskingotherwise. “Her heart’s on the mend. We’re taking her in once a week for tests, but so far, everything’s fine.”

Finewas a white lie. Grandmother Musgrove was still tired all the time and had to sit down if she walked for more than ten minutes in one stretch, but she wasn’t getting worse. Oliver was trying to be more open, sure. But that didn’t mean he had to spill his family’s health issues every time someone asked.

“Glad to hear it,” Jackson said. “Well. See you in a few hours to start on those walls.”

Oliver watched him leave. One thing he appreciated about Jackson, he wasn’t the kind of guy who slapped him on the shoulder as a greeting or a goodbye. There were too many of those in town, and somehowOliverwas the asshole for making it known that he didn’t want some stranger touching him.

Luna kept flipping through the notebook. It wasn’t her special work notebook—she’d brought another one specifically for Musgrove Inn. She even decked it out with pink and white glitter that spelled out MUSGROVE DREAM HOME, which Oliver had to be told was a Barbie reference.

“A few hours is enough time to go into town,” she said. “We can pick up some of those paintings I told youabout, the ones reimagining famous paintings with monsters in them. We can put them in storage until after the walls are done. Oooh, Vi from the bookstore said they finally have those cute little wolfy bookmarks, and we can put those on the bedside tables.”

She was bouncing with excitement, face flushed as she ran down her list to monster-fy the inn. Oliver watched her fondly, the bond whirring happily in his chest as she stood beside him. It still wanted him closer, but ignoring it was second nature by now. It was harder to ignore the want behind it. Bond or no bond, Oliver wanted to touch the small of her back or brush her honeyed hair out of her eyes. Small touches, nothing touches. The kind of touch her fiancé would give her when she returned to him after the snow thawed. The kind of touch he shouldn’t let himself indulge.

“—and we need to stock up on seaweed; that last mer ate the last of it,” she finished, eyes bright. She looked over at him and paused. “What’sthatface?”