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“Are you taking me to a restaurant?” I asked.

“You ask way too many questions,” he said.

“I like to know things. That’s not a crime.”

“Just a little further.”

I wasn’t sure when the ground beneath my feet became unstable, but when it happened, I almost lost my balance. We had been walking on solid ground for a while, but now it felt like I had just stepped onto something… weird.

“Careful,” Lucien said, as he held onto me.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Take your blindfold off,” Lucien said.

“Finally!”

I pulled the blindfold up, and the first thing I saw, was the glittering ocean. The sun beaming down on that cold, blue surface was breathtaking. I realized instantly that I was standing on sand, something I had never done before.

We were on a beach!

Looking around, I noticed there were people spaced sporadically around the place, families sitting under umbrellas, children playing in the water. There was a seaside restaurant not far from where we were standing, but Lucien wasn’t taking us to it.

“Lucien…” I trailed off, smiling. “Wait, is this where we’re meeting your contact?”

“There is no contact,” he said, and he held up a hand basket he had been carrying. “Hungry?”

My eyes widened. “Hang on. So, instead of going to meet a contact on mage business, you’ve brought me to the beach, and you’ve made a picnic?”

“I baked you a pie, too.”

“When did you have time to bake a pie?!”

“For you, all I have is time.”

“Okay, that’s a cop-out answer. We’ve been rearranging my house, going over—” Lucien kissed me, then; a soft, tender kiss that lingered a moment like the first bite of a dessert.

“What… was that for?” I breathed against his mouth.

“I’m trying to show you how in love with you I am…”

I swallowed, my heartrate rising. “You’re… in love with me?” I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“Madly. Why do you think I came back for you that night in the club? I didn’t want us to end, I wanted to know your name and ask you to go on a real date with me. It was never just sex for me.”

“Or me. That’s why I tried to end it.” I paused, mesmerized by the sparkle of his eyes. I brought my hand up to his cheek. “I love you, Lucien.”

Lucien kissed me again, another delicate kiss. “C’mon,” he said, “There’s a lobster roll in this basket that I’m dying to eat.”

“You made lobster rolls?!”

“With garlic butter, slaw, chips. C’mon.”

I smiled at him again and walked with him along the beach until we found a spot we liked and sat down to enjoy a picnic of Lucien’s own creation. When I looked at him now, relaxed as he was, it was hard to see the shadowed man from the club I had been screwing. That man was gone, replaced instead by… by this extraordinary person.

We had both been through our own personal hells, but we had survived. Now, it was time to thrive, and get ready to face whatever Boston and its mages had to throw at us.

*****