Page 17 of Adored by the Grumpy Ghost (Mapletown Monster Mates #1)
Natalie
M ayor Crane did indeed say portals. She spent the next hour of my shift telling me all about the portals that connect the monster towns across the U.S.
There are seven including Mapletown: Redwood Cove in California, Pine Hollow in Colorado, Elmwood Falls in North Dakota, Magnolia Village in Louisiana, Hemlock Hollow in Michigan, and Cedar Grove in South Carolina.
Our portal is located beneath the bookstore on Main Street, and the mayor is the only one who has access to it.
It allows her to travel to the other towns within seconds for council meetings or trade deals with other mayors.
She also oversees resident transfers via the portal, which allows safe and speedy travel for monsters looking to relocate.
My mind is still reeling over this as I pull into the driveway at the end of the night.
The moment Mayor Crane paid her tab and left, I couldn’t wait to get home and tell Winston.
I know we left things on kind of an awkward note earlier, but this is going to blow his damn mind, and I’m hoping it’s enough for us to brush past the weirdness and go back to being roommates who playfully bicker over random shit.
I grab my purse from the backseat and notice the gift I forgot to give Winston the other day. He’s either going to think it’s lame or cute, and I’m okay with either, given how little I spent on it.
He tends to hover in the living room or the kitchen whenever I return home, but tonight, I find the first floor of the house eerily silent.
Kicking off my shoes, I hang my purse on the hook by the front door and head upstairs.
My room is completely dark, as is Nonna Penny’s old room, but there’s a dim light coming from the study.
I follow it and find Winston seated in the high-back velvet chair, the emerald-green cushions slightly faded from where the sun streams into the room.
The desk lamp is on, and a few of the candle sconces are lit, casting shadows across his jaw that make him look even more handsome than usual.
His forehead is scrunched as he focuses on the book in his lap.
A floorboard creaks under my feet as I enter the room, and our eyes meet.
For the briefest of moments, his face lights up, and in his gaze, I see reverence and hunger––the same intoxicating combo from when he kissed me.
But he must remember how we left things before I went to work, because his lips quickly flatten into a line, and his gaze drops to the page he’s on.
“Welcome home,” he mutters. His tone is cold, standoffish.
“H-Hi,” I say, not knowing what to do with the excitement I still feel at coming home to him, paired with the look of obvious displeasure.
“How was your first shift?”
“Um, great,” I tell him. “I met a lot of the monsters in town. They were all very friendly and patient with me. Nothing like the day I went out job hunting. I’m guessing now that I have a job in town, I won’t be seen as a sketchy outsider.”
Winston turns the page of his book, as if I’m not even here. I could take this as a hint to leave, but I’m eager to fix things between us, so I keep blabbing about my night. “I met the mayor. She’s Martha Crane’s great-granddaughter, Emma Crane. Did you know that?”
He doesn’t answer.
“She seemed nice, told me all about the secret portals that connect the monster towns across the country. Can you believe that shit? Actual portals. Like, you step inside and poof! You’ve arrived.”
Still nothing as he turns another page.
“She invited me to the town meeting in a few days. I guess they have one every month at the Pebblebrook Inn.”
He scratches his chin as he continues to ignore me, and my patience evaporates. I decide to fuck with him a bit, to see if he’s listening. “And apparently after the town meeting ends, they put on some Sugar Ray, and it turns into a wild orgy.”
His gaze doesn’t meet mine, but instead of on the page, now it’s on the floor. I see his jaw tic and his knuckles are turning white as he clutches the book in his hands.
Finally, a reaction. He’s still not talking, but I can see it affecting him.
“I wonder what I should wear. What does one wear to an orgy? Should I just walk in naked?”
His knee begins to bounce up and down. Time to land this plane.
“I’m in charge of bringing the chili mac and cheese, since it’s an orgy slash potluck.”
Winston scoffs. “Since when do you cook?”
I toss the broom at his feet. “That’s the part you question? Seriously?”
He grabs the broom off the floor, examining the blue handle and matching bow I tied around the top, and the handwritten label that says, “Winston’s Special Outdoor Broom.”
Letting out a heavy sigh, he leans the broom against the side of the chair as he gets to his feet.
“Natalie, I want to tell you something.” He looks down at the book in his hand, then at the chair behind him before patting his pockets with confusion twisting his features.
“I just need to find my bookmark. Hold on.” The more he searches, the more visibly upset he becomes. “Where did I put it?”
“It’s not a big deal, Winston. Just fold the corner of the page down.”
He stops, leveling me with a venomous glare. “What? Why on earth would I do that?”
I shrug. “You can just unfold it when you’re done using it to mark the page.”
Winston jerks back as if I slapped him. “What kind of miscreant would defile a book by damaging the delicate pages instead of using a bookmark?”
I can’t help but chuckle at his theatrics. “Okay, this is an absurd overreaction. You know that, right?”
“Is it, though?” he asks, sarcasm dripping from his tone. His gaze drifts over my shoulder, out into the hall and toward my room. “Do you… Have you done this to any of the books from this room?”
Ugh, I hate that I actually feel ashamed to say yes.
Folding down pages instead of using a bookmark is a preference.
Just like pizza toppings. The fact that I’d rather fold doesn’t make me as inherently evil as Winston is making me seem.
Yet, I can feel the blood rushing to my cheeks as he glares at me. I’m so busted.
“Unbelievable!” he shouts as he turns into mist and whips around me toward my bedroom.
“Hey!” I call out after him, trying not to slip on the smooth hardwood floors in my sock feet as I follow. “What the hell?” Winston is back in his corporeal form as he scans every surface in my room.
“A-ha!” He grabs the two paperbacks off my nightstand and holds them above his head, well out of my reach. “You’ll get these back once you’ve learned how to properly respect a book.”
“Are you fucking twelve years old?” I jump and scramble to grab them out of his hand, but he’s too damn tall.
He wags a finger in my face. “Nuh-uh-uh. This is for your own good. And for the good of all literature.”
I sink down into a squat before leaping as high as I can, and while it does get me a little higher, it’s still not close enough to reach the books, and I stumble into Winston as I land on my feet.
I’m not sure what’s happening as we struggle to regain our footing.
The books thump on the floor somewhere behind me as Winston wraps his arms around me and whirls us around until my back slams against the wall, his hand cradling the back of my head to protect me from the impact.
We’re slightly out of breath, our faces just inches apart.
The books forgotten, the only thing I can focus on now is the distance between Winston’s lips and mine.
He brings both hands to either side of my head and presses them against the wall, caging me in.
“Um,” is what I manage to squeak out, but I have no idea what I was about to say, or even what I want to say.
“Natalie,” he says, a low rasp. His expression is serious but tender. “I wanted to…”
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I blurt, cutting him off.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how I pulled away and didn’t explain why.
Being at the bar was a nice distraction, but Winston needs to understand that it had nothing to do with him.
“When I pulled away…at the lake.” I clear my throat.
“It was because you touched my stomach. It caught me off guard, and it, I don’t know, put me in a weird headspace. ”
I become entranced by the sight of his tongue darting out as he licks his lips. His gaze is intense as he says, “Please explain.”
“I-I’ve struggled to accept that part of my body, so when you tou––”
“I touched your stomach because I love it,” he says, cutting me off. “Your stomach, your eyes, your ass, those lips––every single part of you is fucking perfect, Natalie. I haven’t been able to think about anything else since the day you moved in. All I want to do is touch you.”
“I…” I don’t know what to say to that. I thought I bugged the shit out of him.
He takes a step back to look me up and down. “I don’t know who made you feel like there’s something wrong with your body, but I find you quite dazzling.”
The anxious part of my brain wants to dismiss it as a line to get me to sleep with him, or just a lovely sounding lie to make me feel better. But I can’t deny the hunger in his eyes. Winston makes me feel desired, and that’s an entirely new feeling.
Even when Kyle and I were at our happiest, it felt like he was overlooking parts of me he didn’t like to maintain the status quo in our relationship.
The lights were always turned off during sex, doggy-style and reverse cowgirl were his favorite positions, and when I shopped for bathing suits, he’d always push me toward the one-pieces.
I’d never connected those dots before, and maybe I’m overthinking it, but Winston wanting to touch my stomach because he actually likes that part of me paints these memories in a new light.