Page 19 of Christmas with a Chimera (Claw Haven)

E mma was gone.

No goodbye. Not even a wave. Just a conspicuously empty cabin and a text message he found when he was considering calling the cops to report a kidnapping.

Got a ride home , the text message said.

Arthur had stood there in the living room for a long time, staring at the screen and trying to convince himself there wasn’t a pit opening in his chest. Even with that last-minute argument, he thought they were getting along.

He had been more vulnerable with her in the past week and a half than he had been with anybody in the last decade .

Not to mention the knotting, which had made him feel like a fumbling teenager all over again.

Or, more accurately, it made him feel something he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager.

Stripped bare, nothing to hide. Just Arthur.

She didn’t message him again. Not when he asked if she wanted to get coffee the next day or dinner the day after that.

Not until he asked if she’d seen the articles that had just come out, full of hazy half-truths about their teenage relationship and damning photos of them mid-kiss, her fingers tangled in his mane.

I really did try to get them to pull those stories , he messaged her. I know you like your privacy.

This, finally, was what made her break her silence. He opened the message expecting anger, annoyance, or at least wary exasperation.

Her reply had none of that. It was one sentence, short and bland enough to make him wish she had called him up to yell at him.

Thanks for trying.

* * *

Jennifer ambushed him several days later as a makeup artist rearranged his mane.

“This is ridiculous,” she said, tugging a blanket tighter around her and shivering. “Give me a soundstage and potato flakes any day. I’m freezing my toes off.”

“You get used to it,” he assured her. He sent her a reassuring smile, staying as still as possible for the makeup artist tugging at his mane. They were standing in the middle of Main Street, filming the confession scene.

Jennifer stood next to him, watching Rusty tell off the camera crew. Somebody had dropped an important piece of sound equipment, and they were running out of time. They only had a few hours before the sun started going down.

“I thought you’d gotten warm blood in LA,” Jennifer said. “The cold definitely seems to be affecting you now.”

“Is it?”

She laughed. “You’ve flubbed more lines today than you have in this whole shoot! You can admit your mane isn’t that thick. I know some chimeras back home, and they can’t even cope with frost.”

Arthur forced a laugh. He’d botched more than a few lines because he was too busy watching the street they were shooting on, hoping Emma would walk by.

They’d closed it off, but there were still people gathered around the barriers, taking photos or asking for autographs in between takes.

Arthur had been over to them a few times before Rusty made him stop.

“You ferreted me out,” Arthur said. “I can’t deal with Alaskan winters anymore.”

Jennifer beamed. “I knew it.”

The makeup artist gave his mane one last painful comb and then raced off. Jennifer swayed sideways, her blanketed elbow brushing his.

“Sooo,” she said. “Talked to Rusty lately?”

Arthur gave her a blank look. They had all been talking to Rusty. He was the director, and they’d talked to him five minutes ago.

“Alone,” she explained.

“Not today,” he said. “Why? Am I getting fired?”

She laughed, shoulders shaking with it. She even squeezed his bicep, which made him nervous.

Was he getting fired, or was she just flirting?

She didn’t usually lay it on this thick.

Especially when no one was in earshot. She usually waited for some of the crew to come close.

It was her way of keeping the gossip rags fed, Rusty told him before shooting started back in LA.

She made it look like an accident, but she never let anything slip that she didn’t discuss with her agent first.

“Nobody’s going to fire Arthur Pineclaw,” she said. “Seriously, though. You should talk to him later.”

A dozen things ran through Arthur’s head: another movie contract, a bizarre publicity stunt, a last-minute rewrite.

Those articles about Emma coming back to bite him in the ass.

Movie star’s surprise fling with ex-fiancée while filming in hometown.

It was just bad reporting. They were never technically engaged.

Even if he had been looking at rings before that fateful Christmas Eve.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said and grinned.

* * *

He met Rusty at Sour Claw after shooting had ended for the day.

“What a goddamn shoot,” Rusty said, throwing back his second whiskey since they sat down. His face twisted up. “Shit. You did not joke about how crappy this stuff is. This is the best they can do?”

Arthur grunted in agreement, swishing it around in his mouth. He hated to admit it, but it was growing on him.

“It was the cold,” he said as Rusty placed the glass down on the dirty bar with a disgusted look.

Rusty looked over. “Huh?”

“All the line flubs.” Arthur winced, performative and handsome. He could do anything handsomely, including apologize. “I’ll do better when we’re out of the subzero temperatures.”

“Right,” Rusty said distractedly. “Sure.”

Arthur stared into his glass. Emma would have poked holes in that excuse without a thought.

Nobody ever poked holes in his excuses anymore.

Which was good, for a long time. It was better that way.

It was certainly easier when no one really knew what was going on with you.

When you hardly even knew yourself, perfectly content to believe in the mask you showed everybody.

Emma was always pulling back the damn mask, always seeing him.

Maybe that was what had happened. She’d seen him and decided he wasn’t worth it.

“Arthur. Arthur!”

Arthur jolted. He looked up to find Rusty waving his cap in front of his face expectantly.

“It is not cold enough for you to be spacey in here,” Rusty announced, shoving his cap back on his balding head. “Hey. So. Wanted to talk to you about something, bud.”

He inched his chair over. Arthur did the same, eyeing a fairy fluttering at the end of the bar with a dishcloth.

She’d gotten Arthur to sign her boobs that first night, and she looked like she was going to do her damnedest to listen in before an elderly minotaur hobbled over and pointed toward a broken glass near the toilets.

The fairy fluttered toward where he was pointing, a broom in her hand.

Arthur turned back to Rusty, satisfied no one was going to spill their secrets to the closest tabloid. “What’s up?”

“We think it’d be a good idea for you and Jen to start something before the movie comes out next year.”

Arthur felt his tail flick behind him. He stilled it immediately. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been asked to start something up with a costar for publicity purposes. Sometimes it was just a few candids, other times it was a genuine relationship. It depended on how far they wanted to take it.

“Right,” Arthur said, straightening his shirt collar. “Of course. Real or fake?”

“Whatever you want.” Rusty took another slug of whiskey. “But between you and me, she’s all for it. Really for it—and you’d have to be an idiot to turn that down.”

Arthur laughed. It felt stale, but he was good at his job. Nobody would’ve been able to tell it was bullshit. Nobody except one human who wouldn’t text him back.

“I’m totally with you,” he said.

“Great.” Rusty dug in his jeans pocket. “I’ll let her know. And your agent, she helped me set it up, tell her I said thanks. Now—”

Arthur cut him off. “Actually, can we hold off on that?”

Rusty paused, fingers hovering over the screen. “On telling your agent?”

“On the whole thing.” Arthur beamed, channeling every bit of charm he had into it. “I need to check on something first.”

Irritation flickered over Rusty’s tired face. Then he took a drink and it was replaced by a tight smile.

“Sure,” he said. “Let me know by tomorrow, alright, bud? We need to get photos before filming shuts down. Makeup chair shots, and you two eating together between takes, goofing off. All that fun shit. We’ll have to say it started pretty late in the game since there are those photos of you and your ex making out. Have any paparazzi been bothering you?”

“No.” Most of the photos that had ended up online, including the ones of him and Emma kissing during the tour, had been taken by opportunistic tourists. Claw Haven was a long way to travel for most paparazzi.

Rusty clapped his shoulder. “Glad to hear it, bud.”

Arthur watched him finish off his glass.

He’d heard Rusty talking to paparazzi on the phone earlier today, trying to make them come up to Claw Haven.

Arthur wasn’t mad—it was good for Rusty’s career, for both their careers.

But it made Arthur think back to that time Rusty had admitted he was surprised Arthur didn’t like paparazzi since he got along with them so well.

I thought you thrived on the attention , Rusty had told him over his at-home bar. Sure , they’re pushy. But I thought you didn’t care about that. Anything for a spotlight, or whatever.

Arthur had smiled and laughed and said all the right things. But it had rankled him in some deep-down place he tried not to look at. Anything for a spotlight. Was that what people thought of him? Was that still what Rusty thought?

He watched Rusty texting away and tried to think of a conversation they’d had that didn’t eventually circle back to work.

He couldn’t. Which was…fine. Arthur liked talking about work.

He enjoyed it. He didn’t talk about personal stuff very much, anyway.

Neither did Rusty. Actually, Arthur couldn’t come up with much about Rusty’s personal life.

He had a wife, he didn’t work out, he’d failed out of boarding school… and that was it.