Page 40 of Did It Have To Be Gnomes?! (Carry A Faerie #1)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Winter

A s soon as Miles opened his door, I leaned in to kiss him.

I wanted to deepen the kiss and not come up for air for a few hours, but since I had Goliath with me, I didn’t think that was a good idea.

He loved cats, and Odin loved dogs, but that didn’t necessarily mean they’d love each other.

I couldn’t let us get properly distracted until we knew the two of them would be okay together.

“Hey,” Miles said with a smile before giving Goliath a good pet. “Hey, sweet boy, wanna meet my cat and familiar?”

Goliath licked his face in response, and Miles laughed, then gestured us inside.

Sola was on her perch in the living room, and she trilled a greeting to me, so I said, “Hey, Sola.” She trilled again, and it sounded like a question. “This is Goliath.”

She let out a clicking sound, then soared across the room and landed on the sofa’s armrest. Goliath leaned in to sniff her, and the firebird calmly let him.

After a few seconds, Goliath licked her belly, and she squawked in indignation, chirped at him, then jumped into the air to fly back to her perch.

When I turned back to Miles, he was smiling and holding Odin in his arms. “She likes him, she just doesn’t want to seem too eager.”

That made me snort as I petted the cat. “Hey, cutie pie.”

Goliath whined and sat on his haunches, clearly eager to meet the cat.

“How should we do this?” Miles asked.

“Why don’t you let them sniff each other while you’re holding him. If they’re okay, I’ll get Goliath to lay down and you can put Odin down on the ground, but I’ll keep Goliath on the leash so I can pull him out of the way if need be.”

He gave a nod, then moved closer to Goliath and held the kitty out to him. Goliath sniffed him, and Odin surprised me by sniffing the dog for only a few seconds before rubbing his face against Goliath’s snout. My dog responded like I knew he would, by giving the cat a very slobbery kiss.

Odin’s face was priceless. He looked so offended and disgusted that Miles and I cracked up. If I could’ve stopped laughing for a second, I would’ve taken a picture. Cats were hysterical.

I had Goliath lie down in the middle of the living room, keeping him on the leash, and Miles set Odin on the other side of the living room, letting him control how the meeting went.

We sat on the couch beside one another, not taking our eyes off the pair, both of us ready to jump up at a moment’s notice.

Odin didn’t waste time going over to Goliath, and my dog was so good, keeping his chin on his paws and only watching the cat with curious eyes. The only things moving on Goliath were his tail, his ears, and his eyes, all of them reacting to every little step the cat took.

Odin climbed on top of Goliath’s head and plopped down, then started cleaning his paws, acting like he’d just found the new prime sunbathing spot in the house. And Goliath just… let him.

I snorted. “Well, I think they’re going to be best friends.”

“Looks like it.” Miles let out a sigh and leaned back on the couch, still watching the animals. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not up for cooking tonight. Do you mind if we order in again? I swear I’m not usually this bad. I do actually know how to cook, but this weekend has been a lot.”

I leaned back beside him. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’m not judging you. I also don’t feel like cooking. I can cook, in case you were wondering, I’m just not great at it. Ordering in sounds great to me. What’re you in the mood for?”

“Ugh. Don’t make me choose. Please.”

I snorted. “Fine, subs and sandwiches?”

“Perfect.”

We put together an order, sent it over, and entertained ourselves by watching Odin and Goliath play.

I let Goliath off his leash after a while, but we still kept an eye on them.

I didn’t think we’d have a problem, which I was relieved about.

If I was spending all my spare time with Miles, it was nice to know I could bring Goliath with me so he didn’t get too lonely at home alone.

When the food arrived, we decided to eat in the living room since he had a coffee table and we were in the mood to lounge. We spread the food out, and I frowned when I realized they forgot the ketchup packets. How can anyone possibly eat fries without ketchup?

“No ketchup.” I frowned at Miles.

“I have some in the fridge. Let me go—”

“No, no, no. Let me get it. You don’t have to get up.

” I hopped up before he could argue with me, and I walked into the kitchen, opening the fridge as soon as I went inside.

I noticed that magnet he’d shown me again and bit the inside of my cheek as I pictured Miles using whiteout on the poor little gnome.

He was adorable, and I understood why he didn’t like looking at them after what’d happened when he was a teenager. I was so, so, so happy he was able to get out of that situation because of his scholarship. Thank god he’d had a full ride and hadn’t needed to rely on his parents after that.

I searched every shelf on the door, then looked everywhere else for the ketchup bottle, but couldn’t find it, so I called out, “I don’t see any ketchup in the fridge.”

“Oh, shit. Sorry. I forgot I used it all the other night and never got around to replacing it. There should be an unopened one in the pantry on the bottom shelf, if you don’t mind grabbing it?”

“Don’t mind at all, sugar butt.” That name was so ridiculous. I had no idea where it’d even come from or why it kept coming out of my mouth instead of something normal like sweetheart, honey, or baby, or… something.

I walked over and opened the pantry. It only took me a few seconds to find the ketchup, but when I was standing up from grabbing it, I noticed a hole in the big marshmallow bag.

I grabbed the bag, pulling it off the shelf so I could close it up and maybe throw a piece of tape on it, but I gasped the second it was off the shelf.

Behind the bag, there was a small box—it looked like maybe it was an individual cereal box, or something along those lines, since I couldn’t see the label.

The box was torn apart on one side, so it was lying flat and open on the shelf, and inside it, there were a bunch of tissues, folded up almost like a mattress.

And on top of that tissue mattress was a motherfucking gnome.

It was tiny and had a turquoise hat, a long beard, and was using a marshmallow as a pillow and another tissue as a blanket.

To my surprise, the little guy looked at me and didn’t meep or try to run away. I could tell it was scared, but maybe it was one of those flight, fight, or freeze scenarios, and the gnome was definitely freezing.

We stared at each other for a good thirty seconds before I shook my head, put the marshmallow bag back the way it’d been—if a faerie had gotten into it already, Miles would have to replace it anyway, so there was no point in trying to save the marshmallows—and I shut the pantry door.

I’d tell Miles. I absolutely would.

But today had been traumatizing enough with all the gnomes everywhere, especially with their red eyes and violent ways.

He didn’t need to know he had a gnome problem in his own house.

All that’d accomplish was him freaking out and deciding to inspect every inch of his place so he could put traps down in every room.

Because where there was one gnome, there were twenty—or more.

So I’d tell him tomorrow when we could do something about it. It was way too late to start a project that big right now, and honestly, the gnomes weren’t going to harm anything.

Unless Miles had a cursed object in the house, but the likelihood of that was nearly zero.

Right?

Right. Yes. No curses. Obviously.

Shaking my head at myself, I made my way back into the living room with the ketchup bottle in hand.

“Everything okay?” he asked, looking innocent and sexy and beautiful all at once.

I offered a smile. “Yeah… yeah, it is.”

Then I set the ketchup on the coffee table and bent down to kiss him before I sat down so I could dig in.

No more problems today.

Tonight was about Miles and me spending time together, worry-free. Hopefully, we could make out and joke around and have a nice, peaceful, faerie-free evening.

Together.