Page 36

“Sit here,” he says, pulling out a stool. He goes into the kitchen and starts pulling things out of the cupboards. “I think we need hot chocolate.”

I hesitate. Can I admit to him that chocolate is bitter and I don’t like it?

Ezra boils water and scoops spoonfuls of powder into the mugs, then takes out a bag full of white blobby things. He plops them into the liquid and slides the mug across the counter to me. “Be careful. It’s hot.”

I lift it to my nose. It smells sweeter than I expected. Carefully, I take a tiny sip.

“Oh!”

“I thought you’d like that.” He grins.

I take another sip. The warm, velvety sweetness rolls down my tongue. “Wow. It’s not like chocolate at all.”

“The stuff Syril keeps in the kitchen, you mean?” Ezra chuckles. “Syril has high-class taste buds — that chocolate is for connoisseurs. This stuff is for the masses, like us.”

“Pardon you, but I’m a prince,” I say snootily, but I take a much larger sip, my eyes drifting shut at the comforting taste.

Ezra’s laugh is warm and rich as the drink. “Come to the living room.”

I sink into his deep couch, clutching the mug. He sits across from me and puts his own drink on the low table, taking a deep breath.

“You deserve to know the truth about me.”

It comes out low and somber. The truth , like a gavel . I shiver, but not out of fear. I wish I could reassure him of how hungrily hoard every crumb I learn about him. I want every truth.

“You know I’ve been to prison.”

I nod.

“In human society, that makes it pretty hard to do, well… anything. Find a job. Rent an apartment. Meet people. I’m not exactly proud of where I am in life, either.

I work at the club — and don’t get me wrong, I love it, but it’s not really a career, and I’ll probably be working at one bar or another until I’m fifty.

Other humans mostly avoid me. I live in a shit-hole.

” He takes a deep breath. “I owe a lot of people a hell of a lot of money. That’s the really hard part.

The part that weighs me down the most. It’s not like I don’t deserve it — I’m not innocent.

But it’s tough to swallow that it all stems from a couple shitty decisions I made as a teenager.

It’s hard not to think it’s because there’s something wrong with me. Something innate.”

“I don’t believe that,” I blurt.

He only shakes his head. “When I was sixteen, I met a man. His name was Jasper.”

I can practically taste the history of the name. “Who was he?”

This time Ezra’s laugh is dry and brittle.

“He was just a guy, I guess. He was twenty five when I met him, almost a decade older than me, but in hindsight, twenty five is pretty young. We started as, well, friends is generous. Acquaintances, I guess. I met him at a friend’s party.

He seemed cool and fun to me, and he knew where all the best parties were.

I idolized him.” He rubs his face. “I was a dumb kid.”

He pauses, and I resist the urge to fill the silence.

“By eighteen, he had me on a leash like a puppy. He was the hot older guy who bought me beer and let me hang out with his cool friends. I was starstruck, and it didn’t matter that Fitzie never liked him.

I didn’t tell my parents about him. On my eighteenth birthday he got me a fake ID and took me to a club.

We danced and drank all night, and he introduced me to coke. ” Ezra shakes his head.

“Coke?”

“Cocaine. It’s an illegal drug, a stimulant.

Gets you really high —” he gestures above his head.

“Then you crash hard and want more. Guys like Jasper bring little bags of coke to clubs and keep the supply flowing, for a price, of course. All he wanted me to do was carry the baggies while he went around and greased the wheels of his business, reeling in customers. I was so stupid — I thought he really liked me. I thought I was special. So I did it without even questioning him.”

My hands tighten on my knees. “He doesn’t sound like a nice person.”

Ezra barks a laugh. “No. It turns out he was a real piece of work. After I graduated high school, I decided not to go to college — he convinced me he was planning to move sideways into marijuana just as it became legal, and I’d join his business legitimately.

It would all be above board. I was nineteen when I got arrested with thirty grams of coke in my pocket.

More than enough to have me prosecuted as a dealer.

Jasper vanished in a puff of smoke — didn’t pick up my calls, didn’t show up to the trial, even though I know his friends told him about it. I never saw him again.”

“But the drugs were his . How could you be blamed?” I’m surprised at the anger that bubbles up in me.

He shrugs. “Were they? They were in my pocket, and I knew he was selling them. The drugs left my possession when money hit his palm. That put Jasper in the perfect position to get off free of any charges, and it didn’t take me long to realize that was my actual job from the start.

I was his fall guy. Like I said, I was stupid.

I figured it out when he didn’t pick up the phone to bail me out. ”

“It doesn’t sound like you were stupid,” I say quietly. “It sounds like you trusted someone who wasn’t worthy of your trust.”

“Depends how you look at it.” Ezra looks down. “Either way, I went to prison.”

I lean forward, wings twitching with frustration. My hand lands on his knee where it sticks out from the robe. “It wasn’t your fault, though!”

“That’s the thing. Jasper was… well, he had a rough life.

Kinda like Fitzie. His dad was an asshole, beat the shit out of him until he ran away.

Coke was a livelihood for him, a tough one, but he was convinced he was building a business.

My life wasn’t anything like that. My parents are still married, still live in the same house I grew up in.

They loved me. Gave me everything. I threw it all away just because I couldn’t be happy with what I had.

” He rubs his chest. “I felt like something was missing, and Jasper seemed to tick all the boxes. A few wrong turns and here I am.”

“ Here isn’t so bad, though, is it?” I ask cautiously.

He looks away. His shoulders hunch and his chest caves in, as if he’s trying to make himself smaller. My heart swells with shocking protectiveness, and my skin tingles. His knee is hot under the thin cloth of his pants.

He winces. “Lys —”

I look down. My claws are out.

I yank my hand back. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He captures the offending hand. “You’re right — there’s a lot I’m grateful for. You, for one. But it’s hard, too. I haven’t seen my parents since I got out. I’m too ashamed.”

My heart twists. “That sounds lonely.”

He squeezes my fingers. “It’s not exactly on the same level as losing your entire family to a magic-sucking cult.”

“Maybe not. But everyone’s burden is different.”

“That’s what Fitize tries to tell me,” he sighs.

I huff. “Well, he sounds like a smart person. Listen to him.”

Ezra’s mouth twitches. “Don’t let him hear you say that. I’ll never live it down.”

He lets go of my hand and gets up, pacing in front of the television. I drink the rest of my hot chocolate while he picks things up randomly, dropping clothes into a pile on the floor and replacing the cushions that are strewn across the carpet. I wait patiently for him to come back.

When I’m done, he takes my mug into the kitchen. Briefly, I wonder if I should leave — but the sense of something unfinished keeps me pinned to the couch.

Clarity is unfurling in me, just like he said. It’s as if I’ve been in a fog and it’s slowly thinning, and the first thing I see is him.

I can’t quite tell what it means, but it’s important.

Finally, he sits down again. “Do you want to watch a few episodes of Unnatural?”

I hesitate.

Ezra rubs his face. “Let me rephrase that. I want to watch my comfort show and hold you. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” I breathe, relieved.

My wings vibrate as he sets everything up and I push them into the couch to hide their frantic movement.

I ache to explain how perfect he is, how patient and kind and gentle, how he has nothing to be ashamed of.

I stare at him as if I can project it into his mind.

But I know better than anyone that fear can’t be controlled with words.

He glances sideways at me as he sets the remote control down on the table.

“I’ve never told anyone about this,” he says. “Not the whole sob story. I mean, Fitzie knows because he was there to see it play out in real time. I’ve never said it out loud to anyone else. Not even in prison. It’s stupid, but… I still felt like I’d be betraying Jasper if I let it spill.”

He slumps into the couch again. I shuffle closer, lifting his arm so I can squeeze in underneath. He huffs in amusement, in spite of the shadows still in his eyes.

I pause when I’m nose to nose with him. “Thank you for telling me.”

His dark eyes search mine. “You mean that.”

“I want to know everything about you,” I tell him honestly.

A smile flickers over his lips. “Me, too. About you, I mean. The good. The bad. The quirks that make you you. The little things no one else has ever gotten to see. All of it gets stored away up here.” He taps his temple, this time no bitterness in his eyes. Only clear, gentle warmth.

I can’t help leaning in, breathing in the air that he breathes out, nudging my lips against his, my heart fluttering. Ezra kisses me back so gently and carefully that I feel like the wings of my heart will burst out of my chest and engulf the whole world.