Page 87 of Found in Obscurity

Lorin hurried over, carefully sinking to his knees and setting the plates down between them. He didn’t take his eyes off Kit.

“That sounds like it still hurts.”

Kit shook his head. He didn’t have his notebook to hand, it was in the nightstand that Lorin had said was his now. He did an okay sign for good measure.

Lorin huffed, his mouth curling up at the corners. “I can’t believe you finally said something. Have you been doing this behind my back all this time?”

Kit beamed unrepentantly, taking Lorin’s hand in his own just because he wanted to. Lorin stroked a thumb over his shyly.

“Looks like I’ll have to buy Glenn two coffees.”

It was clearly meant as a throwaway comment. A joke. But Kit widened his eyes in happiness at the idea of getting out of the house. He motioned outside to the weather. They could totally go. He’d seen the snowplow go by in the early hours of the morning while he was out as a fox.

Lorin frowned, trying to interpret. “You wanna go today?”

Kit nodded adamantly.

Lorin scratched his neck awkwardly. “I don’t know…”

Kit let go of Lorin’s hand and crawled over to retrieve his notebook. He crawled back again, flipping to a clean page to write,He’s your friend. Don’t be shy.

“I’m not shy,” Lorin said, twin spots of red bleeding through his skin.

A hermit then.

“Not you too.” Lorin groaned.

Please,he wrote, pouting.

Lorin was helpless against it. “Fine! I’ll call my grandma and see if we can go to town for a little bit. We’re actually running low on food, and I have some library books to return. We have about three hours before you shift back, which should give us plenty of time. We can keep a low profile.”

Glenn?

“I don’t have his number,” Lorin said, clearly avoiding the topic. Kit pouted again and Lorin sighed. “If he’s there we can say hello, okay?”

And buy two coffees.

“And buy two coffees,” Lorin repeated, picking up a fork and spearing a piece of bacon that he shoved into his mouth. He mumbled around it, “You’d think you were my conscience and not my familiar.”

And mate, Kit wrote with satisfaction, darting in to plant a kiss directly on his mouth and snickering gleefully when Lorin choked on his bacon.

They finished breakfast quickly and then there was a small fight over what Kit was allowed to wear outside of the house. He’d consented to the thick boots that were too big for his feet, and the coat and scarf, but refused point-blank to wear the jeans.

It only ended when Lorin’s grandma beeped her ancient horn at them from outside.

Kit raced out of the door in the pajama pants with his shoes flopping on his feet and a scarf end trailing after him.

“Kit!”

Kit opened the back door and dove inside, locking it after himself. He smiled smugly from the other side of the glass as Lorin stood there, hair ruffled, with a pair of jeans held in his hands and his bag of books slung over his shoulder.

“Well hello to you too,” Grandma said from the front seat.

“Hi,” Kit said back.

Grandma raised a brow from underneath the shadow of her witch’s hat. “Talking now?”

Kit wavered his hand from side to side.