Page 17 of Moonlight Hearts

My eyes went wide and I pressed my palm flat to his chest.“Wow, you said it.”

He looked confused, his smooth black eyeliner making the expression even more pronounced.“Huh?Said what?Small Express?”

My excitement made me sway, even as the elevator moved up, creating dozens upon dozens of dangerous opportunities for me to lose a finger between the grate and all the moving parts.

“You said ‘we’ when talking about the Moonlight.”

Soyer sighed.“You’re a funny drunk.Noted.”

I took his hands in mine, a smile tugging at my cheeks.“No, I mean it.You always complain about bookkeeping and all that, but you like the Moonlight, right?Come on, you like it, and not just because of me.If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have wanted to expand the opening hours.In fact, that had to have been your idea.Dwayne wouldn’t have known that was even an option.So it was you.”

“Amory, I believe you’re projecting.”

I rested my head on his shoulder, the smile almost making my cheeks ache.“You always get defensive when I’m right.”

He hugged me to him, scratching my neck as his warm chuckle filled the space between us.“Definitely projecting.”

The elevator stopped, and Soyer pulled it open in a way that made me worried he might get hurt, but of course he didn’t.Not my firebird.He took my hand and walked me along the strangely winding roads of the underground.

“People live here, right?”I asked as we went past buildings—tiny houses basically, and pretty much as cute.

“Of course people live here.”

“Did you ever live down here?”

“No.Although it’s convenient.”

“Hmm, yeah, I can’t imagine you in one of these little houses.”

He stroked the back of my hand with his thumb.“No?Maybe we should rent a cabin in the mountains for a month or two so you can.”

“Maybe that would be nice.”

It was definitely the alcohol that made me say that.I’d never really done any hiking, let alone camping, and the very thought of sleeping out in the wilderness seemed foreign, dangerous even.But I could tell Soyer was all for it.I could tell he liked my half-drunk maybe.

“Perhaps I should have fired you.”

“Hey, that’s not nice!”I gently shoved him sideways, or I tried to, but Soyer being Soyer, he easily compensated and stayed the course.I didn’t buy that he was sober for a second, but he was definitely more sober than me.

Ahead of us, the tunnel split into two, and we went left.The scenery didn’t change much.It was more houses, broken up by smaller stores.Not all of those were open, but some were.I saw food stalls mostly, some selling street food from no fewer than six countries by my count, some specializing in sweets or bread.

There were also grocery stores that had the air of a long-forgotten time, considering I saw old registers and mechanical scales, grains and flour in large glass containers to be weighed out as desired, and hand-painted signs in spotless windows.

It was nice.A little like the Moonlight.Here, where people slept and the stores were mostly closed, the lights had been dimmed too, making it so that we were enjoying what felt like a nighttime walk along a network of cozy little streets, only underground.I saw light peek out through curtains in some of the little houses, and I wondered what it would be like to live here.

“What’s that wistful look about, Amory?Daydreaming of that cabin?”

“Huh?No.Although, what would you do if there were bears or wolves?I was wondering what it’s like to be…well, like Kasey, I guess.When you have to be really careful about living somewhere or when you can’t even go somewhere, at least not where humans are.Unless you hide your snake hair.”

“I see.About the bears—you use bear spray and don’t leave food lying around.Wolves know humans can kill them and will keep their distance.And if your hair is snakes, you can move to a place like this, where there’s plenty of work to be had, where the infrastructure is more than decent, and where taxes aren’t too high.”

“Taxes,” I huffed.“Was it always like this?Was there always another world where people hid from us because of what they looked like?”

Soyer wrapped his arm around my waist and sighed.“My heart, there are many such worlds, even now.”

“How do you mean?”

“Class, wealth, skin color, and other stupid things that don’t really mean shit have generally made great dividers.”