Page 15 of Screwed by the Minotaur in Hallow’s Cove (Hallow’s Cove #6)

Chapter ten

Rick

I woke up in her bed, sunlight knifing past the old curtains and dappling my skin with gold.

It was too warm and too soft, the mattress springy in that way only a brand-new bed could be.

For a split second, disoriented and dumb, I could’ve sworn it was my own place—until the scent of Lea hit me, honest and human and bright as a bouquet.

I blinked, working the last of sleep from my eyes.

Lea was sprawled beside me, half-buried in the quilt, her curls a halo of wild around her face. She slept with her mouth open, arm thrown across my chest, drooling a little in the corner, and I’d never seen anything so perfect. The sun picked out the freckles on her shoulder.

I watched her chest rise and fall, steady but shallow.

It took a minute to realize her hand was still on my heart, fingers splayed and perfectly still, as if she needed to make sure it kept beating.

I smiled at the thought, then, unable to help myself, brushed a single curl from her cheek.

Her nose scrunched and she made a noise, swatting at my hand like a bug, but didn’t wake up.

It was well past noon. The light was deeper, fuller, the sort that made you think you’d slept through a whole season instead of just a few hours.

She roused gradually, grumbling into the pillow, then blinked at me with bleary suspicion. “You’re still here?” she croaked, voice full of sleep and surprise. “I was half-convinced you’d Houdini again.”

I snorted, tucking my head into the pillow to hide how much it stung. “I don’t plan on running this time,” I said, softer than I meant to.

She propped herself up on one elbow, surveying me with a mixture of skepticism and something warmer. “Good,” she said, and the word glowed in my chest. “Because if you did, I’d have to tell the entire downtown that you cry after sex. And not in a cute way.”

I barked a laugh, rolling toward her. “You wouldn’t.”

She leveled a finger at me. “Try me. I’m already on a first name basis with the coffee shop and two-thirds of the construction crew. I have more social firepower than you think.”

I considered this, then rolled onto my back, fingers laced behind my head, and let her enjoy her victory. “I surrender,” I said. “But if you’re going to destroy my reputation, at least let me buy you a real dinner first.”

She snorted, then eyed me warily. “Are you asking me on a date?”

I tried to play it cool, but my throat tightened. “Yeah. I am. A real one. Not just…” I gestured vaguely at the bed and the tangle of limbs and sheets that was our entire relationship history. “Not just this.”

The silence stretched. She chewed her lip, thinking, and I wondered if I’d misread everything. But then she rolled closer, curls spilling across my chest, and grinned that crooked, vulnerable grin I was coming to crave.

“So what did you have in mind? Candlelight? Moonlit stroll through the cemetery? Or just a couple of burgers at the diner, with extra fries and a milkshake with two straws?” She feathered her fingers along my shoulder—teasing, tentative.

I fought a smile, letting her think she’d stumped me. “We could start basic: burgers and milkshake, like you said. Then work our way to moonlit cemetery strolls once I’m sure you won’t stake me in the heart and steal my keys.”

She snorted. “Please. If I was going for heart or keys I would’ve done it last night.” The words sounded light, but her fingers curled possessively over my chest. “Besides, I like you with your heart intact.” Her voice dipped, the joke almost trembling at the edge. “It looks good on you.”

We fell quiet, a new kind of hush threading between us. The sunlight on her face made her look different—tender and sleepy, every line soft and unfinished. I wanted to reach out and press her into my life, make her a part of it.

“I’ll pick you up?”

She looked up, a little shy. “Yeah. Tomorrow. Seven?”

I nodded, drinking in her face, the upward flick of her mouth, the fringe of her lashes. She pecked me once, feather-light, like a promise.

“Now go,” she whispered, pushing at my chest. “I have to get the rest of these boxes unpacked. And if you’re here, I’ll just keep distracting myself with your… face.”

“Face, huh?”

“Or other parts. Don’t get cocky.”

I left, finally, with a dumb grin and a saunter in my steps even Randy would pick up on.

Lea

I spent the rest of the day and early evening unpacking and blissed out on my unexpected morning with Rick.

I went to bed early, tired from multiple days of an emotional rollercoaster back-to-back.

When I woke, it was with a start—my phone vibrating violently against the cheap bedside table, a harpy shriek of ringtone I’d assigned to Britt years ago.

My body still hummed with the aftershock of Rick, but the rest of me had gone stiff and sore, as if sleep had decided to punish me for exerting myself.

I groped blindly for the phone, knocking it to the floor in the process, then rolled out of bed and answered it on the second ring, voice croaky.

“Jesus, Britt, what time is it?”

“Eight-thirty,” she fired back, all clipped vowels and caffeine. “Have you been murdered yet?”

“Not unless this counts as an out-of-body experience,” I muttered, flopping back onto the mattress and drawing the sheet over my eyes. “What’s up?”

“I called you three times last night. You went missing from our scheduled debrief. Are you being held against your will by hunky monsters?” She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “Or did you finally get some?”

I laughed, but it came out more like a whimper. “You don’t want the details, trust me. My body is in recovery mode. I can barely walk.”

“Oh, I want every detail. But that’s not why I’m calling.” There was a pause, the sound of her breathing. “I wish I could say it was a social call, but I’ve got some bad news.”

The shift in her tone was like a cold hand up my spine. I sat up, fully awake now, clutching the sheet to my chest. “What happened?”

“A pipe burst at the shop,” Britt said. “I got a call from the building manager this morning. Flooded the whole back room and at least half the storeroom. I went over there and the place was a swamp. It looks… bad, Lea. It looks like we lost most of the seed inventory, too. The new stuff you ordered for spring? Floated off like tiny, expensive rafts.” Britt’s voice tried for lightness, but there was a tremor under it.

“I know you left the city to get away from this kind of bullshit, but I don’t think we have a choice.

Building management is saying you have to come back for a look—your name is on the deed. ”

The words knocked the breath right out of me.

I stared at the ceiling, the patch where new paint met old, and tried to picture the shop underwater—my mother’s counters warped and peeling, buckets of seeds and bulbs dissolved to useless mush.

I’d left everything in decent order so I wouldn’t have to look back, and now it wanted me, like some ancient, needy ghost.

“Lea?” Britt’s voice was gentler now, the way it got whenever one of us needed to cry at work and didn’t want anyone else to see. “Are you okay?”

I took a slow breath. My heart was a sodden lump, but I could hear my mother’s voice—her real one, not the cheap imitation my memory liked to play when I was feeling weak—saying, “It’s just stuff, baby.

Stuff can be fixed.” I wanted to believe that, but I also felt the loss in my marrow.

That shop had been my mom’s entire world.

It had been mine, too, for longer than I cared to admit.

I cleared my throat, forcing my voice to steady. “Yeah. I’m okay. I’ll, uh, come back and look at it. Let them know I’ll be there tonight or first thing tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?” Britt whispered, as if she already knew the answer.

Around the room, boxes crowded the walls, cutting unfamiliar shapes out of sunlight.

It was nothing like the old shop. I thought about the wreckage waiting for me, the memory of my mom in every water-logged splinter.

But I also thought of what Maisie said, about surviving one life only to start another. I could do this. I had to.

“No, I need to see it myself,” I said. “I’ll get on the road as soon as I get dressed.”

I threw on clothes—yesterday’s shirt, clean enough, and my softest jeans, the ones with the paint flecks and a rip in the knee from when I’d tried to move a dresser alone.

I didn’t bother with makeup or my usual braid; I just pulled my hair back into a poof and silk scarf and jammed my feet into battered sneakers.

I grabbed my wallet, keys, and a granola bar, and was halfway out the door when I realized I hadn’t called Rick.

We were supposed to go on our first date that night—or our first redo date.

I found his number—he’d entered it in my phone as “Rick (Hardware, Minotaur, Hot)”—and pressed call before I could overthink it. It rang twice before he answered, voice already awake but husky.

“Hey, Lea,” he said, and I heard him smile into the phone. “Was just thinking about you.”

I almost lost it right there. “That’s sweet. Listen, something came up. I have to go back to the city for a day, maybe two.”

I braced myself for a joke, a quip, something to detach us from the awkward intimacy of actually needing each other. But all he said was, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just… it’s a long story. Can I tell you when I get back?”

He made a contemplative noise, then: “You want company?”

It was the last thing I expected, and I almost said yes, even though the idea of showing him the ruin of my old life made me feel naked and exposed. “I think this is something I need to do on my own.”

“Yeah.” He waited, giving me a full five seconds to change my mind, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it. “I get that. You know where to find me when you’re back?”

I could see him in my head, broad-shouldered and still a little awkward, pacing a hardware aisle or hunched over a cup of black coffee. I wanted to reach through the phone and grab on, but instead I just said, “Yeah. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

“I won’t. Promise.”

I let myself believe it. Then I hung up, squared my shoulders, and headed for the car.