Page 13

He smiles like he’s won the lottery, and my stomach drops at how stupidly gorgeous he is. How dare he!

Night has swallowed the last glow of twilight, casting heavy shadows over the sidewalk. We sit on a graffiti-covered bench out front of the cafe, streetlights flickering overhead. Wyn watches the other customers and passersby, head tilted like he’s studying a new species. It’s... weirdly endearing.

I unwrap my burger and take a massive bite. Grease drips from my chin onto the wax paper, and Wyn stares intently.

“You’re very… efficient,” he says, focusing on my mouth like I’m the meal he’s hungry for.

I glare. “Eat. Before I make you wear it.”

He sniffs the burger as if he expects it to explode. Then he bites, chews carefully, and swallows.

His eyes flick up to mine. “It’s much better than it smells.”

I bark a laugh. “Glowing review. ”

A pale, hunched form drifts out of the alley that runs behind the cafe. A teenager who died in a car crash two years back, wearing a hoodie, a baseball cap, and a sullen expression. I know him well, unfortunately.

“Hot date?” he snarls out.

“If you haven’t got anything nice to say, Ethan,” I reply, my mouth full of fries. “Go haunt someone else.” He’s always crashing the pop-up ghost tours I host around the old neighborhood, being an absolute, disruptive little shit.

Damn. I forgot Wyn can hear me supposedly talking to myself again. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look at the ghost or say anything.

I narrow my eyes at him.

He’s too still. Hyper aware.

I don’t even know why I haven’t told him I can talk to the dead. Maybe I’m just tired of being the weird one. Then again, this guy thinks he’s a wolf. So perhaps I should come clean. When the stars align. Or I’m drunk.

When Ethan realizes I’m not going to engage, he flips Wyn off and drifts away laughing.

Wyn’s shoulders relax, and he bites into his burger again.

We eat in silence for a while, then, finally, he speaks. “Zylah doesn’t trust me.”

I smile. “You’re supposedly my long-lost, mentally unstable family friend who needed to be dragged off the kitchen floor naked. Can’t imagine why she’d be wary.”

He winces. “You told her I showed up naked in your kitchen?”

“No. I’m joking. I’m not that silly. She’d kick you out so fast your head would still be spinning when you hit the lawn. She has heard about your wolf-boy delusion, though. Wasn’t too worried about that.”

Electricity zaps from my arm to my heart when he puts his hand over mine. “Thanks. It means a lot that you’re helping me, Summer. Anything I can do for you, just tell me. I want to make your life easier, better. Safer. I wish you didn’t have to do this.”

I frown. “Do what?”

He gestures around. “Work too hard like these people. And… be alone.”

I laugh. “I’m fine. My mom and dad weren’t the best at parenting, to be honest. So, other than Zylah and Kurt, I feel like I’ve been alone most of my life. That’s the way I like it. It’s efficient. No one to let me down.”

He squeezes my fingers, his thumb brushing over my knuckles in a way that makes my brain stutter and reminds me we’ve basically been holding hands for the last few seconds.

“I want you to be happy,” he says.

Oh, come on . That’s a rather intense statement from someone I only laid eyes on a couple of days ago.

“Why do I feel like we’ve met before?” I ask. “Whenever I look at you, it’s such a weird sensation.”

An almost pained expression crosses his face, and he literally bites his lip, stifling words that look ready to bust out of his infuriatingly sensual mouth.

“Go on. Out with it. Say whatever crazy thing you’re bottling up,” I coax.

“I want to. But I can’t. You won’t believe me anyway.”

Yawning, I stand up and drop my burger wrapper in the bin. “I’m beat. Come on. Let’s go home. ”

We walk in silence, the backs of our fingers brushing every now and then, sending unwelcome sparks zapping through my body. The streetlights throw long shadows over the pavement that Wyn keeps an unnervingly focused eye on, like he expects them to rise up and attack us.

I huff a laugh. “If any of the lampposts offend me, I promise I’ll let you know.”

He nods solemnly. “Make sure you do.”

Finally, when Gravenshade comes into view, I stop and cross my arms. “No following me to work tomorrow, okay? That’s definitely weird. If Zylah found out, she wouldn’t hesitate to cut your throat with one of her scalpels before you even got a chance to explain. Promise me.”

“Uh… do I have to?”

“Yep, you do. Vow it, Wyn.”

“Okay, sure. I vow I won’t follow you to work tomorrow. Satisfied?”

“Hardly. Now swear you won’t find your own way there separately and stand on bodyguard duty all day?” I insist. “Nor will you sleep outside my bedroom tonight or tomorrow night.”

He sighs, big shoulders sagging in defeat. “Fine. I vow I won’t guard you at work tomorrow or sleep outside your room tonight or tomorrow night.”

I jerk my chin toward the house. “Basement’s that way, wolf-boy.”

He starts walking but glances back once, green eyes gleaming under the streetlights, like a cat or a… wolf. “Goodnight, Su mmer.”

Smiling, I roll my eyes, trying to seem unaffected. “Don’t make it weird,” I say, my chest squeezing anyway as I watch him go.