Page 59 of The Call of Azure (Unexpected Love #3)

Gabriel

“Maybe we don’t have to do this.” I half sigh, half whine as I pick at the sticker on the front of the glass display case advertising that they offer kids under eight a free cookie.

My initial reaction to the sign is that it’s hilarious.

I like thinking that Liam likes to wind up the little goblins on sugar before sending them on their way for their adults to deal with, but I bet he does it just because he really is a nice enough guy to give away all his cookies to make kids happy.

“If this witch really did bring the two of you together, you need to go to thank her, if nothing else.” Lilith gently presses my hand away from where I’m destroying their sticker.

I’ve been at the bakery for nearly an hour, and she’s kept me company the entire time.

I got off work, picked up Cupcake, and headed over to pick up Liam instead of hanging out at home waiting until the shop closed for the night.

I’d have just gotten myself even more worked up hanging out alone with no one to distract me.

I wouldn’t say that Lilith and I are real friends or anything, but we might be getting close to something that resembles that.

I guess that tends to happen when you’re chatty and social, and so is the manager of your boyfriend’s bakery.

That’s right, my boyfriend. My tall, handsome merman boyfriend.

The past two months have flown by in a blink.

After Liam spent the night at my place the evening of the lumberjack festival, he basically never left.

Okay, he left terrifyingly early the next morning for work, but we texted a handful of times during the day whenever we each could snag a moment, and I’d invited him over for dinner.

He stayed that night, too, and it was also filled with easy conversation and laughter and mind-melting sex, just like the one before.

He asked me to his place the night after that, and after the three of us spent a restless night crushing each other in his “too small for two big men and tiny dog” bed, we shifted back to my place the next night.

In the past eight weeks, there have only been a handful of nights we’ve spent apart.

Eight to be exact. Since he works six or seven days a week, it doesn’t seem fair for me to wake him when I stumble into bed at two a.m. after Friday Night Friends Dates.

He hasn’t come to one of those yet, but we’ve talked about it.

We’ve started looking into a few clubs that might feel safe enough for him, since large crowds and loud spaces always make him anxious, and he’ll already be nervous about meeting my friends.

We’re thinking that it might be best if we just order a ton of food and have everyone over to my place to break the ice before he joins us for a night out, but there’s no hurry.

Both of us plan on being together for a very long time.

It turns out that basically moving in with someone overnight after you’ve both spent the past few months secretly pining for one another, while one of you tries their very best to pretend they hate the very concept of true love, isn’t a recipe for perpetual sunshine and unicorns and rainbows.

Our schedules are different, our personalities are different, and I’m not overly in love with the fact that Cupcake seems to like Liam more some days.

All those little, normal annoyances pale in comparison to our more serious personal issues though.

There have absolutely been times where I’ve behaved completely unreasonably and lashed out at Liam for no reason at all simply because, once in a while, my traitorous brain still looks at him, smiling lovingly at me from the couch, all giant and beautiful and snuggly, and tells me not to get used to it because it’s only a matter of time before he leaves.

I know it’s lying, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop the way it affects me sometimes.

It’s slowly getting better though. Every time I yell for no reason or send a particularly sarcastic barb his way, he takes my face in his hands and smiles, this soft, tender thing that makes me feel like I’m his entire world.

He kisses my forehead and my nose and holds me close and tells me that I’m not going to scare him away.

And how is my brain supposed to argue with that?

While Liam hasn’t had another panic attack in the past few months, his past still catches up with him a few nights a week.

Though the more nights he spends in my arms, the less it seems to happen, and I’m grateful for that.

Not because he wakes me, but because seeing him that way, all wide-eyed and sweaty and trying to back his large frame into a corner of the bed as if he can hide from whatever it is that’s after him…

is heartbreaking. He says he’s always had some periods with less and some with more, but I’m still hoping that every night he wakes with me there to quickly calm him will help his subconscious slowly learn that as long as I’m near, nothing can hurt him.

Even with all of the annoyances and learning curves and obstacles that simply come with being human, living with Liam…

loving Liam…is perfect. It’s perfect because there is nothing we wouldn’t do for one another.

I still only half believe that we’re the real-life version of fated mates in a way that the tarot cards were able to see.

I prefer to think that we’re so happy and work so well because we’ve each chosen one another.

We’ve chosen to stay and support and uplift.

We’ve chosen to touch and talk and laugh and love, not despite our differences or struggles, but because those things make us who we are, and that… is perfect.

Sigh. The random tarot card thought reminds me that I’m standing in the bakery, staring into space, having not responded to Lilith’s suggestion that I should thank Liam’s Aunt Mar for bringing us together somehow.

“Maybe I should thank her…but she scares me.” I cringe and absently reach for the sticker again.

“You’ve met her once, right?” Lilith grabs my wrist and shoves a parchment paper holding a giant cookie into it to give me something better to do than vandalize their cases.

“Twice,” I mumble around far too much cookie at once. “The card time and then the time I yelled at her and ran away. I’m not really convinced the third time will be the charm in this case.”

Lilith laughs and pulls me into a hug, and all the tension I’ve been holding melts out of me.

I sigh deeply, wrapping her up tight for a minute and letting her calm presence settle me.

It’s definitely not the first time I’ve realized that something about her seems magic enough that I bet she’s part of the reason Liam always seems so calm when he’s at work.

They’re in the process of closing up for the afternoon, and Liam and I are taking a handful of end-of-day cupcakes and brownies and a few loaves of bread out to our second attempt to celebrate Ken’s birthday…

albeit three months late. Hazel and James…

who happen to be not only his other two employees but the friends I saw with him at the club the first night we met, chat happily as they box up the rest of the day’s goods.

The entire group isn’t here together very often, but with Liam and me heading to Ken’s, and Hazel and James wanting the afternoon off to drive seventy-five miles to some concert tonight, Liam simply decided to close the shop early.

Even with everyone focused on getting their own afternoon plans started, though, the remainder of the day’s treats will still be dropped off to the local youth center.

It turns out that very much in keeping with the amazingly sweet man he is, Liam works with a handful of places around the city, and nothing they bake ever goes to waste.

At the end of each day, one of them drops them off at a youth center, or AA group, or veterans’ hall.

Lilith’s eyes sparkle mischievously as she pulls out of the hug and smiles up at me. “So, she read your cards and told you how to find love, and then brought that love to a birthday party, and that’s made her scary?”

I roll my eyes with a sigh, and she just laughs.

“You know, I’ve met her a handful of times,” she says as she slips the boxed-up baked goods into tote bags. “And while she definitely isn’t scary, she is trouble. I’m willing to bet that you’ll find you actually have a lot in common, and the two of you will end up causing trouble together.”

I eye her warily. “That sounds suspiciously like something another witch would say.”

She just laughs at me and pats my arm before walking away with a grin. That wasn’t a no. Maybe I need to keep a closer eye on her in the future too.

“Ready?”

Before I can give any more thought to the fact that my life seems to suddenly be filled with mystery and magic, Liam steps out of the back, holding a stack of boxes and a couple of bags.

He’s still wearing an apron, there is flour on his cheek, and his eyes are bluer than the brightest summer ocean in the café’s late afternoon light.

The way Cupcake’s legs instantly start scrambling around as she tries to climb out of my arms and jump into his perfectly mirrors the way I feel absolutely every time I see him.

I manage to keep her contained as I snag the top couple of boxes and lean up to let our lips play tenderly for long enough that the rest of the little bakery group starts whooping at us, which of course makes Liam blush the gorgeous bright pink that I’ll never get enough of.

“Okay, okay, we’re going.” He’s trying to sound authoritative, but he doesn’t look their way, and it comes out more like an embarrassed mumble than anything.

I swoop to his rescue, of course, nudging him toward the door with my shoulder and glaring everyone into submission before following him out.

As fun as it is to watch him blush, we both like it far better when it’s the result of something I’ve done.

Besides, I don’t need him worrying about them; I’ve already claimed today’s allotment of nervousness and anxiety over having to attend this repeat birthday party.