Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 159500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 798(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 798(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
And he’s mine.
So of course, just as he slides his hand under my top, my phone has to go off.
I growl, hitting the mattress with my fist, but this particular ringtone means business, and I don’t ever want to disappoint my club again.
“Yeah?” I ask, picking up while Clyde exhales, rubbing my back with gentle fingers.
“You two are needed at Brigid’s,” Prophet says. He’s my best friend, he has my back, and he is going kinda easy on me, but he’s still the prez, and we’re prospects. Of course I give him a brief summary of my trip, and then promise to make my way to Brigid’s ASAP. It’s probably just about removing snow from around her place, but I still struggle to get off Clyde once the call ends. The sooner we’re done with work, the earlier we’ll be able to retire for the evening, so we dress up warm and walk across the settlement again. It’s getting dark by the time we approach the ice-covered lake, and when I realize the job I suspected this is about has already been done, I get cramps in my stomach.
Last month she made me assist her in sorting through her crystal collection, and I’d much rather shovel snow than deal with that again.
“Uh-oh!” Clyde teases me with a grin, as if he’s reading my mind.
He seems much less bothered by the witchcraft than me and walks toward her home without stalling. I bet it’s just because this whole occult thing is new to him, but it’s not like I’m going to get hurt as a result of crossing Brigid’s threshold. Luna lets us in before settling back in a chair by the fireplace, focused on the screen of her phone. Judging by the way she’s biting her lip, something good is happening inside that little device, but she is not the one we came to see.
“Hello?” I call out, shaking snow off before getting out of my jacket.
And then I smell it. The damn tea.
“Right on time,” Brigid says and strides in with a tray holding a single steaming cup. “Sit, sit,” she urges us to the round table carved with symbols.
Clyde doesn’t even hesitate. “What’s the occasion?”
“The right alignment of stars,” she says, pushing back her dark locks.
I go with it. As much as the whole thing still freaks me out, Brigid has been better to me than my own mother, and she is like that crazy aunt many people apparently have. If it makes her happy, I will drink the damn tea.
But when I reach for the cup, she clicks her tongue, stopping me. “Will you take one for the team, Clyde? I know he hates it,” she says, settling in her own chair.
He snorts and pats my knee. “Sure, I don’t mind.”
It’s so nice to live like this, surrounded by people who don’t treat me badly because I’m gay. I worried about it so much, for so many years, and while my biker brothers still tease me, the joke’s usually about me being unable to hide how much I love Clyde rather than our sexuality. No one gives me nasty looks for holding Clyde’s hand, nor suggest I’m not man enough now, or some shit like that.
“This is my gift for you this Yuletide,” Brigid says, leaning back in her chair. “Tonight, I can help you choose a wedding date that will insure the longevity of your union.”
Clyde’s eyes grow wider, and it’s comical how much faster he’s now slurping the hot tea.
Because yeah, we’re still not married. First, there was a lot going on with the cops in the aftermath of the Butcher massacre, then we fell into lots of work due to prospecting, but most of all, Brigid forbade it. She claimed it was for our own good, that the cards spoke to her. Or was it the universe? I don’t remember, because I was too pissed off when I heard it.
We could have gone to another state on our day off and married in secret, but it’s not how I want to do things. My relationship with Clyde isn’t supposed to be kept in the shadows anymore.
“You have waited for him all your life, you might as well wait for a few more months,” Brigid says and I go rigid, convinced she does have powers and has listened to my thoughts. Or she just read it from my expression. One of the two.
“Um… I just—”
“I know. Maybe this wouldn’t feel so urgent if you chose to share your real self with someone before the secret became too much to bear.”
A bitter pill, but I swallow it. If I’d come out earlier, I might have fallen into some easy fucking arrangement with someone at Vulture Hollow. But that would have been lukewarm in comparison to the boiling sugar of my affection for Clyde.