Page 36 of Shroom for Improvement

Willow and Oggy whipped their heads left and right, evidently coming to the same conclusion as me.

“It does not appear to have a bed. Perhaps it intends for you to sleep elsewhere?” Oggy asked, her voice quiet, unsure.

“But we’ve tried every door in the house,” Willow said. “There’s nowhere else.”

“There’s one you haven’t tried.” I was already marching out of my room into the dark, mushroom-lamp-illuminated hallway. “What about—”

My words died in my throat, and my initial excitement was replaced by a barrage of new emotions: regret, shame, adrenaline... arousal.

Because in the doorway we’d originally bypassed to get to mine, stood Claude.

Wearing a handsome tweed three-piece suit, smart brown leather brogues, and the biggest scowl I’d ever seen.

I swallowed against the rising panic, and the growing urgency to physically wipe the angry grimace from his mouth by smashing my own into it.

Why did I want to kiss him?

He stared at me for the longest time.

I should say something . . . but, what?

“Can I just—” I started, but Claude cut me off.

“You stole from me!”

Research Projects and Rhizome Rituals

Claude

How was it possible that Sonny had gotten more attractive since I last saw him? It was infuriating. The man stole from me. He stole from me! My favourite cufflinks. My celebratory, Employee of the Decade, twenty-four-carat cufflinks.

Stole them. Straight from my shirt sleeves.

I needed to remember that.

Not let my mind get distracted with tall, skinny, scruffy, undeservedly handsome men.

Though, he looked more tired than usual. Dark circles rested under his eyes, his petrol-coloured hair was rumpled and stuck out at odd angles, and there were so many creases in his black T-shirt it was difficult to read theMake Compost Not Recreational Space Rocketsvinyl print.

I hated how I knew what his shirt said—what all his shirts said. Like there was some kind of Sonny shirt catalogue in my brain. I hated how my fingers itched to feel the fabric of that shirt, to trace the bobbles on his shoulder where a bag strap must have frequented.

I hated how a tiny, irrelevant and insignificant part of me wondered what his body felt like under that fabric.

No. He pickpocketed me. Like every other magpie fae would have if given half a chance. I had to remember that.

“You stole from me!”

His response was the most basic, cliched answer ever. “I can explain.”

I said nothing, not really sure what was going through my thoughts, never mind how I’d begin to articulate them.

Sonny reached into the back pocket of his jeans, removed something, and pushed it into my fist. His long, elegant fingers brushed my skin. I noticed they were caked in dirt, his fingernails all chipped green polish and crescents of brown against his pale skin.

I opened my palm and my gold-mushroom cufflink rolled over, the post and toggle pointing upwards like a tiny ship’s mast. I waited for him to apologise.

He didn’t. Instead, he offered me a shy smile, which was definitely not cute and was one hundred percent fake, and dug his hands into his front pockets. I wouldn’t let my eyes follow their journey.

“I only wanted to talk with you,” he said eventually. “To explain everything and... ask you something.” His cheeks and the tips of his pointy ears flushed bright pink. Also, definitely not cute.

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