Page 113 of Forget Me Not

“Ray.” Cal carefully put down the spoon. “You could tell me you wanted to rip out my heart and I would probably let you. Not that you ever would. You’d tear out yours first.” A furrow appeared in Cal’s forehead and for a moment, his gaze was distant, thoughtful. “Iknowyou would. With anyone, I think. The only times I ever seen you even approach ferocious, you still stopped to warn people. Oh, sure, you might hurt someone who threatened someone else. And weres certainly seem to be rougher with each other than, say, with humans, but you personally?” Cal blinked. “I think your sense of what was just and right was well-developed long before you ever came to Los Cerros. Some people here made you doubt it, that’s all. I gave you a reason to ignore them, a reason you could justify to yourself. But no, you mightthinkyou’re giving me some version of you, butIthink I just let you be that person. Me, or the presence of a ma—marzipan. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Ray echoed. “I don’t think you should dismiss it.”

“Oh, I’m not.” Cal had another sip. His cheeks stayed red. “The flower thing. I don’t sleep anyway but I have beenobsessingover that. That in the early days of us knowing each other, you would not learn a single thing about fairies despite me being one—part one—but you would learn that. What sort of Raymond Branigan compartmentalization hell is that? But it was… what? The first thing you allowed yourself where I was concerned? Something soft, just for you? All the time I was playfully calling you ‘Spot’ or whatever because I thought you were teasing me, and you were quietly telling me you loved me.” Cal tipped his head up to give Ray a serious study. “Drink your coffee, Ray.”

Ray downed it in two swallows, barely tasting it, wishing it was spiced. He made a face. “I can’t tell you what I was feeling then. But I think I was afraid of you. Does that surprise you, a werewolf feeling fear?”

He inhaled through his nose to be sure, but Cal did not smell surprised, or disgusted, or horrified.

He peered at Ray’s empty cup as if Ray was baffling, but shook his head. “No. But fear of me is a little hard to believe.”

“You have the entire village in awe of you.” It wasn’t Calvin they were calling for help. It was Cal and Benny.

There was the slightest stirring at the back of Cal’s sweatshirt. But he shrugged. “I’m village-famous, in a way. My dad is who he is and then somehow gets a second career just as, possibly more, notable than the first? And my mother was a queen in a past life, I’m pretty sure.”

“And you have a werewolf on a leash.”

That broughtsurpriseout in Cal’s worried, wavering scent. “Did someone say that?”

“More or less.” It was the least offensive dog comparison Ray had heard in a while, if he was being honest.

Cal frowned. “Did they say ‘a werewolf’ or did they say you, specifically?”

Ray glanced away. Benny was still in the car. Penn was typing on her phone. “I think they were more upset that they weren’t holding the leash,” he admitted.

“Hmm.” Cal sat back, taking his drink with him. He watched Ray over the top of the cup as he drank.

A flush crept up Ray’s neck. He didn’t mind, as long as Cal didn’t notice and ask too many questions. Ray had a point to make, and it was a lovely day, all things considered. He didn’t often notice lovely days, didn’t usually have time to sit outside and watch someone so pretty enjoy a coffee. Or a hot chocolate, in this instance.

It was, very possibly, the best moment Ray would get for this.

He wished he hadn’t finished his drink so fast. “They wouldn’t have let you in to see me. In the hospital,” he explained belatedly, when Cal seemed confused at the subject change. “They still wouldn’t.”

“They did, once,” Cal informed him, slowly lowering the cup.

Ray nodded. “I should say, if they wanted to, they could legally exclude you.”

Cal put the cup onto the table, apparently so he could gesture with his hands. “Yeah, well, that’s justice versus the legal system again. Did you know how long it took them to even let beings and humans marry each other? Even the ostensibly straight ones? Outrageous!”

He was fired up again despite his lack of sleep.

Ray nudged the paper cup back toward him. “I went through our papers, looking for… anything. That part doesn’t matter.” Cal paused to lick chocolate off his lip that probably tasted horrible and delicious. “The documents are there,” Ray went on, rumbling but not quite growling, “but they might challenge those too. Even the ones you signed. You’re in my life, a part of everything except my pension.” Cal squinted, clearly thinking Ray wasn’t making sense. Ray relaxed one hand and put it on the table, palm up. “Part of the reason they thought they could do this to me was that they didn’t understand what you are.”

“Pfft.” Cal waved that away. “They never do.”

“To me,” Ray finished, shutting Cal up. “What you areto me. And I don’t know why I didn’t…” Ray hadn’t done more because Ray had believed in them,wantedto believe in them. “I asked Calvin,” he said, instead of any of that.

Cal froze,suspicionlike a bruised plum around him. “Asked him what?”

“About the law.” Ray kept his voice level. “How it’s changed since he was younger. What it is now, in case my memory was wrong.”

“You know how I feel about the law.” Cal looked around, as if expecting maybe Benny to come over to explain this conversation to him. Benny, like Penn, was staying away. Ray didn’t imagine that he seemed at ease and Cal was gesturing furiously at injustice. “This upcoming dragon case alone… I’m not a scholar ready to debate which method is best to fight injustice or oppression, since, you know, I’d say, ‘all of them, preferably at the same time.’ Butyoulook upon the law as a tool, sure, or as a symbol, I guess.Ispend most of my time either trying to skirt around it where it’s unfair or change it altogether.”

Ray drew in a sharp breath.

“Marry me.”

The world did not go still. Traffic made its way up and down the street. Penn got a message. Inside the shop, milk was steamed. Ray’s heart thundered in his ears, only adding to the throbbing inside his skull, which he was almost getting used to ignoring.

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