Page 25 of Forget Me Not

“We’ve got soda I like better at home.” Cal was still so soft. It didn’t make sense that he would be for Ray.

Ray hesitated, ignoring both the pounding of his heart and how it made his headache worse. “We’ve got?“ he echoed quietly. “You’re coming home with me? Not with…”

He glanced to Benny, who whispered, “Oh shit. We didn’t think of that.”

Cal’s softness disappeared. “Yes,” he said smartly. “Our home where you live with me.” He drooped. “Or not. It’s your house, where you lived before you ever knew me. I just moved in when we… I can stay at Benny’s tonight. Right, Bens? Unless Divinity is coming over and you want alone time.”

“Yeah, of course you can stay if you want.” Benny was quick to assure him.

“I’m not going to kick you out of your home,” Ray promised fiercely, though he was unable to keep himself from glancing to Benny again.

Benny made a startled noise. “Ray, Cal and I are not dating or anything. Our bond is beyond that.”

“Aw,” Penn cooed mockingly. Benny flipped her off.

Cal’s wings flicked open and closed, open and closed, and he stared up Ray, curious and tentative. “I used to beg to get invited back to your lair, Ray Ray.”

“I doubt it.” Ray went hot at the idea of Cal begging him for anything. He made himself curl his lip, an empty show of fang that did nothing to make Cal quake in fear. “There’s nothing in my house worth that.”

Cal only smiled. “There was you.”

His smile slipped as he watched Ray, perhaps for Ray’s colors or perhaps the lost frown Ray on Ray’s face. “There was you, Ray,” Cal said again, and tipped his head to one side as though Ray was a tricky puzzle and not just weary and confused and inexplicably lonely at the idea of his house having only one person living there.

“So it’s settled.” Penn took control while Ray and Cal stared at one another. “To home. To sleep and try to figure all this out in the morning…. I’ll bring strong coffee.”

Chapter Four

CAL JUMPED into speech the moment Penn closed the front door behind her. “I know it looks bad,” he said, standing in front of a desk Ray couldn’t remember buying. There was no chair in front of the desk—the chair was across the room, by a window, and had a somewhat wilted potted plant in the seat. The surface of the desk was almost obsessively neat. Mail in a wire organizer. A fancy pen in a pen stand. A cooling pad the right size for a laptop, although no laptop was there.

The desk itself didn’t look too bad. Odd, in a living room, but Ray didn’t spend much time relaxing and probably had needed a space for a home office. What Cal was nervous about seemed to be… everything else.

“It’s very comfortable,” Cal continued, directing a look to the long couch covered in pillows and several crocheted blankets that appeared to be fairy work. A box of paper files was open and on the ground near one end of the couch, the missing laptop sitting on top of it. At the other end of the couch was a well-used reclining armchair, stacks of paperbacks, and an end table with a lamp and several possibly empty cans and bottles of various sugary beverages.

Cal had at least used the coasters.

Ray couldremember buying that end table, which made the rest of his confusion even stronger.

Behind the television, newer and bigger than Ray’s last one, were the windows leading out to the backyard Ray rarely, if ever, spent time in, although he always meant to. Solar-powered lights dotted the darkened landscape now, offering hints of thriving greenery and all the shiny yard decorations fairies were fond of.

The trees in Ray’s small front yard had ribbons tied among their branches, and hung heavy with bird feeders and twinkling lights. His yard hadflowers.Flowers which had obviously been growing there for some time.

His windows had curtains Ray also could not recall buying. They went with the couch.

“Listen,” Cal started again, after first falling silent when Ray didn’t speak, “you picked out that couch, believe it or not. We were in the store and you suddenly realized they had larger models for weres and trolls and especially big humans, and you wanted one you could stretch out on. Or maybe you’re worrying overthat.”

Thatwas apparently the bookshelf stacked with books, paper files, knickknacks, bags of taffy and caramels, several charging cords for unknown electronic devices, and a small digital camera. Next to it was a corkboard covered in photographs and different pieces of paper. Next to that was a large whiteboard.

Callalily’s home office.

If Ray had been able to remember waking up and getting dressed and leaving this house, he might have been more alarmed. Maybe he was just too tired to register how weird this was. There were framed pictures on the walls. Ray had decided against studying them, for now. He’d already taken in a lot today.

“I do have a system, I promise!” Cal skipped away from Ray’s desk to hover uncertainly near his own. “Okay, so some of my files are duplicates because I forget and print them again. Printing them out helps me better than reading online, though I hate to use the paper. But if it’s not in my front of me, I can forget it exists until Benny reminds me.” He gestured toward the whiteboard. “This is our board… well, it’s mostly my board but you write stuff on it for me sometimes.”

Ray transferred his attention from a nervous half-fairy to the board partially covered in Ray’s handwriting. In purple marker, he had written, “Call your dad back,” and “someone from Rainbow is trying to get a hold of you.” In orange marker, it said, “soda in fridge.”

“Soda in fridge?” Ray wondered out loud.

“Oh. I like the generic soda brand they only sell at the bargain outlet store chains. You know? Doctor Mister?Anyway. You stopped to get me some the other day. It was…” Cal cleared his throat. “That’s like getting me flowers, Ray. Maybe better. I can get myself flowers, but I can’t drive, and I hate taking the bus out there. Anyway,” he said again, awkwardly. “I’m thirsty. Are you? I can—”

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