Page 29 of Forget Me Not

“We had busy schedules this week,” Cal explained, looking more and more pleased the longer he stared at Ray. “I was in court—the elf thing. But today, you had a lunch break. We took advantage.”

At another time, Ray would consider how the décor of his bedroom had changed. “This scent is deeper than just today,” Ray heard himself say in a drowsy, warm voice. He scanned Cal’s bare chest again, knowing he’d find nothing, frowning anyway. “I didn’t leave a mark on you.”

“You can’t,” Cal informed him, smug and sad. “You do try, though. It’squiteenjoyable, before you start worrying about that, too. Now, strip while I look for that salt shi—luxury bathing experience.”

He popped a cookie in his mouth, a bit smug, and headed to the bathroom.

Ray’s colors must have been something. Or perhaps it was the tenting at his crotch. He sighed, but stepped out of his shoes, then his socks. He emptied his pockets and removed his belt, leaving everything on the nightstand that looked like his, then added the rest of his clothes to the pile on the floor. He didn’t feel any different, but went into the bathroom anyway. A shower might at least get rid of the lingering traces of the hospital.

Cal nearly dropped the jar in his hands when Ray came into view. “Oh.” His attention fell to Ray’s cock, then to the rest of him. “Ray Ray.” It was a purr. “I thought you’d feel too vulnerable to let me see you… but okay. More than okay. You know,” he dragged the words out, exhaling in satisfaction as he raked his gaze over Ray’s body once more, “I can’t leave marks on you, either.”

“You want to?” Ray stepped into Cal’s space, breathing in something new, something less sweet. Arousal rolled on his tongue like a pearl. “Do you know what that means?”

“Do I need to if I know it makes you happy?” Cal reached out to splay his hand over Ray’s chest, spreading his fingers through Ray’s chest hair. Then he swallowed and took his hand away. “But yeah, I know. The romances make it pretty clear. Anyway.” He cleared his throat. “You’re stressed and tired, and, as tempting as it is to offer myself in that shower, I am not sure what that would do to you right now.”

He put the jar of some sort of skin scrub down by the sink, then picked up the box of cookies and slid carefully around Ray to leave the bathroom. “I’ll be out there. When you’re done.”

***

THE SCRUB SMELLED liked artificial watermelon. Ray grimly washed himself with it anyway, then stood under the shower spray for a long time, long enough for the water heater to give out and the water to run cold and the smell to mostly go away.

When he emerged from the bathroom, his suit was gone. He gritted his teeth over the cost, although Pennhadpoked holes in it, but got dressed in sweats and a t-shirt from what was apparently now his side of his dresser. The scent of salmon drifted through the house, but he stayed in the bedroom, scrolling through the many flirtatious and then abruptly businesslike texts from Cal before finally calling his mother.

She picked up immediately. “Ray.”

Her voice was a soothing hand on his nape.

“I’m okay,” Ray assured her while she turned down the volume of whatever cooking show she was watching.

“You’re always okay,” she answered quietly. “Or at least you always say you are.”

“I am.” Ray was afraid to sit on the bed that smelled of fucking and lovemaking and Cal, but, physically, he was fine. His mom would know better anyway, so he sighed. “I just…. Is he really?”

The answer was obvious. Maybe that was why she scoffed. “He was then, and he is now, and I am sure he would be again if something else happened.”

Ray listened to his mother breathe hundreds of miles away. “I didn’t expect this,” he admitted at last.

He imagined his mom’s thoughtful frown while she considered her answer. “I don’t see why you wouldn’t, unless it’s the fairy part that has you so thrown.” Ray made a small, frustrated sound in his throat. His mom paused, then spoke again, carefully. “After your dad died, you always tried to help me, in whatever way you could. Even when I never would have asked you to. Usually by pretending you had no problems. Between that, and the humans, it’s made you fairly good at hiding things. Maybe it’s reflex. But you’re not okay right now, Ray. And no one expects you to be, least of all Cal.”

“I feel fine,” Ray insisted, dizzy with the scents filling his bedroom. “I’ll take care of this. Then… then I will approach him.”

“Ray.” The low word made him sixteen again and late for school. “You don’t need to prove anything to Cal. He’s already yours.”

“Why?” Ray asked before he could stop himself.

“Why?” His mom’s tone had a bit more urgency, as if she’d sat up or was frowning.

“It doesn’t matter.” Ray kept his voice level. “Never mind that.”

“Ray…” She was definitely sitting up, probably trying to focus. This was late for her to be awake. She must have been waiting for word from either him or Cal. “When you told your sister about Cal but not me, I thought you were embarrassed, or that the idea of being Rejected was too painful for you to talk about…”

Ray exhaled through his nose.

“When you finally did tell me about Cal, it was only after you two were together. Well, officially together,” she corrected herself. “From what Cal tells me, every fairy in the city would have known you were taken long before you accepted it.”

Ray flicked a look toward the door, then down at his bare feet. But again, he saw no colors, no sparkle. No marks of any kind.

“A fairy and a were,” Ray remarked quietly. That would say everything.

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