Page 2 of Fat Sold Mate
“I'm here until eight.” A pause. “Black, two sugars.”
I find myself smiling for the first time in days.
“Black, two sugars,” I repeat, committing it to memory like it matters.
For some reason, it does.
***
The weeks blur together. Rebuilding. Patrolling. Pack meetings that stretch into the night as we fortify boundaries and hunt for any remaining League sympathizers. But through it all, one constant emerges—evenings at Mystic Page, Ruby's bookshop.
For some reason, I just can’t stop returning to her.
Tonight, I've brought dinner—containers of stew from the pack house kitchen—and we sit among the shelves after closing, talking as if we've been friends for years instead of whatever this new, fragile thing is between us.
“Do you ever think about it?” she asks suddenly, setting down her spoon.
“About what?”
“How things were.” She looks at her hands. “How things still are, I guess. The people here might like Luna now, but they’re never going to accept me. I made my peace with that a long time ago.”
Shame burns through me. “I should have...” But I trail off. The words feel inadequate against years of silent complicity.
Ruby’s eyes flash. She looks up at me, something flat and hard in her gaze. “I don’t need your defense.”
“I know.” I clear my throat. “Still.”
“Why didn't you?” The question holds no accusation, only genuine curiosity. “Defend me, I mean. You watched the people here bully me right alongside your sister. You didn’t do anything. Me, I’d understand, but Luna?”
I stare at the books surrounding us, searching for honesty. “Because it was easier not to. Because I didn't want to be different.” I meet her eyes. “My mother was a witch, too. But I got my Shift. It made things safer for me.”
The admission hangs between us, raw and vulnerable.
Ruby studies me, her amber eyes unreadable in the soft lamplight. “And now? Would you defend me now, James?”
I’m not sure what to say to that. I wish I could give her the answer she clearly wants. But I refuse to lie to her. It’s the line I won’t cross.
My own cowardice won’t change that.
Just as Ruby’s face begins to fall, her street’s massive orange tabby—Maggie—chooses that moment to leap onto the table between us, knocking over an empty teacup in her imperial quest for attention. I laugh, scratching behind her ears as she purrs like a small engine.
“She's enormous,” I say, watching as the cat stretches luxuriously under my touch. “The fattest thing I've ever seen.”
“She's very sensitive about her weight,” Ruby mock-whispers, her eyes dancing with amusement, though there’s still a woundedness there that tells me the conversation hasn’t been forgotten. “I've tried diets, but she just steals food from the café next door.”
Maggie flops onto her side, exposing a vast expanse of orange belly in shameless demand for scritches. When I oblige, she catches my hand in her paws, gentle but insistent.
“She likes you,” Ruby says softly, watching us. “She’s usually wary of strangers.”
“I'm honored,” I reply, equally soft.
Our eyes meet over the purring cat, and something shifts in the air between us—a tension that wasn't there before, electric and undeniable. My wolf presses against my skin, suddenly alert and intensely interested.
Without conscious thought, I find myself leaning toward her, watching as her eyes widen slightly, her lips parting in surprise. The moment stretches, fragile and perfect, until I close the final distance and press my mouth to hers.
The kiss is gentle at first, tentative—until she responds with unexpected hunger, her hand coming up to curve around the back of my neck. Heat explodes through me, my wolf howling in triumphant approval as I deepen the kiss, tasting cinnamon tea and something uniquely Ruby.
Maggie yowls indignantly as we displace her, leaping to the floor with offended dignity. The interruption breaks the spell, and we pull apart, both breathing heavily.
