Page 131 of Enemy
“It’s not a date, but an event.” Before I can open my mouth to ask what that means, she offers us a smile. “You can marry when the first flowers bloom around your home next year. Who knows, maybe that’s not so far off!”
Luna looks up at us from her phone. “Snowdrops sometimes bloom as early as end of January,” she offers and Clyde squeezes my hand.
Brigid frowns at her. “You could at least pretend not to beeavesdropping.”
Luna shrugs. If these were secret matters, Brigid would have asked her daughter to leave.
“This makes me so happy, I can’t wait to make an honest man out of Road,” Clyde says.
Luna snorts. “Like that’s gonna happen.”
Brigid pushes the cup away. “We should set a few tattoo appointments until then. You can’t go into a new union with the Butcher ink on your back. I will design something protective for you.”
She’s talking to Clyde, but my chest tightens around my heart and I stroke my man’s hand. Clyde’s been tried and tested, and this is Brigid showing her approval of his presence in Vulture Hollow, as well as his membership in the club. Right now, I’d have drank a whole pot of tea if it pleased her, but fortunately, she seems done with our visit.
We’re dismissed, and I can’t say I’m sorry, because unless my brothers come up with another task for us, I will get to try out the new bed and maybe even check if there really is no trace of snowdrops somewhere around the house.
It’s dark when we leave her place, stepping into the cold and heading off along the lake at a brisk pace. Most people from the settlement must still be at the Christmas thing in town, because otherwise there would be a lot of evening activity. As things are, it’s just Clyde and I, sinking our feet in snow that’s hard enough to crack under our weight.
“You think she simply wanted to test if this thing between us lasts before we make things official?” I ask, exhaling a swirl of white vapor.
Clyde nods and pats my cheek. “Yeah, wouldn’t want herprecious little boymaking the mistake of his life, would she?”
I scowl and grab his jacket on both sides of the waist. “I’m hardly the golden boy.”
He laughs and gives me a kiss. “You are in my eyes.”
His lips melt the frostiness on my skin, and I push him back, until he hits the nearby tree. We’re surrounded by the pale cloud dispersing in the cold air, and I wish he wore a big hood so we could both hide our faces inside it. No such luck, but a guy can dream.
Then again, my dream’s already real, and he’s in my arms.
“Just imagine what happens when Prophet finally decides to settle down. Bet she’ll be jealous. You know, in a motherly way.”
“I can see that. You think she’d officiate his wedding?” Clyde’s eyebrows rise. “That she’ll officiate at ours?” He slips out of my hold with ease and ducks to tie his shoe.
I laugh and stroke his back absent-mindedly as I imagine that future. Strange, how this just wasn’t something I paid any mind to before meeting Clyde. An empty ritual. A way to draft a legal contract that might mean problems in the future. Now that I have him in my life… the idea of acknowledging him as mine and others celebrating us on that day makes my heart overflow with warmth. Maybe it’s because I never had a real family, maybe because I’ve kept my true desires hidden for so long I ended up minimizing them, but now I want them to be visible.
“She does have a license for it.”
Clyde rises with his back to me. “Oh, and do you think—” He turns and throws a snowball straight in my face. He’s laughing his ass off when it hits me.
This is war, and I’m not going to go gentle on him just because I’m so in love I’d massage his feet each evening if he wanted me to. I don’t bother ducking for a projectile of my own, and when he turns around, about to flee, I tackle him into the fresh snow. The icy crumbs from the broken ball are already under my clothes and melting, and he is going to get a taste of his own medicine.
I roll him over and scoop an armful of snow right in his face.
“No!” Clyde yells, but laughs so hard he gets snow in his mouth. He kicks and waves his arms around like he’s a human windmill, shoving as much white fluff at me as possible.
When some gets into my eyes and I lose focus for a second, he uses that moment to get out from under me. By the time I wiped my face, he’s already a few paces away, panting and red-faced.
“Last one to the hot springs doesn’t get head tonight.” He wriggles his eyebrows at me in challenge.
I curse my legs for not being faster, because there’s no way in hell I’m losing this one, even if the game’s already rigged in Clyde’s favor. Now that he dangled that carrot in front of me, I cannot lose, so I sprint away, cutting into the woods instead of following him along the path. Soon enough, it becomes obvious it wasn’t such a good idea, because the shortcut is hardly a shortcut when each step through the deep snow’s exhausting and sends more of the melting ice into my boots. But I’m not one to give up in the face of trouble, so I choose spots where the snow seems thinnest and speed so fast my lungs soon start aching.
Every now and then I get a glimpse through the trees of Clyde speeding up the path. I hear his footsteps crunching. He even yelps once, so I’m guessing he might have fallen over, but if he’s not yelling for help, I’m not stopping.
I can already see the steam rising from the small pool of water in the rocks, and thank fuck no one is here. Clyde is panting somewhere down the path, but I’ll be first, I know it. I’m about to burst into the clearing when my foot hits something, and I fall on my face, right into the snow. It fucking hurts, and I can taste blood, as if I’d split my lip, but this is not over. I drag myself up and crawl from between the trees in time to see Clyde. He’s huffing and puffing as he jumps over the wooden fence offering the bathers a bit of privacy from the side of the path.
Many solar-powered lamps are scattered around the springs for nice evening ambience, so at least I see where I’m headed.
