Page 48 of A Wolf After My Own Heart
Nothing.
Toldja.
“You’re like my very own oracle,” Lila informed her. “A ridiculously pretty oracle with cheekbones someone could cut themselves on.”
Caro ducked her head, flustered, which made her look still younger. Lila had pegged her at around seventeen but decided to recalculate. She thought about the small black wolf she’d faced down the night before, about the fact that Caro was apparently a selective mute, and wondered what horrors the girl had survived.
None of which were her business.
She leaned in and said, “Hey! Deeply unconscious man on my couch! There’s bacon, and also, get up!”
“Whuh? Bacon? I’ll have some. Can I have some?” He blinked up at her, smiling sleepily. “Hey. I’m still dreamin’ ’bout you. Are we gonna—” He ran his fingers through his rumpled hair. “Finish? Is this round two? Which I’m.” He stared past her at Caro. “Fine with.” Looked back at her. Around the room. Caro. Then he sat up and yanked the blanket more securely over himself, doubtless shielding Caro’s tender eyeballs from his morning wood. “This is real.”
“Yep.”
“This isso real.”
“Real as rain. By the way, it’s raining.” Caro was already walking away, giggling. “I know this because I looked outside and not at my phone, because Macropi has a huge deal—”
“No!” From the kitchen. “I refuse to look at atelephonefor a weather report when I’m in front of awindow.”
“Okay, Macropi.”
“Not to mention it’s all of six steps to go outside! You don’t need your phone to tell you what the weather’s like ten feet from where you’re standing! I am desperately tired of having this conversation!”
“—about using phones as the Weather Channel,” Lila finished.
“Annnnnd that proves it. That was way too realistic. None of it was a dream,” he groaned, sitting up and scrubbing his face with his hands. “The fire. Everyone staying here. Sally’s dad. Your nightmare, of which we must never speak…”
“Yep.”
“…your couch, which smells like oranges.”
“I might’ve spilled some juice. Or lost an orange in the cushions.”
“Fuck.”
“Shush. Tender ears and all that.”
“They’ve heard worse.” Then, hopefully: “The bacon part was real, right?”
* * *
Just as Lila was unfolding an extra chair, there was a Sally-shaped blur as the child emerged from somewhere and jumped straight into Macropi’s arms, causing the older woman to stagger a bit before regaining her balance. “I know you! You’re Dev’s foster.”
“So I am, m’dear.” Macropi gave the little girl a squeeze and a smile. “And I’m glad to meet you, and so happy to see you’re all right. But you’ve caused my older kids no end of trouble with all this running away nonsense.”
Sally scrunched down and tucked her face into Macropi’s neck. “I know. But I had to listen to my daddy.”
“And we’re going to talk about that, but first you’re going to eat. Now back up and sit down over there. I don’t want you getting hit with bacon grease.”
“Hi, Lila!”
“Hi, Sally.” Lila guzzled a glass of chocolate milk. “How’d you sleep?” Devoss had gone to fetch her out of the basement so she could sleep in an actual bed, but Sally had made herself a nest beneath the basement stairs and was sound asleep, which Lila would have found charming except Sally used her three best blankets,fuck.
“Dunno.” Sally shrugged. “I closed my eyes and then it was morning. So, I guess…good? Even though it seems like I only slept for one second?”
“Gotta love REM sleep. Which I’ll explain to you after breakfast. Eat.”
