Page 14 of Bearly Yours
I set my phone down and stared at my best friend with my most serious expression. “Do you sometimes have delusions that you’re the hero in a gothic romance?”
Roarke threw his head back and laughed. It was unfettered and completely beautiful, his laugh, and I didn’t see it nearly enough. I smiled just to see him so happy.
“I know you won’t have me committed to an institution if I say yes.” He peeled labels off a sheet of paper and started labeling our dishes. One thing most people knew about Roarke: he was extremely organized. I wasn’t going to call it OCD (because he was sensitive to that word) but it wastotallyOCD. He liked everything exactly the way he liked it, and woe to anyone that messed with that. We hadn’t talked about it a ton, but I knew it was definitely something heneededin both his professional and his home life, so I tried to be as accommodating as possible.
It was because of his ability to slot everything in its own place that my workshop was so well organized. Organization affected work-flow and creativity—it was a proven fact—so I benefited from my best friend’s obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and I was unashamed of that.
After he’d labeled all the containers with the correct, pre-printed labels, he put mine in the fridge, literally filling it, and he put his in a few reusable bags.
When he was finished, he crossed his arms and leaned on the island across from me. “Draven has asked me to ask you if you could fit in a meeting with him and Mia at any point this evening.”
I frowned. “Do you know why?”
He shrugged. “I got the feeling it was to build something for them, but feel free to tell him to sod off.”
I gaped at him. “I cannot tell the king of the vampires tosodoff.”
“It’s really easy. I tell him all the time to sod off.”
“You’re a dragon! The rest of us are little mice compared to you!”
“Ah, cailín, you know the way to my heart.”
I scoffed. “I don’t know why I bother. Normal supernaturals have rules, you know.”
“I have rules.”
“Nameone.”
“I like to be in bed by eleven.”
I wanted to laugh, but I glared at him instead. “I meant rules that you have not made up for yourself and for your own life.”
“Ah, butmo chroì,those are the only rules I have to abide by.”
“How about don’t unalive things, or cheat, or steal?”
“All of those are rules I decided for myself that I would follow.”
You know, he was onto something. I doubted law enforcement could do anything about it if he chose to go on some rampage somewhere. It made sense that the laws he created for his own life were the ones that he abided by.
I nodded. “Good enough. Just out of curiosity, these rules of yours follow some moral code of ethics?”
“Just think of me as a knight from a bygone age.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You mean the knights that only bathed once a month, didn’t have deodorant, and baked in armor for a good portion of the day? The smelly knights?”
He shook his head mournfully. “You’ve killed the romance for me.”
I shrugged and went to find my purse and keys. “I can’t help it that you’re memory is faulty. You were alive during the Medieval Era. You should remember more correctly.”
He handed me my keys, which were on the table, and followed me out with his bags full of food. I was anxious aboutthe meeting with Draven and Mia now. The meeting made sense, because it was likely they knew what I did for a living when others in Moonhaven didn’t, but I was still nervous.
Draven was OG. He was the founder of the Council, and he had like a million people on his payroll, most of them ex-military. He probably knew what I ate for breakfast this morning.
Roarke gave me a tight hug, his body trembling a little as he towered over me. He’d never been sick a day since I met him, and dragons didn’t get cold. I mean they had an inner eternal fire. Enough said. So, his trembling was probably something emotional and not physical. I rubbed his back, going for soothing.
“You okay?”
