Page 65 of Did It Have To Be Gnomes?!
Chaos rolled his eyes. “She does not, but whatever. That’s what she likes, so unfortunately, that’s what I’m stuck with.” He waved that away as he put a messenger bag over his shoulder, across his chest, and Clucky leapt into the air.
I expected her to fly awkwardly like a chicken, but she was smooth, graceful, and beautiful as she glided through the air and came to land on Chaos’s shoulder. She wrapped her weapon ofa tail around him, and for a moment, I saw the kid soften as he rested his forehead against hers. They stayed there for a few seconds before Chaos straightened, gave his familiar another pet, and went back to what he was doing.
He picked up a large pile of… plastic fence pieces?
“What’s that?” I asked as I stepped forward to help carry it.
Chaos let me take it from him as he answered. “It’s a playpen for my chicken, obviously.” He delivered it so deadpan I almost believed him.
“Liar.”
He cracked another smirk. “Nah, it’s mostly for protection. Curses don’t want to break, so they, uh, send forces to stop me all the time. This just gives me a little breathing room. I’ll set it up around my workspace, and then you guys can guard me on the other side. If something slips past you, this should at least slow it down so it doesn’t destroy all my work, or, ya know, hurt me or whatever.”
Curses sent forces to stop him from breaking them?
That… that didn’t sound good at all.
Chapter Twenty
Miles
As we trekked back to the cellar door, I said, “Winter?”
He looked over and smiled at me as soon as he made eye contact, then he said something to Lyric before jogging over to me. “What’s up?”
I glanced around to make sure Chaos and Aeson weren’t within earshot, then whispered, “I know you wanted to do lunch, but I think dinner will work better. Is that okay with you?”
His grin grew as he pulled the playpen or whatever it was out of my hands to take a turn carrying it. “Of course. I assume you want to order lunch for everyone? Especially the kids?”
How this man who’d barely been around me a few days could already read me so well, I’d never know. “Yeah, I do.”
He nodded. “Honestly, if you hadn’t suggested it, I would’ve. They’re way too skinny, and I think…” He trailed off for a moment with a shake of his head. “I feel like I’ve seen that Chaos kid somewhere before. I can’t put my finger on it, but…” He shrugged. “Anyway, I agree that we should help them as much as we can.”
And that, right there, was exactly why I’d always had a crush on Winter, even in high school. He was just so thoughtful and kind to everyone around him, and he’d always been that way.
He’d even been kind to me in school.
Sure, I hadn’t really known him, I hadn’t really talked to him in high school, at least not often or anything. But even with me being the outcast, the emo kid who’d dressed similarly to Chaos, the kid who everyone thought was weird or had some contagious disease or something, even with all of that, Winter had been kind.
He’d been the only kind kid in that whole school.
Of course I’d developed a crush.
And that crush just kept growing with every minute we spent together.
I sent him a small grin. “Yeah, I want to help them. I’ll probably order extra food and send it home with them. You think they’ll notice I did it on purpose?”
He shrugged. “Chaos seems pretty observant, but his brother did sneak into his trunk without him knowing, so…” He trailed off with a shrug and a small laugh.
I snorted. “True. Okay, I’ll just try not to make it obvious. I don’t want them to be too proud to take it or anything.”
“Agreed.”
We both stopped talking about it because we caught up to the others.
Chaos gestured to the gates Winter was carrying. “So this is a sort of playpen type of thing, I guess. Or more like baby gates that hook together to make a playpen?” He waved that off. “Anyway, they come apart, so I was thinking we could each take one and use it as a sort of shield to kinda push the gnomes back? At least until we get to the… what did you call it? The seal?”
Winter nodded. “Yeah, but I have no idea if that’s what it’s really called. It looks like a giant metal coin concreted into the wall.”
