17. Cricket

A door slammed somewhere in the cabin, rousing Cricket from a deep, delightful sleep. She stretched her arms and legs, groaning lightly, and a weight shifted beside her. Memories of the previous night flooded into her mind. Rolling onto her side, her back to the door, she propped on an elbow and gazed at Avery, unable to stop the broad, goofy grin spreading across her face.

The girl was dead asleep, her breathing heavy and slow, plush lips parted, and, oak and ivy, she was drooling.

No one had ever been more adorable.

Another door slammed, followed by a muffled, angry voice. Avery snorted, fists curling in the blanket and pulling it tighter around her shoulders as she snuggled into the bed. Cricket glanced out the window to gauge the time—graying sky, a few stars, and a planet just visible above the ridgeline. Dawn. She entertained ignoring every inborn instinct and staying right where she was.

Or maybe she could wake Avery up the same way she’d put her to sleep. Her ears flicked at the thought, heat curling in her belly. She’d probably taste as sweet as she had last night. Hells, she’d probably taste even better after a night beneath blankets. Sweat and sweetness on her skin, between her thighs. Her breasts warm and inviting, soft belly more welcoming than any pillow.

Cricket pressed her knees together to ease the dull throbbing and swallowed a mouthful of anticipatory drool. Gods, how could she be so hungry for one human and her sweet, sweet whimpers? Idly, she circled her nipple, pressing her lips together as the throbbing between her legs sharpened to outright need.

I’ll wake her with a kiss.

She snuggled closer, spooning Avery and propping her chin on the girl’s shoulder.

Right behind the ear, my hand on her waist.

She did just that, fingertips brushing the slight swell of Avery’s lower belly. Her breathing changed, rising out of the deep of sleep, and she wriggled against Cricket’s thighs, fitting that grabbable ass perfectly against her as if the Gods had built Avery for that purpose alone.

Cricket slid her hand higher, cupping a handful of breast and teasing her nipple. Another happy hum was her reward, this one paired with a tiny smile. Without opening her eyes, Avery grabbed Cricket’s wrist, guiding her hand down her front, over that lovely little swell, and toward the nest of curls. Heat and damp met her touch, thick thighs widening to welcome her fingers.

“Yes, ma’am,” she whispered against Avery’s neck, earning a delighted little wriggle. She parted her lips with a finger, circling Avery’s clit before sweeping through the gathering slick. She gasped, turning her head and seeking Cricket’s mouth.

Footsteps thundered in the hall, and the door slammed open, both faun and human freezing as Mac hollered, “Cricket, thank God. Have you seen Avery?”

Fighting every prey instinct in her body, Cricket craned her face around. Mac was a mess. Her cropped hair was tangled and wild, eyes shadowed, and her clothes were muddied and rumpled as if she’d spent the night in the woods.

“She said she was bringing you dinner, but no one has seen her since then, and that thing in the woods—oh, God. Have you seen her?”

Cricket swallowed, glancing at Avery, bright pink in her bed, then back over her shoulder at Mac. “Yes?”

“You have?” Mac sagged against the doorframe, dragging her shoulder down. “Oh, thank God. When?”

“Um…”

Avery clamped her thighs together, forcing Cricket’s hand away, and hugged the blanket to her front as she sat up. “Hey, Director Murray.”

Mac blinked, the color fading from her cheeks. She gaped at Cricket, then Avery, then Cricket again as she backed out of the room and yelled, “RAMBLE.”

“Yes?” Cricket’s cousin answered from downstairs, their voice as ragged and weary as Mac looked.

“I need you for this.” Mac shook her head at Cricket and Avery, wiped a hand down her face, and walked out of sight. “And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.”

Avery hunched over her coffee, grasping it with both hands as if the speckled mug were the only thing keeping her in her seat. Across from her, Mac chewed her thumbnail, bouncing her knee beneath the table hard enough to jostle the bowl of fruit at the center while Ramble circled a spoon in their tea, studying Avery with a closed expression.

Cricket hated it. She hated that anyone could make Avery feel bad for what they had done. Hated that anyone, even her cousin, could take away the joy and confidence she had seen blossoming in the girl and replace it with this cowering, frightened thing beside her. If there were any two persons Avery ought to have been comfortable around right now, it was Mac and Ramble, and yet they’d given them the silent treatment and sat them at the table as if they were children in need of scolding.

Cricket scowled at her cousin, opening her mouth to tell them exactly what she thought of this treatment when Ramble crossed their arms and scowled right back at her.

“I cannot believe this,” they stated. Cricket arched her neck, raising her chin. “Crick, your parents are beside themselves. The entire family was freaking out! They thought you were dead, and you have been here fucking Mac’s employee?”

“Whoa, Ramble.” Mac threw her hands out, frantically glancing between Ramble and Cricket. Avery stiffened, her knuckles blanching from her grip on the coffee cup. Her cheeks paled further, and Cricket saw red.

“Like you’re one to talk,” she lobbed across the table. “You wandered here to finger Mac a decade ago and never came home.”

“Okay, you two, that’s enough.” Mac rose and set her hands on the table, frowning when her wife shot her a mean glare.

“How can you be so calm?” They jerked their head at Avery, curls bouncing. “That cabin is destroyed; there was blood on the floor! You have been up all night looking for … for …” Ramble squinted at her. “I do not know your name.”

“Avery,” she whispered, eyes trained on the coffee. Her answer went unheard.

“All night,” Ramble repeated, lost in their tirade. “You called me in tears thinking some monster had eatenher, and she has been here with my cousin, who everyone at home thought was dead.”

“Ramble, sweetpea, I know you’re upset—”

“I am not upset; I am furious!” They slapped the table. Avery flinched, coffee sloshing over the sides of her cup. “Cricket, you put my wife in danger. Why did you not tell her that … that …” She glared at Avery and snorted. “I am sorry. Who are you?”

“Avery,” she whispered again. “Avery Payne.”

“Avery Payne.” Ramble blinked and straightened. Their ears perked, fixed on the human girl cowering in her chair. “As in Payne Strategies? The lobbying firm?” Avery nodded, her eyes tight and downcast. “Run by Nathan Payne, the rabid anti-inhumanist?” Ramble gaped at her, shock warring with fury. Avery’s cheeks paled even further, every freckle standing out like crumbs on parchment. “What are you doing here? How did you even get a job in this camp?”

“Babe,” Mac warned. Ramble shook their head in disbelief, turning all of their anger on Mac.

“What is she doing here?” Their voice pitched high and frantic. “Mac, what were you thinking?”

“She’s a good kid.”

“I’m only six years younger than you,” Avery muttered.

“And she’s great with the campers,” Mac argued, then reconsidered. “Well, she’s getting better, even if she did take my advice a little too literally.” This was paired with a glance at Cricket.

“Oh, my god.” Avery buried her face in her hands.

“Mac,” Ramble warned.

“It was my dad, alright?” Mac flushed and threw up her hands in defeat. Avery jerked her face up, mouth hanging slack. “He said he owed someone a favor in DC, and asked me to consider her application.”

“Mac.”

“You hired me because your dad told you to?” Avery glared across the table, her lower lip trembling and eyes shining bright.

“No!” Mac pressed her hands in the air. “I mean, I interviewed you as a favor, but I hired you because—”

“I threw away a fellowship with the Boston Symphony for this!”

“I’m so confused,” Cricket muttered.

“So am I.” Her cousin flopped into their chair, rubbing their temples. “Mainly as to why my loving wife hired an Anti-inhuman Specist to work in her integrated camp.” They dropped their hands and glared at Avery.

“Excue me, I am not my father,” she fumed. Bright red splotches grew on her cheeks, and those pale blue eyes blazed.

“Avery—” Mac held up one hand, halting Avery, and gripped her wife’s arm with the other. “Let me.”

“This had better be good,” Ramble grumbled, angrier than Cricket had ever seen them. Their mouth was a tight line, eyes narrowed, and ears pressed flat against their head.

“It is,” Mac assured. “I promise.” And then she made them wait, refilling coffees, making Ramble a new cup of tea, and setting out a basket of breakfast bars and packaged muffins. Cricket and Ramble both reached for a granola bar, their eyes meeting. She sent a question across the table with a look, silently begging her cousin to relent. To be nice.

Ramble’s expression remained hard, and one ear flicked in annoyance.

Avery remained still while they waited for Mac to explain, hunched in her chair with her arms crossed and gaze vacant, completely disassociated from the conversation and the persons in the room. Seeing this shut-down version of Avery, when she had been so alive just hours before, made Cricket uneasy. She set her palm against the flat of her back, wanting to comfort the human, and Avery straightened, leaning out of her reach.

“Like I said,” Mac finally started, “my dad owed a favor to a colleague and asked me to look at your application.”

“Why your dad?” asked Cricket.

“He’s a congressman,” she answered. “Congressman Murray, 3rd District, Ohio. I guess he owed Payne a favor from years back.”

“I can’t believe this.” Avery bent forward, her forehead thunking against the table.

Cricket thought back over their conversation surrounding the camp, recalling that Avery took this job to be a better version of herself. Her fears that she was failing, that she wouldn’t be able to break free from years of biased nurturing. She recalled that ill-fated guitar lesson she’d stumbled upon and the guilt that had so clearly ravaged Avery at her behavior and paired it with every exchange, both sweet and sour, where the human girl asked questions, learned, and adapted—never making the same small-minded mistake twice in a row.

“But not to hire her?” she blurted.

“Come again?” Mac asked.

“He asked you to interview Avery but not to hire her?”

“That’s what I said,” the camp director squinted, tilting her head in question.

“Then why did you?” asked Ramble.

“Because she was the best for the job.”

“Liar.” Ramble shoved back in their chair and crossed their arms.

“I’m not lying!” Mac put her hands up. “Avery is a poly-instrumentalist. She marched at Messiah for three years and served as drum major for the fourth. Her resume is stellar.”

“And?” Ramble prompted.

“And?”

“Mac,” they sighed, shaking their head. “Babes, I have known you for a decade. You cannot lie to me. Why did you really hire her?”

Mac stared at her wife. A long, hard stare that was more a conversation than a look. When Ramble did not relent, Mac sighed and dropped heavily into her chair.

“I thought … I thought that maybe if I could change Nathan Payne’s daughter’s mind about inhumans, we could get to him.”

“WHAT?” Avery shrieked.

“And his clients,” Mac added as a mumble.

“Mackenzie!” Ramble hollered. “You are using her to prove a point?”

“Yes, alright?” Mac again threw her hands. “I need to raise funds for the camp. I need investors if we’re going to expand, and I miss my family, Ramble. I hate that only my parents and a cousin came to our wedding. I hate that we can’t go visit Columbus without people hissing slurs at us.” Cricket’s jaw fell open, her heart sinking low in her chest. She’d had no idea her cousin and their wife faced such prejudices in the world, had no idea Mac came from a family that might disapprove of their union. “I hate that they hate you.”

“Oh, Mac.” Ramble jolted from their chair and gathered Mac in their arms, murmuring quiet words even Cricket’s ears could not catch. A heavy, weighted silence followed her admission, a silence full of meaning. Cricket had never once considered that her cousin’s wife struggled with being married to an inhuman or that her family was as bigoted as the city humans tended to be.

She’d met Mac and gotten to know her at Spring and Harvest festivals over the years. Had stood behind Ramble at their wedding, but she’d forgotten how empty Mac’s side of the bower was.

All the faun were in attendance. A naga family and their children, a few wolven, gnomes, and moon-eyed. Former students, friends, and colleagues who had celebrated Mac and Ramble so joyously that the lack of humans in attendance was hardly felt. But now … now it was all Cricket could see.

She glanced at Avery, glaring at the table, and grabbed her hand, refusing to let the girl pull away.

“Why are you here, Avery?”

Ramble pulled their head from the crook of Mac’s neck, watching the pair from across the table with wide, liquid eyes.

“I want to be better than him,” Avery said, her voice flat and hollow. “It never felt right how my dad talks about inhumans and how our church treats you.” She blinked, and a tear squeezed free, curving over the apple of her cheek. “They’re so angry all the time, and when I started to realize that I—” She pressed her lips together, nostrils flaring. “I want to be better than that. Than him.”

“You are.”

“Am I?” She turned her head, reddened eyes boring into Cricket’s. “You saw me in that class, I could barely treat the students equally.”

“Because they aren’t equal,” Cricket stated. “That Spearfinger is always going to have better fingering on a guitar. It’s how she was born, and she’s always going to have that advantage. Those advantages are always going to exist, whether it’s cross-species or within your own. And yeah, you got frustrated, but they were all talking over you and complaining. Anyone would get frustrated. You did the best you could, you apologized, and you learned. You gave your time and patience as best you were able, and you tried again. Just like you did with me.”

Avery sent her a watery smile and, miracle of miracles, squeezed Cricket’s hand.

“I still don’t trust it,” said Ramble. “She—”

“Ramble, come on.” Mac straightened and grabbed her wife’s arm.

“Think about it, though. If her dad hates inhumans so much, which he does, and I have the newspaper clippings to prove it, why would he ask your father for that favor? Why would he want her here?”

Mac pressed her lips together and shook her head, eyes drifting to Avery.

“He doesn’t,” she answered. “I fought with him for weeks to even apply. I had to build a business case for why working at Elkwater would be the best step for my career.”

“And then he just changes his mind one day?” Ramble countered. “Calls in a favor from a prominent congressman to get his daughter a job at a summer camp?” They frowned at Mac. “I love it here as much as you do, but we both know this place isn’t worth a congressional favor.”

“It could be,” Mac whispered.

“I know.” Ramble softened and cupped their wife’s cheek. “But still, I do not believe it.”

“You’re not being fair.”

“I am being more than fair, considering her family”—they nodded at Avery—“is buying up every piece of property in Green Bank that they can.”

“What?” Avery and Cricket shouted as one.

“They’re forcing my family out of their home, and then suddenly her dad pulls a favor to get his daughter a job at an integrated camp? Come on, Mac, you are smarter than this.”

“What do you mean we’re buying up property?” Avery cut in, glaring at Cricket. “I thought you said it was a Georgia company.”

“It is,” she said.

Ramble scoffed. “Oh, sure. Your daddy pulls a favor, and now you want us to believe you did not know?”

“I didn’t!” Avery argued. The red was back in her cheeks, the fire blazing in her eyes. Cricket took it in, marveling at the fact she recognized that reaction as Avery telling the truth. Not a hint of deception masked those lovely features, and she was struck anew by the human.

“How do you?” she asked her cousin.

“I was stuck in Elkins until the road cleared,” Ramble explained. They nodded at Cricket. “A few of the family were there. They mentioned Nathan Payne had been in town, and another suggested he was looking at more property.” They shrugged and, at Mac’s hand falling to their forearm, continued. “I was curious, so I went to the assessor’s office yesterday before seeing the family.”

Mac groaned and palmed her face. “You have got to stop watching so many police procedurals.”

“What? Jerry Orbach is a compelling actor.” They shrugged and shook their head as if this were an old argument that would never be resolved. “Anyway, I was curious. It is not a character fault.” Ramble pursed their lips and leaned conspiratorially across the table. “Spoken like somebody who’s never owned a Jag.” At the blank stare Cricket sent them, Ramble frowned and straightened, glancing around the table. “Seriously, does no one watch Law and Order?”

“No,” Avery whispered.

“You watch the reruns at dawn,” Mac muttered.

“Bad reception in Green Bank,” Cricket supplied.

Ramble rolled their eyes and flumped back in their chair. They fluttered a hand at Avery. “The Georgia Men only broker the sale of the property if I am reading the filed paperwork properly. But the taxes are being paid by Payne Properties.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s my dad.” Avery stubbed her finger against the table. “There are a lot of Paynes in this country, and I have a large family. It could be an uncle, or a cousin, or my—”

“True. Fair. It could be any of them, but the name on the signature line is Elizabeth Avery Payne,” Ramble stated. Avery froze. “That’s you, isn’t it?”