Chapter 7

Lilith

Several weeks later

I pounded on Alistair's door in a huff, even though I knew he wouldn't be awake yet. "Alistair! Get up! Your damn frog is back!"

I'd come home from work after weeks of frog-free living to find that silly frog back in my house. It's entirely possible that he'd been there longer than I realized because the pothos was getting a little unruly, but I glanced at the mushroom fae as I set down my purse and there he was, hiding in the leaves with them. HOW DID HE DO IT?

"It's unlocked," came a sleepy, muffled reply.

I pushed the door open and entered. "Why is your door unlocked?" I chastised him. "What if somebody—" I stopped in my tracks and promptly burst out laughing. "What are you doing? " I asked him incredulously.

He was lying face-down on his couch as though he were ‘planking', his arms down by his sides, with his face literally pressed into the seat of the couch.

"Are you asleep?" I asked doubtfully as I leaned over to peer at him. "Is this how you sleep?"

He didn't reply other than to give an irritated buzz.

"You sleep like a baby owl?" I asked, cackling with delighted glee at the ridiculousness of it. I'd figured he probably didn't lie on his wings, but I had never imagined a full baby-owl-position.

He lifted his face off the couch seat to stare at me with bleary eyes. "What?" he asked, still sounding half asleep. Oh, my heart.

"Baby owls sleep sprawled out just like this, with their faces flat on the floor because their heads are too heavy for their bodies," I informed him, nearly in tears at the image before me. I couldn't stop laughing at the mental comparison. "Alistair, this is the cutest thing I've ever seen. Your antennae are a mess, by the way," I told him through my laughter.

He buzzed at me again and put his face back down, causing me to cackle even harder.

"No!" I squawked at him. "Get up! Your frog is back. Patrick! He's in my house again." I poked at his shoulder through the mounds of feathery gray fluff that covered it, surreptitiously enjoying the softness of it and the sparkly scales that came away on my fingers when I touched it.

Just the other day we'd sat together on this very couch, sipping mango smoothies and discussing our preferred medium for propagating plant cuttings—as I wondered privately what it would be like to kiss his face off—and I'd chuckled about how much glitter always fell out of his chunky-knit throw blanket.

"That one was a lost cause from the start, I'm afraid," he'd informed me. "I hand knitted it myself using that lovely homespun yarn the goblin who lives across the hall from you makes. You know Susan, right? Well, any fiber I touch is forever destined to be shiny. But it's so soft, isn't it?" The blanket was currently in a pile on the floor next to him.

Alistair made a grumpy noise at me and lifted his head again. "He's not my frog."

"You named him," I argued.

"I didn't name him! That's his name," he insisted. I was so used to Alistair's weirdness that it didn't even occur to me to ask how he knew the frog's name.

"He lives at your orchard," I protested, picking up his blanket and trying to drape the enormous thing across the back of his couch. "Why did you sleep on your couch? You're such a bachelor."

"I didn't expect little elves to come barging in before wake-up time," he mumbled into his seat, laughing when I made an outraged sound, and then wrapping his two left arms around me to pull me down onto the couch with him. "We need to find you some diurnal friends," he told me as he tucked me into his side. I was stunned, quietly delighting in the warm press of his body against mine and the deep, woodsy scent of him, so heavy I could drown in it. We were very comfortable with each other at this point, but that had never extended to snuggling .

I tried to act nonchalant, reaching to thread my fingers through his silky mane again and then smiling to myself when he gave a purring rumble. "All of my diurnal friends are back in New Caelora," I replied softly, thinking back to the loneliness I'd felt when I first moved here. And then, when I went back, none of them had time to see me, except the one who wanted to use me after flaking out as my guest.

"Do you miss them?" he asked sleepily.

I trailed a finger down one of the arms he had draped over me, marveling over the contrast of soft and hard, and how much strength and power it contained. "I did at first," I admitted. "Sometimes I still do." I did miss the occasional brunch or dinner date with my friends, but mostly, I missed having that network of people I knew had my back and that I could support too. Alistair was all I had here, and that didn't seem particularly healthy. Being reliant on him for every event or social need wouldn't work, even if I wanted it to.

"You don't have friends here?" he asked, making my stomach twist and my cheeks heat with embarrassment.

"Just you," I admitted with a shrug. I was slowly beginning to feel comfortable here, and he'd been enough for me, at least back when I'd been determined to get back home as soon as possible. The guy at the smoothie shop recognized me when I came in and always had my order ready to go without needing to be told what it was. I'd found a quaint little park near the nursery to visit on my lunch breaks that was becoming a comforting little ritual. There was an older lady who'd started coming into the plant nursery regularly to buy new flower bulbs. She was easy to talk with and always happy to see me, and I'd thought maybe she could be a friend some day, in an alternate universe where I stuck around in this weird little town. Although, friendships take time and effort, and I wasn't the most adept at that anyway. But I had found, since my trip home, that I wasn't chafing at being here so much, and I knew my fluffy, antennaed companion had more than a small part to play in that.

Alistair's arm tightened around me briefly in a tiny hug before turning his head to face me. I felt his hot breath against the top of my head. "You should meet my friends. They would like you."

I swallowed and aimed for a teasing tone. "Are they all nocturnal like you? Because that wouldn't help."

He huffed at me. "Only one of them. They meet up pretty regularly at a pub that Miela's dad manages in the Crown District. We could join them."

I gave a small shrug, feeling awkward about inserting myself further into Alistair's life, but knowing it would probably be good for me to meet some new people. "If you want to," I finally said.

"I do," he replied against the top of my head. I could hear the smile in his voice. "It's a date, then."