“School and work keep her busy.” I would have to share some of this bounty with her when I got home. “I’ll tell her you asked after her.”
“Do that.” He took a thick churro in hand and started squeezing it full of whipped filling. “Give me a quarter of an hour, and I’ll have your order ready.”
“We’ll go for a walk,” I told him. “To get out of your hair.”
“Or perhaps to sink your fingers through his?” Esteban winked at me. “I heard the bike, but helmet hair flattens, not spikes. Your friend here looks electrified.”
“We’ll just be over…” Pointing toward the street, I cleared my throat and inched out the flaps, Boaz chuckling on my heels.
“The Cora Ann docks near here,” he mentioned after we’d passed a few darkened shops, all of them run by humans and closed long before midnight. “Is that how you and Esteban struck up a friendship?”
The high from inhaling so much airborne sugar must have gone to his head. The timeline didn’t fit, and he should have noticed, but he was distracted again.
“I only worked one day on the Cora Ann. Esteban’s had his shop here for years. Maud used to dump me on his doorstep with a couple of twenties when she had business in one of the specialty occult shops.”
While he lacked enough necromantic talent to rub between his fingers, he was pure magic in the kitchen. Personally, I embraced his chosen vocation. There were plenty of necromancers, but not nearly enough churro stands in Savannah.
“Hmm.”
Curiosity led us to where the steamboats loomed high over our heads. I spotted the Cora Ann, half-expecting yellow crime scene tape to barricade her gangway, but the quiet boat was no more or less spooky than her two sisters.
A cool brush of fabric against my arm had me turning to find Cletus hovering at my elbow. “What’s up?”
The wraith extended its arm, pointing toward the second story.
“That thing’s talking to you?” Boaz recoiled at the notion. “Or is Linus speaking through it?”
“Fully bonded wraiths can only do as their master bids them,” I repeated what I had been told. Using that logic, Cletus must be channeling Linus, and Linus must have a message or a task for me. “Guess his master must be bidding him.”
“What does he want?” Boaz scanned the darkened windows on the upper deck. “That’s where the dining room is, right? Where your coworker was attacked?”
“I have no idea. I suck at charades.” I tried reasoning with Cletus. “What is it you want me to see?”
His arm remained outstretched, steady, but I saw nothing to justify his marked interest.
“Time’s almost up,” Boaz announced. “We need to start back toward Esteban’s.”
“Sorry, fella.” I made one last attempt to spot what Cletus meant to show me. “We’ll have to work on our sign language for next time.”
We backtracked to pick up my second round of desserts, but Cletus lingered at the docks, drifting back and forth, rocking between the boat and me, as though stuck with two objectives he lacked the faculties to prioritize.
A shiver rippled down my arms. Sentience was measured in a lot of ways, but the ability to reason, to appear torn in his loyalties, made me wonder if Linus had told me the whole truth about Cletus or only what would help me sleep easier during the day.
The wraith caught up about the time we entered Esteban’s stall and claimed our churro order. Esteban had prepared two filled with rich caramel, two filled with hazelnut-chocolate cream, and two more regular orders that came with an assortment of dipping sauces, including my favorite couverture milk chocolate.
To Boaz’s amazement, I managed to polish off one of the caramel-filled churros on the way back to Willie. The rest I tucked safely in their glassine paper bag, which I cradled against my chest, and zipped them up in my jacket. The fit was tighter than usual, and I had to forgo breathing to prevent smooshing them flat, but it would be worth it if I wanted a late-day snack.
The trip home took no time at all, and Cletus stuck close to me the whole way. We parked Willie at the mouth of the garage, and I strained my ears for the mewing sounds of antsy kittens but heard nothing. Either they hadn’t realized they had company yet, or their mother had returned for them.
“I’ll handle the fuzzballs.” Boaz took my jacket and helmet, and he draped them over the seat. “Come on, Squirt.” His fingertips brushed the small of my back. “Let me walk you to your door and pretend I have manners.”
Woolly glowed in welcome, the electric buzz of her excitement giving me warm fuzzies.
“I had a good time tonight.” He attempted to resuscitate his flattened hair. “I’d ask you out again tomorrow, but I’m leaving around noon.”
You’ll be back in a week. The words sounded too desperate to speak, even in my own head. I turned on my heel, having already paid him his goodnight kiss plus interest, and palmed the doorknob. Better to cut my losses now than remain trapped in this awkward lull where plans for a second date ought to fit.
“I had fun too,” I tossed over my shoulder. “Night, Boaz.”
Strong arms slid around my waist and linked over my left hipbone. He gathered me against him, my back flush with his front, and exhaled like he couldn’t breathe without that contact. He leaned down until his lips brushed my ear. “Would you like to go out again when I come home?”
“I don’t know.” I suppressed a giddy thrill. “I’ll have to check my schedule.”
He bit my throat, a stinging reprimand. “Your social calendar is filling up that fast?”
“Amelie did make me promise to go out with her once a week. And Marit—the woman who was injured aboard the Cora Ann—invited me out for drinks. She was bummed when you called. She wants a single friend to club with, and now she thinks I’m unavailable.”
His breath skated across my carotid. “Are you?”
“Am I what?” Pure cane sugar flowed through my voice.
“Unavailable,” he growled.
“Do you want me to be?” I craned my neck around to see him better. “If I’m unavailable, where does that leave you?”
Blowing out a sigh, he rested his forehead on my shoulder. “You’re my punishment for every wrong thing I’ve ever done.”
“You say the sweetest things. Why Hallmark hasn’t scooped you up yet, I’ll never know.”
“Grier.” Head down, eyes hidden, he let himself be vulnerable. “You didn’t ask me.”
Expecting another cheeky response, I stood frozen, a riot of conflicting emotions pummeling my heart.
Ask Boaz to be faithful to me.
Ask Boaz to be faithful to me.
Ask Boaz to be faithful…
“I’m scared.” And here I’d thought not much frightened me these days, that the worst had already happened. But as long as you loved someone, you had more to lose. “Want to paint a yellow stripe down my spine later?”
“Depends.” He appeared to consider this. “Will you be naked? And can I supply my own brush?”
Grateful for the reprieve, I rolled my eyes. “Perv.”
For once, he was slow to claim his title, and the silence that followed worried me.
“The truth is I’m scared too.” His somber turn gave my heart freezer burn. “Dame Woolworth, and that is your title now, will make decisions going forward the old Grier could never imagine.” When I started to argue, he shushed me. “You will make choices to preserve your line, your home, your legacy, Squirt, and you might not have a choice in the matter.”
“That’s not me.” I spun in his arms to see him better. “That’s not who I am.”
But he had struck a chord, not with the mention of my line, of which I was the last, and not with the mention of my legacy, of which I wanted no part, but the mention of home. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t sacrifice to keep Woolly safe. Perhaps even myself.
“You do tend to spit on tradition.” He closed his hand over mine where it had come to rest on his chest. “It’s one of the things I admire about you.”
The mention of his admiration set off another round of flutters I worked to suppress. “I wouldn’t say spit so much as—”