Some Assembly Required – A Books of Binding Short Story

Aodhán balled up the fragile booklet and threw it to the carpet by his knee. So many nonsensical pictures, so few words, most of which made no sense in any of the languages that he’d picked up over the centuries. Some made sense singularly, but in groups it was a lost cause. Setting it on fire was looking better and better each time he glared at it.

Stacks of flat boxes surrounded him, sitting where they’d been delivered that morning, seeming to loom over him where he sat cross-legged on the bare floor. All he had to defend himself was a tiny, strange, bent, wrench. How the hell was he expected to put together a condo’s-worth of furniture with this nonsense?

A squeal of high-pitched frustration sounded from behind him, somehow mirroring the one spinning inside his head, and he turned to see his little Keiko in her jury-rigged baby jail, the brand-new couch and loveseat combined with a wall of pillows to keep her contained. From his position on the floor all he could see were her two uneven pigtails standing up short and straight like little paint-brush antennas.

Aodhán grinned with affection and amusement and love. So much love. So, it would seem to be another escape attempt thwarted by her inability to find her feet. Yet. Any day, now, at the rate she was growing now that she was no longer starving. He sighed and picked up the balled paper wad and set about smoothing it out as best he could. He needed this crib more than he needed anything else, tonight. The couch wouldn’t hold her for long.

A polite tapping sounded from the front door, and Aodhán’s head snapped in that direction. What time was it? Who would come seeking him out at this hour? He stood and staggered a moment, feet numb, attention on the direction of the door. No staff, yet, no nanny, nobody to answer the door. Living with his dread wife for so long, he wasn’t in the habit. He’d have to do it himself.

Aodhán pulled on his gun rig and masked it and his SIG Sauer beneath a bit of glamour. He could have also worn his swords, propped up in a corner with the rest of his weapons, but he couldn’t carry both Keiko and two rapiers on his hips, so he decided to lean on firepower and tucked the baby against him, mindful of the handgun and her sticky little fingers. Probably nothing, but Seahaven was a violent town, and he was a violent man. The two often came in search of one another. But he also couldn’t leave Keiko to maybe fall between the cushions.

Aodhán carried his daughter into the condo’s front hall, the air redolent of outgassing paint, the tiles echoing with nothing to absorb the sound of his bare feet. He shifted the baby to the side a bit, tensed for an instant as he strained to listen—

“Just open the damn door, Aodhán. It’s not rocket surgery.”

“Etienne, don’t be rude.”

Aodhán frowned in confusion. Etienne and Cian? What were they doing here? Last time they’d come in search of him, he’d gone to war. Hopefully, war wasn’t in the cards for tonight. He’d never find a babysitter in time.

He opened the door and tilted his head just to one side at what he saw. Four men, smiling with good humor — well, as close as Etienne Knight came to smiling, anyway. The short faerie knight stood there with a large toolbox hanging from one hand, wearing a t-shirt pitted with tiny burn holes that said in scrolling letters, “Save an anvil, bang a blacksmith.”

Beside him was Cian the Glorious Dawn, Prince of Seelie and gifted healer. He bore several bags that proved to carry the home-brewed beer Aodhán was developing a serious liking for. Cian’s smile lit up the doorway, and he crinkled his nose playfully at Keiko, who giggled and wriggled on her daddy’s hip.

Between the two sidhe lords stood Alerich Ashimar, one-time wizard and sorcerer, currently… what, Aodhán didn’t know. The tall Englishman bore four large boxes of pizza with the logo from Mama C’s on top. Aodhán managed to not drool, but barely. He hadn’t eaten since arriving that morning.

Towering over them all was Brian MacDowell, Seahaven’s strapping young Hero. He also carried a heavy toolbox, but it and his simple, white t-shirt both were immaculately clean.

Aodhán gave Keiko a little bounce, looking the men over again as if not entirely believing they were there. Winter Mulcahy’s men and her cousin. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to see you… but what are you doing here?”

Etienne moved forward with his toolbox, not bothering to ask to be let in, and Aodhán stepped back to let him. Princes. They all had their bad habits. “Rescuing you.” Etienne’s gruff voice sounded as if it was the most obvious fact in the world and Aodhán was a special sort of idiot. “It’s what knights do, isn’t it?”

“Well, no, not really…”

Cian came in behind Etienne, looking both amused and irritated with his lover. “Etienne, you’re being rude, again.”

The knight just grunted.

Alerich gave Aodhán a little nod and a smile, both warm and polite. “May we come in? We heard through the grapevine that it’s Moving Day.”

Aodhán waved them through, a sarcastic little flourish on the gesture. Seahaven. Fucking gossipy town.

“A week early.” Etienne looked over the shimmer of glamour that hid Aodhán’s SIG Sauer and passed by him into the living room where Aodhán had most of the furniture boxes. “What did you do to piss off an Eldest?” He set down the toolbox and picked up the rumpled instructions, crouching as he began to read without waiting for permission or Aodhán’s reply.

Cian rolled his green eyes and moved through the other doorway to the kitchen. “We come bearing pizza and beer.”

Aodhán closed the door behind them and carried Keiko into the kitchen, where Cian and Alerich were setting down their simple feast. Aodhán felt his mouth watering. “Thank you.” He sighed and let Cian take possession of the baby so he could eat in relative peace. “My Dread Mistress, Himiko the Jómon,” may as well be formal about her, now, “decided early this morning that she could no longer stand my face and ordered us immediately out of her sight. Pretty sure it had to do with taking possession of the condo, but at least we’re not trying to stay at a hotel tonight.” Not that Seahaven didn’t offer a fine variety of high-end hotels, but setting the protection glyphs was always a pain in the ass, especially alone, and he wasn’t the best magician, anyway. He was best left with his blades and his wits.

Maybe they could cut past the pain behind the rage in Himiko’s hard eyes? Aodhán ached to be by her side, but he couldn’t abide her neglect of Keiko. He had to choose, and he would choose his daughter every time. But the pain in his chest as his wife had dismissed him from her personal life cut deeper than any blade.

Alerich handed over a brown bottle of beer. “Winter sends her apologies. She had a minor emergency show up just as we were leaving.”

Aodhán took a deep drink of Winter’s excellent beer and let himself relax a little for the first time since coming to the decision about the divorce. “She’ll be missed. What she’ll be missing, though…?”

Cian dandled Keiko on his hip, smooth, confident, and practiced. She chewed a piece of pizza with enthusiasm, little teeth cutting through the cheese. Cian handed her another small bite to work on. “We heard that you got tossed out and that somehow you didn’t get the stores to assemble the furniture for you.”

Aodhán rolled his eyes and took another drink before picking up a piece of tantalizing pizza. “I didn’t know it was even an option. And then the boxes arrived.” He swallowed and sighed. “Five-hundred-years-old and I have no clue what I’m doing in there.”

Alerich smiled around his pizza. “Neither do we, but together I’m certain we can figure it all out.”

“If we can keep Etienne out of trouble,” Brian muttered as he craned his neck a bit, looking through the kitchen doorway to the living room with its labyrinth of boxes. Aodhán thought it was funny as hell. Brian, of all of them, probably had more than just a clue about assembling furniture. He was a handyman as one of his many side-hustles. “Etienne, wait for us, please. You haven’t done one of these, y—”

The sudden sound of Etienne’s power drill whine cut Brian off.

The Hero immediately dropped his pizza back on his plate, frustration coloring his dark cheeks, and made his way across the room. “Whoa, whoa! Etienne, what are you doing?”

“They put the holes in the wrong damn places.”

“No, they didn’t. You’ve got the wrong pieces.”

Cian clapped his hand across his forehead, but not before Aodhán saw him roll his eyes.

It made Aodhán smile. What was it about being with these people, just hanging out and eating pizza, that made him feel so comfortable? Safe? There was Cian, across the kitchen from him, a young sidhe prince Aodhán was just barely getting to know, feeding pizza to Keiko and Aodhán was fine with that. At home, Aodhán couldn’t trust most outside of her and her twin’s nurses with holding Keiko. At home, it seemed he’d forgotten how to be happy, so long ago that it defied memory. He remembered fragments of this feeling from his childhood, but most of them were gone, now. They had been wiped away by five centuries of surviving in the Eldest Himiko’s dangerous household, pretending to be less than he was to avoid the attention of Himiko’s collection of therian kings. And for five centuries, he’d thought it normal.

What had Himiko done to him?

Alerich was grinning as Brian calmly explained to Etienne, even as the cantankerous prince tried to blow him off, that they really didn’t need the drill for this. “Brian is really starting to stand up well against Etienne.” His voice was pitched well below the two arguing in the living room.

Aodhán nodded, shaking away his pensive thoughts, and took a last long drink of his beer. “Let’s go save our Hero.” He threw a smile at Cian. “If you can keep an eye on her, we can see what these hands of mine are capable of.” Beyond violence and survival. Beyond Himiko’s intoxicating cruelty. Maybe on the path to a whole new life.

Could he really do that?

Keiko squealed in Cian’s gentle arms, the sound robust, so much more than the thin wails she had produced before in her mother’s ‘care.’ She was getting so strong. Maybe he couldn’t have gotten out of that life alone, but now he had Keiko. He had friends.

Today, he had a reason to fight for this new life, and fight he would. Tomorrow…

Tomorrow would have to wait.

---

If you like this story, check out our other free short fiction and all things Seahaven at https://www.aelowan.com.

Be Mine – A Books of Binding Flash Fiction

The February wind chased Cian across the wind-chilled patio concrete and back into the house. He closed the sliding-glass door against the onslaught and set his covered basket of fresh cuttings from the winter garden on the table, tickling little Noel’s toes with cold fingers and eliciting a squeal of delight from the baby. He shrugged out of his coat and draped it across the back of a chair, stooping to kiss his son’s round cheek, then straightening and crossing to the big island counter to lay a kiss on the back of Winter’s neck. “I think I got everything.”

Winter leaned back against him, and Cian reveled in the feeling of her nearness, her warmth, and the lightly floral scent of her shampoo. “Thank you for going out and getting them for me. I can make the potions in the apartment kitchen above the shop, but not without these cuttings.”

Cian smiled and kissed her hair. “I’m happy to help, and the last thing I want is to chase you away, but aren’t you running late to open?”

Winter looked at the clock and gave a tiny jump. “Blast! Yes, I am.”

Cian stepped away and picked up the jar of mayonnaise from the counter. “I’ll finish your sandwich while you get your coat. It’s freezing out there.”

Winter smiled up at him and laid a soft kiss against his lips. “What would I do without you?”

Cian smiled. “Let’s never find out.” He kissed her again, deeper, and she rose to meet him, her lips parting beneath his mouth. He finally broke the kiss with a reluctant groan and pressed his forehead to hers. “Coat. Late. Or screw it and stay with me today.”

Winter squeezed her eyes tight but stepped away. “Jessie’s at school, and I don’t have rabbit help until this afternoon. I really have to go.”

Cian smiled and let her slip away. Work was important, and he had his college aptitude exam to study for. He had lost precious weeks in Faerie last month and time was quickly running out. He turned back to the sandwich, finished it, and dropped it carefully into Winter’s lunch bag, making sure that she’d already packed some grapes and sliced cucumbers. He walked over to the kitchen table and pulled a sheet of paper out of one of his notebooks, carefully writing, “You make me so happy.” He folded the note and tucked it into the bag, then transferred Noel to his chest carrier to free up his hands. He picked up the bag and basket in one hand and took all three to the foyer where he met Winter winding a scarf around her slender neck. He gave her a quick kiss and held up the baby for his mother’s kiss. He handed her the basket and lunch bag and waved her out the door with Noel’s pudgy little hand. “Bye, Mommy. Come back to us, soon.”

Winter smiled and waved to their little one. “Bye, Noel. Take good care of Daddy Cian.” Cian beamed and watched out the open door until Winter was in her car and out of sight down the long driveway. He moved to close the door but heard Brian’s mother’s new van approaching the house. The young Hero and Etienne had been practicing nearly every day since they’d returned from Faerie. Brian had a new drive to learn, born out of the blood, pain, and loss suffered during the brutal battle there. Cian understood. He had returned with a stronger desire than ever to learn everything he could about medicine and his healing gift. He held the front door open and waived Brian inside as he swung the van door closed. “Come in. It’s cold out there.”

Brian nodded his thanks and slipped past the sidhe, shrugging out of his padded denim jacket and hanging it on the coat tree in the hall. “Morning, Cian. Happy Valentine’s Day!”

Cian’s smile only slipped a little as he blinked his confusion. “Thanks! Happy what?”

Brian grimaced and patted Cian’s shoulder. “You fit in here like you’ve been here forever. I forget that so many things are your first time encountering them. Every February fourteenth is Valentine’s Day. It’s a day to tell the people you care about that you’re thinking about them.” The Hero flushed a little and seemed to find a speck of dust on the picture-filled table fascinating. “And you can ask really special people to you to be your Valentine, if you have someone that you care about romantically.”

Cain bounced little Noel in his carrier and thought about that. “Someone romantic, like you and Jessie?”

Brian coughed and rubbed at where the speck had been eradicated. “Exactly like that.”

Cian nodded. He had a couple of people who fell into that category. “How do you ask them to be your Valentine?”

Brian walked back to the coat tree and pulled an envelope and a little square box that smelled like chocolate out of his inner pocket. “Normally with flowers or candy and a card, like this one. In it, you tell the person you feel romantically about what you like about them and how they make you feel, and you ask them to be your Valentine if they feel the same way.”

Cian looked at the red envelope. “I don’t have any of those to give anyone.”

Brian looked down at the envelope and back at the sidhe. “You can buy them at stores in town, including ours, but you can also make them yourself with paper, scissors, and glue. That lets you be really personal with your Valentines.”

“Is that what you did for Jessie? Make it yourself?”

Brian smiled and looked down at the envelope. “Yeah, I did. It might be a little cheesy, but I think she’ll like it more that it came from me than a store.”

Cian thought about that, and it sounded right. Handmade, then. “Is there something special that I’m supposed to make?”

“Most people include hearts or flowers, but really you should just think about what the other person likes and try to make them something like that. Some people write a poem, or something sentimental, or you can just write, ‘Be Mine.’ It’s really about the thought that you put into it. If you want to give it a go, I know that Jessie has tons of art supplies upstairs that I’m sure she wouldn’t mind you using.”

Cian grinned. He had a lot of work to do, but if this was the day that everyone told the people special to them how they made them feel, then he wasn’t going to miss his chance. He tucked Noel a little higher on his chest. “This sounds great. Let’s raid Jessie’s supplies, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Cian followed Brian up the stairs and to Jessie’s room. In a cabinet near her desk, Brian found paper in various colors, scissors, glue, markers in every hue, and even a box of odd buttons, ribbons, and tiny bows. They gathered up the supplies and took them down to the kitchen, depositing them between Noel’s carrier and Cian’s study guides.

Etienne stood impatiently near the basement door. “What are you two up to? I’ve been waiting here since I heard the van.”

Brian grinned at Cian but answered the faerie knight. “We were gathering supplies for a special project. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Etienne took in the pile of supplies on the table and his brows knit in confusion, but he didn’t ask for elaboration. Instead, he said, “It’s too cold to work outside today, so we’re taking over Alerich’s boxing studio for the morning. Let’s get to it. The day is getting away from us.”

Brian nodded. “Let me just grab Courage.”

Etienne grunted and headed down the stairs.

Brian turned back to Cian. “Just think about what your person means to you, how they make you feel, and use that to make the card. There’s no right or wrong way to do it.”

Cian looked down at the pile of supplies and thought about Winter and how she made him feel and ideas flooded his brain. He beamed at the Hero. “Thanks, Brian!”

Brian ducked his head and smiled at the sidhe prince. “No problem. Good luck!”

Cian sat and picked through the paper. The card that Brian had been carrying had a red envelope, but he had no idea what the card inside might look like. But Brian had said to think about Winter and how she made him feel and to go from that. Cian closed his eyes and pictured the wizard, her long hair, her scent, and how her smile made him feel like the first days of spring when everything is in bloom and the breeze held the scent of promise in the air. He picked a piece of blue paper, like the skies in spring for his background and a selection of greens for the grass and trees. He began cutting small shapes and gluing them to the blue background, building a landscape out of cut paper.

Cian looked at the growing landscape and it wasn’t quite right. It was frozen, still, while Winter made him feel full of life. He concentrated on the scene, breathing life into it the way he could breathe healing into a body. He funneled his magic into the paper until the blades of grass danced with glamour in the spring breeze and the clouds lazily traced across the paper sky.

Cian thought about what Brian had said about hearts and flowers and cut flowers to dot the grass, thinking about Winter’s shampoo and the slightly floral scent that had come to mean home. He breathed the scent into the scene until each gust of the paper breeze brought the essence of another flower.

He remembered Brian said that some people write poems for their Valentines. That was really just a song, wasn’t it? He thought of Winter and sang a sidhe love song into the card, breathing it to life like he had the flowers, the grass, and the wind, until the card rang softly with Cian’s voice, the song of a sidhe lord and his lady love.

Cian looked down at the card and was happy with what he saw. This was how Winter made him feel. Alive, and new, and full of beginnings. He signed the card, “Be Mine and Let Me Be Yours. Cian.”

He gently folded the card, careful of the pieces, and made a red envelope to hold it, writing Winter’s name in his careful script on the outside, smiling at his work. That was always how it was with Winter. Things were easy and they made him happy.

He looked back at the pile of supplies and the smile changed. He thought of Etienne, who made things anything but easy, but who also made Cian happy. How to tell the gruff faerie knight how he made him feel. He closed his eyes and thought about the man, about their night together before the battle, and the many nights since. He chose a black piece of paper and cut starlight pinpricks into it for the night sky. As before, he breathed his magic into the scene and the stars began to twinkle in their paper sky. He cut a moon hanging full and bright and a tree beneath which he glued two lovers lying on the ground, staring at the heavens above them. He cut a fire, burned low and smelling of hickory and with his magic, the flames danced in their ring and cast shadows on the lovers. He thought of the smell of Etienne, smoke, leather, and steel, and breathed them all into the card. He didn’t sing. He didn’t need to. Etienne was a man of few words and would know what Cian was saying without saying anything. He simply signed it, “Be Mine, Now and Always. Cian.” He folded it carefully, and made a red envelope that said, “Etienne,” to slide it inside.

Cian smiled wistfully down at his creations. Two cards for his two loves. Two Valentines. But then he frowned. It was true that he loved Winter and Etienne both, but Brian said that Valentine’s Day was a day for telling the people you cared about how they made you feel. He was nervous, but with a shaky hand he picked up another piece of paper, this one brown like the Library. He had another Valentine to make, but this one caused him some trepidation. Alerich. He cared for the man, but neither of them had talked about those feelings at all. What if he asked Alerich to be his Valentine and the man said no? But Brian hadn’t said that Valentines were a sure thing. Only that he should tell people how they made him feel and ask if they would be his Valentine. He could do that. He could tell Alerich how he made him feel, even if the wizard didn’t feel the same way.

Cian cut carefully. He cut a fireplace with a roaring fire and breathed it to life. He cut chairs and books and arranged them like the evenings they had spent together reading in the Library. He cut two men and put them in the chairs, books in their laps. He thought of Alerich and his scent, firewood, paper, and spices. The feel of silk and leather. And the walking cadence of Shakespeare’s meter, iambic pen-something, that Alerich practically sang with every reading. He breathed them all into the card, and finally cut butterflies flying from the book in paper-Cian’s lap like they fluttered in his belly. How the wizard made him feel. Cautious and curious. Nervous and exhilarated. He hummed a song into the card, a tentative but hopeful song. One that offered his heart and hoped that it would be handled kindly. He signed it, “Be My Valentine? Cian.”

He made one last red envelope and wrote Alerich carefully across it, sliding in the card and biting his lip. This one made him nervous, but it also felt right.

He looked at his small pile of Valentines. The first he’d ever made. He hoped that he’d done it right. But Brian had said there was no right or wrong way. To show them how they made him feel. He’d done that and now all he could do was ask them to feel the same. To be his.

Cian gathered up the rest of the supplies and returned them to Jessie’s cabinet, changed the baby and gave him a bottle, rocking him in the nursery glider and humming the songs he had sung for Winter and Alerich. He would get to work on his studies in a moment, and later he would give his very first Valentines to Winter, Etienne, and Alerich. But for now, he was content to rock his son, hum a love song, and think about the family they were making in this house. Brian had said “Happy Valentine’s Day,” and Cian was happy. Happier here than he had ever been in his life.

---

If you enjoyed this story, check out our other free original short fiction at https://www.aelowan.com

Social Climbing – A Books of Binding Flash Fiction

Jessie set two overly full fountain drinks on the small table and flopped down into the empty chair. “Rock climbing is thirsty work.”

Cat Chen, her new friend from Seahaven Academy of the Arts, smiled around her straw and took a long drink as she adjusted her harness. “Fun though.”

Jessie took several long swallows and nodded. “I’m glad we did this today. It’s been a rough month, and like half my house is in mourning. I feel bad for them and everything, it’s just…”

“A little much sometimes?”

“Yeah, a lot much sometimes. It’s good to get out of the house someplace that’s not school or the store.”

Cat grinned at her over her enormous Styrofoam cup. “I love the store. I can’t believe I’ve been going shopping in the Historical District my whole life and never noticed it before. Winter makes the best stuff.”

Jessie took another sip to figure out how to react. Cat had never noticed Curiosity’s because without a magical spark, she wasn’t supposed to notice it. Jessie could actually get into some trouble with the Servants of the Eldest for letting Cat in on any of the thousands of secrets Seahaven’s preternatural community hid from the humans all around them, but it wasn’t fair. Cat was her friend, and Jessie didn’t want to hold her at arm’s length. Winter had given her cautious permission to let Cat in on some of their lives. She’d been to Curiosity’s last week, and they were planning for her to come out to the house next weekend. If she took the moving woodwork and obvious bits of magic okay, and Jessie was pretty sure she would, then she would become a human in the know, under Winter’s supervision and protection. If she freaked out, then Winter would have to use her forgetting potion, and Jessie would have to keep Cat away. But she couldn’t tell Cat any of this just yet, so instead she sucked down a generous amount of her drink and waved at Cian, who was back down on the ground and looking around for them.

His return smile had enough wattage to make it seem like the rest of the climbing gym dimmed in comparison, but he didn’t mean anything by it. He smiled at all of his friends that way. It wasn’t his fault he had a smile that could stop traffic. He was gone on Winter and Etienne and maybe Alerich, too? Jessie had noticed that those two were spending an awful lot of time together reading at night, but she hadn’t asked Cian about it, yet. Then again, she’d been pretty busy herself with Rick’s friend, Fitz. Thinking about Fitz made her lips turn up and things low in her body move.

Cat grinned at her from the other side of the table. “Is that he’s-so-sexy smile for Cian or someone else?”

Jessie blinked. “Cian? No, we don’t see each other that way. He’s more like a brother than anything.”

Cat’s grin widened, and she looked over to where Cian and Brian were getting notes on their last climb and advice for their next one. “Someone else over there, then?” She bit her lip and wiggled her dark eyebrows in suggestion.

“Stop it. You know I’m dating Fitz.”

Cat’s face fell into something a little more glum. “I don’t see why, when that amazing boy,” and here she gestured across the food court to Brian’s muscular back, “is right here.”

Jessie scowled. It wasn’t the first time Cat had mentioned her preference of Brian over Fitz for Jessie’s romantic dance card. Not even the first time today. “There’s nothing wrong with Fitz.”

Cat snorted. “You mean besides the alcoholism, the snark, and the him being almost thirty?”

Jessie shifted a little in her chair and her expression turned mulish. “He’s twenty-eight, not thirty, and I’m snarky, too.”

“Oh yes, ‘cus that particular two years makes all the difference when you’re seventeen.” Cat’s eyes practically rolled out of her head. “It just seems a little creeptastic to me.”

“So, you’ve said. A number of times. Fitz makes me happy.”

Cat narrowed one eye and tilted her head. “Does he, though? Just last night, you told me he was driving you crazy, picking at what he thinks of as your ‘faults.’” Her fingers made air quotes to emphasize the word. “I don’t see how a guy who is trying to drink himself into an early grave has the right to criticize anyone else.”

Jessie felt her face redden. “You don’t know him. You don’t know what life has been like for him. What his father was like. Fitz drinks because he’s in pain.”

Cat looked at Jessie with something like pity in her eyes. “And now, so do you.”

Jessie slammed her palm down on the table, making their drinks and other patrons jump. Brian and Cian looked their way and Jessie waved them off. “You don’t know everything about me, either. You don’t know what I’ve been through.” She could hear herself screaming while that red-headed freak tortured her over and over. She shuttered her eyes over the tears that threatened to escape. “You don’t know.”

Cat took Jessie’s hand and held it carefully, her voice quiet and soothing. “I know enough to know that drowning whatever happened to you is only going to cause problems, especially with what you’ve told me about your parents. Jessie, if Fitz cared about you, he wouldn’t want you drinking yourself stupid every night.”

Jessie snatched her hand away and glared at Cat. “I don’t drink myself stupid. I can handle it. Fitz loves me.”

Cat sighed and leaned against the back of her chair. “Does he, though?”

Jessie cut off whatever Cat was going to ask. “Yes, he does. Can we please have a new topic?”

Cat nodded, but Jessie knew this would not be the last time her friend questioned her relationship with the deaf wizard. Cat and Winter, hell even Cian had said he was surprised by her choice. They would all be happier if she dumped Fitz for Brian. But she wasn’t good enough for Brian, and none of them could see that. Brian was special. He was a Hero for god’s sake — strength of ten men because his heart was pure and all that. And she was just…
Damaged. She was damaged in a way Brian wouldn’t understand but Fitz did. Fitz didn’t ask her what was wrong when she woke up screaming in the night. He didn’t have to. He had been through similar things himself. His and hers traumas. Jessie wasn’t sure if that thought made her want to laugh or cry. Maybe both. She took another long sip from her drink. “Let’s go climb again, okay?”

Cat looked like she wanted to say something, but instead she just nodded. “Sure. Let’s climb.”

---

If you liked this story, check out more of our free flash fiction and all things Seahaven at aelowan.com

Leftovers – A Books of Binding Flash Fiction

Jessie St. James felt a grin growing as she watched Justin MacDowell toddle around the worn wood floors of Otherworld Books, the stubby felt feathers on his turkey outfit sashaying with each bit of progress he made. She looked at Brian and found him grinning, too, teeth a flash of white against terracotta skin, before he leaned over and redirected his adopted little brother. “It’s hard to believe how much he’s grown in just a month,” she said, and decided to plant her plump butt in the doorway of the stock room to corral him a little.

Brian chuckled and nodded, bending to collect Justin. “Yeah, it is.” Justin objected loudly, gaze fixated on the Christmas display Brian was in the middle of assembling, and he patted the little boy’s back around the turkey accessories on his diapered tush in an attempt to distract and sooth. He sank onto the floor with Jessie and her insulated bag of Thanksgiving leftovers, and his stomach gave an appreciative grumble. A sheepish smile tugged at his lips. “That smells good.”

“Good!” Justin made grabby hands for the bag, evidently as interested in the smell as his big brother.

Jessie grinned at the toddler. “Oh yeah. About as good as it did the first time,” Jessie said, and gave a definitive nod as she unzipped the large doggie bag that Winter had so graciously provided. “I missed Winter’s cooking, you know, before everything,” she added with a glance over her shoulder, looking out for Norah MacDowell. While Brian’s mom was a wonderful person and incredibly kind, she was human and just wasn’t privy to what had happened in the last month—or some of the things that had come before. Jessie dug into the bag and came up with a Tupperware container and an itty-bitty spoon, handing them to her friend with a wry smile. “Winter also sent Justin some pumpkin pudding. Have to get him started young on that addiction.”

The young Black man laughed. “What else is in your goodie bag?”

“Hmm.” Jessie dug out stacks of plastic dishes, spreading them out between them. “Looks like the whole kit-and-caboodle. Winter likes to set people up in style, you know. Want to help me eat some of it?” It was almost like a date… on the floor… with a baby brother squealing for his share. So yeah, almost. Almost sort of counted when you were seventeen, right?

Now if only Brian wasn’t too good for her.

“It would be a terrible, terrible crime to turn down a Mulcahy plate!” Brian said, playfully scandalized as he got Justin settled into his lap for his snack—the gateway drug into all things pumpkin spiced.

“Wouldn’t it?” While Justin happily nommed away, Jessie took a few slices of Winter’s homemade bread and added some turkey and cranberry sauce before passing it along, feeling deliciously domestic. Then, Jessie’s lips pulled into a thoughtful frown when Brian took the sandwich.

Her friend tilted his head, his long, pencil-thin dreads swinging. “What’s wrong?”

Just as quickly, that frown quirked into a smile. “Just thinking. Wondering how you’re doing now that you’re in the ‘in-crowd,’ so to speak… Do you want to talk about it?” It was at least putting it on the metaphorical table.

Brian adjusted Justin on his lap and set the sandwich on his knee, deliberating in his answer. “I can’t say I didn’t suspect something was going on with you at the Theatre, but…” Brian shrugged one shoulder, “it’s a lot to swallow. I won’t deny that it’s nice to know I’m going to do something worthwhile with my life, and make an impact for the better. There’s more certainty in that than I can say I’ve had before.”

“Why’s that?”

The dark-skinned teen just shrugged, again. “Growing up out there,” he made a vague gesture to the streets with one hand, and gave his little brother another spoonful of pudding with the other, “sometimes you have to wonder.” Another sheepish smile immediately followed. “That’s not to discount what Norah’s done for me—and that’s been a lot. Being a Hero, though… that pays things forward in the best way, if you can believe in Destiny.”

“I do believe in Destiny.” Someday, that Destiny would take Brian from her, but she was determined to get the most of every day she had with him. Jessie found a smile for him and playfully nudged his knee with her sneaker. “But, you don’t have to be a Hero with emphasis on the capital H to be the everyday hero variety. Winter and I are ‘come as you are’ people. You know that. And Norah knows it without the rest of the picture,” she said, and scooted over to eat her lunch with him just in time to catch a flash of flush across his terracotta cheeks. Maybe…? Naw. “Now, after we go Jaws on this bountiful feast, what can I help you with here? Not really in the mood to go home yet.” She was never in the mood to go home, but that was another story.

He laughed, grateful for the excuse to move on. “If you need an excuse to be busy, you can help me with this display.”

“Perfect.”