I freeze.
And she opens the door and practically skips out of the fucking room, leaving me standing there in the dark like a fucking idiot.
What the fuck?
When I finally come to my senses and follow her, the workshop is exactly as we left it. Masks on walls. Fireplace crackling. Cheeto still sprawled across his chaise like a furry king.
Jamie, however, has the expression of a man exercising truly heroic restraint.
His bright grin is frozen from ear to ear as his eyes ping between us. Our flushed faces. My rumpled shirt. The fact that Bells's hair looks like she lost a fight with a windstorm.
He opens his big smiling mouth, closes it, opens it again.
"Tea's still warm!" he chirps with a single clap.
I head for Orion's heavy workbench along the far wall. It's solid oak, built for a tall alpha, with thick legs bolted to the stone floor and a surface scarred and scuffed from years of detailed work. I sit on the edge.
"No chair at least?" Jamie asks, his voice rising an octave.
Orion looks at him and shrugs.
Bells hops up beside me, then shifts, turning so her back rests against mine, leaning into me while facing the other side of the room.
She's… doing something. Crunching.
"What is that sound?" I ask warily.
"Biscuit. Lemon saffron. Orion's family recipe." Crunch. "They're stupid good."
"There's fucking craft shit and chemicals everywhere?—"
"Trust me, Rex, I'm already radioactive. No amount of leather polish is gonna do me in." Her hand appears in my peripheral vision and she waves around some kind of light-colored cookie shaped like a… I don't even know what. It's actually vaguely dick-shaped.
Yeah. It is. Because Jamie would absolutely fucking have dick-shaped cookie cutters laying around.
"You want one?" she asks, waving it around again, like that will entice me.
"I'm good."
"Your loss."Crunch.
Jamie is vibrating. I can see him from across the room, visibly straining with the physical effort of not saying what he's clearly dying to say. I narrow my eyes at him and level him a look that saysdon't you fucking dare.
He croaks.
Orion places a steadying hand on his shoulder.
"Shall we continue?" Orion asks pleasantly, his vivid green eyes holding mine above the golden skull mask.
"Guess so," I say under my breath.
Orion steps closer to the table, reaching up to the sides of his mask. His elegant fingers push back his hair to find the straps and there's aclick, then anotherclick,as he unbuckles them with slow reluctance, like he’s been dreading this all day.
Orion lifts the mask away from his face.
It's the kind of motion that saysI've done this a thousand times and it never gets easier.The golden skull separates from his skin with a faint whisper, and Orion holds it in one hand at his side like a knight removing his helm.
I don't look away.