Sleep tight, I hope you’re warm enough. Save me a cup of that tea? It’s nice. I miss that too.
Mace
I lowered the card to my lap and looked down at the piece of brown paper bag, the corner of it trapped under the Mason jar. I smiled to myself and sighed. A sort of weight lifted. Maybe I mattered to someone after all. I set the card on top of that large piece of brown paper and got ready for bed.
I needed to write him something back, but I didn’t even know where to begin.
Thinking about it kept me awake past dawn.
9
Mace…
“She give you anything?” I asked when I answered the phone.
Sauley laughed nervously and said, “No, man. I think she read the card part but not whatever you wrote. She looked at it too fast.”
I grunted, a little disappointed.
“You go back tomorrow night,” I said.
“Oh, man…” He sucked in a breath between his teeth like he didn’t wanna say whatever was coming and I felt my forehead crush down into a frown.
“What?” I demanded.
“I’m supposed to do something for Mav tomorrow night, and I don’t know how long it’ll run.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Mav comes first, you know that, kid. Let me know.”
“Yeah! Yeah! For sure, for sure. Walking Raven home is kind of nice. I don’t think she has any friends.”
I didn’t know about that. Not yet. I couldn’t ride yet to go find out. I was barely making it around the fucking farm, feeding goats and mucking barn stalls and that shit wasn’t that hard, honestly. I mean, they were fucking goats not horses, and I wasn’t getting into the pens with them. Not yet. If one of the little bastards head butted me right now, it might break my ribs the rest of the way so Fen had me keep my ass on the outside of the fence.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” I said. “Good lookin’ out. Thanks for doing that for me,” I said.
“Yeah, no problem,” he said.
I hung up and blew out a breath at the ceiling of my corner of the barn loft.
That was another thing. I didn’t exactly have a whole lot of room to fuckin’ bitch about her apartment and surroundings when I lived in a literal fucking barn behind racks and shelves of Fenris’ woman’s pottery.
I gave one long and slow blink and rocked my head back, rolling my eyes to scan the rows of shelves over my head in the dim moonlight coming through the window by my bed.
I wonder if Aspen would make her something… a nice tea set. Matching shit that isn’t chipped, cracked, or broken.
I already knew the answer. Of course, she would. All I had to do was ask.
“God fucking damnit,” I heard down below.
“Yeah, Fen!” I called out. “What’s up?”
“Ginger had a stillbirth.”
“Aw fuck, you need my help?” I asked.
“No…” he sighed. “Yeah, maybe.”
“I’m already up,” I said groaning.
“Gahhhh!” He made a noise of frustration and I hustled.
“What’s up, bro?”
“Here comes another one,” he said as I came down the bottom of the stairs. I nodded and went to work, helping him out.
When we were finishing up, we sadly had two stillborn baby goats to bury. It was sad, but that was life. We didn’t always get a happy ending. The good guys rarely, if ever, came out on top, and there were a lot of wolves among the sheep just waiting to power trip and take advantage.
I stared down at the hole Fenris was digging at the edge of the property and I was restless. I wanted to be doing something. I wanted to get my facts straight, do my research, and take the time with Raven to earn her trust. I wanted the full story before I did anything, but I already knew this particular story wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
“Man, what’s the matter with you?” Fen asked, looking up at me. “You look like somebody shot your fuckin’ dog.”
I grunted and said, “Let you know when I know more.”
He straightened and drove the spade into the ground at his feet, the sun rising and the cold morning filling with mist. He crossed his arms atop the shaft of the shovel handle and fixed me with a hard, blank look that said we weren’t budging or finishing until I spilled the beans.
“Fuck,” I muttered and sighed. “I keep thinking about Raven,” I confessed.
He scowled. “She seems nice. Brave but timid at the same time. What’s up?”
“I don’t know, I mean, I do know now, but it’s complicated and I don’t want to be talking out of turn without having all the facts and hearing it from the horse’s mouth so to speak.”
“It ain’t like you, being cagey, brother. You’ve always been one of the more direct of us.”
I nodded. “I know, but I’d like to keep my ass out of prison. I’d like to think I learned my lesson in patience and not going off half-cocked.” I cracked my knuckles and flexed my hands.
Fenris studied my face and finally nodded, working the shovel back and forth, his eyes on his work. He finally looked up at me and said, “When you get it figured out, come talk to me.”
I nodded solemnly.
“I fuckin’ planned on it. For sure,” I said. After what’d happened with Fen and his sister? He was going to have a fuckin’ field day with this.
The next time I sent Sauley to Raven, I wasn’t disappointed. He came back with a sealed envelope; white, business sized, and fairly thick – enough for several pages. I thanked him and told him “off, you fuck” and gave him a carefully packed
