Page 23 of The Lunatics

“Sorry, hi. How are you? Do you need me to help you fake your own death? Natalie says she knows people,” she said cryptically.

“I’m about as good as can be expected. But thank Natalie for the offer.”

“I will. What’s all this about you going to Boston?”

“I’m going to stay with Michael down there for a little while. He can’t leave work, and as I’m sure you now know, the bond won’t let us get too far from each other.”

“Hold up. You’re moving to Boston? What the hell, Layla?”

“Just until me and Michael figure things out between us.”

“Why didn’t you come say goodbye to me?”

“I thought you’d need time alone with Natalie. I didn’t want to interrupt. I was trying to give you space.”

“Well, how about next time you ask first?”

Ooh, she sounded pissed. Whoops.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I screwed up.”

She sighed. “I guess I have to forgive you. I doubt you’re thinking straight right now, what with the whole surprise mate debacle.”

“Yeah. Who could have seen this curveball coming?”

“The Goddess clearly did,” she said.

After all the speechmaking I’d done to get her ready for the ceremony yesterday, I found I wasn’t in the mental place to hear it thrown back at me. If I was being honest, I was angry at the Goddess—a feeling I wasn’t accustomed to. Oh, I still trusted that there was a point to all of this, but that didn’t mean I was okay with being caught up in some divine scheme.

“How did your mom take the news last night?” I asked.

“Good. What about your parents?”

“They did okay.”

“How was Michael?”

“Better than I expected.”

She made a sound of disgust. “Not hard when the bar was set so low.”

A flare of anger burst through me. The judgment in her words grated. It wasn’t any worse than what she’d said yesterday, but for whatever reason, it made me want to snarl.

Ugh, the bond. Again. Mom and Dad had warned us about our need to protect each other, but I hadn’t thought that defensive instinct would extend to my best friend, a person who’d always been able to say anything to me.

I forced my tone to neutral. “To be honest, he’s handling it better than I am. He’s been incredibly patient and polite. And he was very respectful to Mom and Dad.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess.”

I was still annoyed, my own emotions mixing with Michael’s in a way that made them spike. I needed a subject change, pronto. “Tell me about Natalie. Where’s she from?”

“Virginia,” she said.

I spent the rest of the conversation focused on her and Natalie. While Gia sounded happy, I could tell that there were bumps coming in the road ahead of them. Natalie was pansexual and panromantic. Gia identified as asexual. While she wasn’t sexually attracted to other people, she did form romantic bonds with them. As a panromantic, Natalie might be able to satisfy her sexual needs elsewhere, but as far as I knew, Gia was monogamous, so if Nataliedidhave other sexual partners, Gia would need to find some way to be okay with it.

And then there was the fact that Natalie might still crave that physical connection with her mate. It was a misconception that all asexual people were celibate. How often and when they chose to have sex with a partner could vary greatly—another aspect of their relationship they would have to work out.

It was a lot to take in, but between the hopeful tone in Gia’s voice and the fact that she and Natalie were already so open and honest with each other, I had faith that they would make it through.