Page 57 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

“First, the business. Go look under your sink. Right now. I’ll wait. If anything in your house says Stillwater on the label — dish soap, hand soap, cleaning solution — bag it up and get it out of your den tonight. It smells like nothing, it rinses like nothing, and that’s the problem. That no-smell strips your scent right off your skin. Dragons have been sneezing smoke all over this valley for a week behind this stuff. That’s not bad luck. Someone made it do that.”

I washed my hands with that soap at work. I pull the quilt up over my legs.

“Now the story. Y’all remember the fortune teller from the Moon Festival? The one I told you we were never doing again? Same woman. She’s been walking this valley for years in faces that don’t belong to her, and right now she’s sitting at the top of Stillwater Solutions calling herself Hale. I’ve been pulling receipts on her for two years. Invoices. Shipping stacks. A break-in at a business y’all know and love. And a records clerk braver than me, who walked the proof out the front door. I intend to keep her, by the way.”

My eyes sting. I spent a year in that building being no one worth a memo. He just told the whole country I’m the brave one, and now there’s a nation of strangers who know I exist because he’s proud of me.

“Delilah. You’re listening. You’ve been hunting one thing in this valley for years, and you can’t have it, and you know why. The door doesn’t care what face you wear. So come see about it.Anyone in town can tell you where the loud dragon lives. They’ll be glad to.”

The warmth behind my heart holds steady while his voice hands a witch our address. Mine doesn’t. I reach over and grip his ankle through the quilt, and I don’t let go.

“Creek babies. This is the last one. I know half of y’all only ever listened so you’d know if I was talking about you. Thank you for every download anyway. Lock up tonight, and leave your porch lights on.”

That’s when I feel it. The warmth behind my heartbeat dips and aches while his face stays easy. His voice on the recording sounds like someone ending a show. The rest of him, the part only I can feel now, sounds like someone burying one.

Then, for the last time: “This is Messy Jay reminding you—where there’s smoke, I’m probably the fire.”

The speakers click off. I sit there holding on to his ankle with every word of it, and Jalen picks up another wing and doesn’t rush me.

I look at him. “Jalen.”

“I like it when you call me Jay.” He looks over at me. “Feels like a pet name.”

I take my hand off his ankle and turn on the bed until I’m kneeling, facing him. “Why?”

“You, Zuri.” He’s still chewing. “I don’t care about that podcast.”

The warmth behind my heart aches again, the same dip I felt during his goodbye. He does care. He cares so much it hurts him, and he’s sitting there eating wings and lying to my face about it, all so I won’t blame myself for what he’s giving up.

I open my mouth, and he talks right past it. “And before you climb out of your skin about it, I handed your phone to Malachi while you slept. He found Renee. She’s fine, baby. Better than fine. Safe, sound, and cussing us out over the scare.”

I sink back into the pillows. My girl is okay.

I look over at the phone on the nightstand, then back at him.

He picks at the tray and doesn’t look at me. “So you have no reason to leave me now. Right?”

I stare at him.

“Come on, baby, eat up.” He waves at the platter. “You ditched Dorian’s pancakes and slept through lunch. My mate does not skip meals on my watch.”

I look up at him. “You fucked my brains out and bit me.”

He narrows his eyes and points a wing at me. “For the record, you did me first.”

Then he puts the whole wing in his mouth. I hear every crunch of the bones from where I sit, and he swallows and smiles at me.

I sigh and set my water on the nightstand next to my tote. Then I reach across the platter and pick up a barbecue wing.

He watches me start picking it apart with entirely too much interest.

He gets up and disappears into the bathroom. Water runs. He comes back out with a stack of washcloths and tosses them on the bed. “Sorry. I forgot how messy they are.”

“You don’t even like wings?” I ask.

“Not my favorite,” he says. “Human food is a skill I taught my dragon, and he tolerates it fine. But once a month I owe him a hunt, or he sulks.”

Jalen crosses to his equipment. He doesn’t touch it at first. He stands over the desk with his back to me, and the warmth behind my heart aches the whole time.