Chapter Seventeen of The Velveteen Tortoise is now available.
Luna the Baby Bunny
Pyx looks over his shoulder. “Gary can’t go to the Bale.”
“Yeah.” I gaze in the same direction as Pyx—outta Two-Four-Kay. “There’re still our boltholes in the forest.”
Pyx looks down at me. “Luna.”
Yeah, yeah. Seems Pyx has newly mastered Jo and Rez’s ‘you know better’ tone when he says my name.
“Fine.” I huff, like it’s no big deal. “There’s your cabin—”
“Your cabin.”
“Yours. You built it.”
“For you to use.”
“Right.” But I still don’t believe that.
It’s too freaking perfect a place for a disaster like me.
“Take Gary there,” Pyx says.
“Yeah. Sure.” Really, it’s our only option. “Come on, Gary. You’re with us.”
The whole time Gary has been standing by, being as silent as the War-naries used to be when in the mine. “Okay.”
Gary said that way too easily.
“Like, permanently with us.” I say, gauging his reaction. “So—” Crap! “I mean, you don’t wanna stay in the settlement anymore, do you? I didn’t even ask—”
“Yeah. Yep.” Gary rushes to say, nodding adamantly. “Wanna go.”
“Oh. Good.” Because if he’d said no, I probably would’ve had Pyx haul him out anyway. “I really shoulda asked first.”
“But ya are askin’.”
“Eh,” I roll my eyes, “kinda after the fact, but sure. Do you need to get anything?”
Gary shrugs. “Got nothing to get.”
Aw, my heart. I swear, I’ve only met one other person in my life who needed a hug as badly as Poor Gary, here. Which is Pyx. Who’s also here.
But I don’t hug Gary, because then that means I gotta hug Pyx. And I can’t hug Pyx right now, because my head still hurts. I’m tried. And my stomach is doing funky stuff.
And even though I’m so dang mad at Pyx right now, if I hug him, I’ll squeeze him for hours. And we gotta go.
I clap my hands. “Awesome.” Crap. “I mean, ‘awesome’ that we’re good to go.”
I have no clue how to recover from that, so I turn and start walking.
And we’re off. Outta the hostile human settlement and through the predator-filled forest, to Pyx’s cabin we go…
Writing All Realms of Romance: SFR - PNR - Fantasy 