LEO couldn’t afford to hate hospitals. Fortunately, as of yet, he didn’t have a reason to. But he was getting pretty tired of the visitor’s chair.
It had taken him a few seconds to recognize the signs of anaphylaxis, and another few to remember Cole kept an EpiPen in the car. He’d never run so fast in his life, swearing to himself with every step that he’d learn to sew and put a damn EpiPen pocket in every piece of clothing Cole owned.
Cole was stable now, though. Expected to make a full recovery so that Leo could yell at him. But he hadn’t woken yet in sixteen hours, and even though he hadn’t had a secondary reaction, Leo’s butt was glued to this uncomfortable blue vinyl chair while he watched the cardiac monitor.
Knock knock knock.
“Hey,” Nate said from the doorway. He was holding a bouquet of daisies in pink and orange. “How is he? Any change?”
Leo shook his head. “Doctors think he should wake up soon, though.” Being in the blue vinyl chair gave him a new appreciation for his patients’ loved ones. Leo had medical training and all the experience in the world telling him Cole would likely be fine, but he hadn’t eaten or slept or left Cole’s side since their arrival. He couldn’t.
Nate set the bouquet on the windowsill, which was already overflowing with gifts from other well-wishers. Leo had thrown the one with assorted chocolates in the garbage, even though it didn’t contain hazelnuts. Uncle Todd had a warped sense of humor. “Well, when he wakes up, will you thank him for me? I didn’t get to him in person yesterday.”
Leo frowned. “Thank him?”
Nate nodded sheepishly. “Yeah. I have kind of a, um. A medical condition?”
Then Nate should be seeing a doctor, not a witch. Unless this was like the candies that helped with nausea? Or maybe he had anxiety and Cole prepared him some of that special blend. “Oh,” Leo said carefully, not wanting to assume anything aloud lest he spill Cole’s secret.
Nate nodded. “Yeah. And like, it’s fine, most of the time I don’t snore! But I guess wolf-me didn’t get that memo, because Cole gave me a recording of what I sound like when the moon is full, and man, I am loud. So. Sorry if I woke you, by the way, back before you moved in with him.”
Leo’s lips moved soundlessly as he parsed that. Wolf-me. Full moon. Snoring. “That was you?” he finally said, reeling. That trilling, eerie, rumbly noise that had rattled things in his apartment had been his werewolf neighbor snoring. And Cole had known about it! “You uh—you just sleep through the full moon?”
“I walk dogs starting at six.” Nate shrugged. “Wolves are good at sleeping.”
Wolves are good at sleeping. Leo was going to start keeping a diary of all the insane things he had learned. “Right. That makes sense.” He shook it off. “I’ll tell him you stopped by.”
“Thanks.” Nate glanced at his watch. “Well, since he’s not awake, I might as well see if they need me at the shelter. See you later, Leo.”
Leo waved him off, shaking his head internally. He wondered how long it would be before revelations like this became commonplace. Maybe one day he’d even start anticipating them.
He must have spaced out, hypnotized by the beep and whir of the monitors, because he about hit the ceiling when Cole wheezed, “Wow, you look terrible.”
“Cole!” Leo turned to look at him, taking in the dark circles on his face and the glassy sheen to his eyes. The steady, perfect rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, unassisted. “You look beautiful.”
Cole laughed weakly as Leo took his hand. “Liar.”
Leo had never meant anything so much in his life. He kissed the back of Cole’s hand. “Amy sends her profuse apologies. I guess the chocolate guy had hired someone to help him set up, and they mixed up the chocolates. They’re fired now, which doesn’t help you, but still.”
Cole groaned. “It’s my own fault. I should know to be more careful around strange chocolates.” He took a couple of deep breaths; apparently talking was still a lot of work for his overtaxed lungs. “That’ll teach me not to carry my EpiPen.”
“I ordered five,” Leo admitted.
“Course you did.” Cole smiled weakly, closing his eyes. “For the record, anaphylaxis sucks. Do not recommend.”
“Noted.” Leo squeezed his hand. “Get some rest, okay? I love you.” The words came easily now, after everything that had happened. Leo wouldn’t risk leaving them unsaid.
Cole didn’t open his eyes again, but his smile was stronger this time, and he squeezed back. “Love you too.”
IT was a strange thing, having your ninety-two-year-old grandmother visit you in the hospital. Despite their recent reconciliation, Cole didn’t think he was going to like it.
Still, years of self-preservation instinct kept him polite. “Hi, Gran.” He could sit up under his own power now, more than twenty-four hours after his attack. He itched to go home, take a shower in his own bathroom, and crawl into the bed he shared with Leo, but Leo said he’d likely have to stay another night for observation if no one recommended him for discharge before three.
The clock had just ticked over to seven fifteen, adding salt to the wound and making Cole freshly cranky.
Gran hung her coat on the hook behind the door and moved to stand next to the bed. “Cole, dear. You look rested.”
Cole had done nothing but rest for a whole day. “I am ready to climb the walls.” He’d shooed Leo out to eat and shower around three, because Leo looked worse than Cole felt. He hadn’t returned yet, and Cole hadn’t paid for the TV service to be turned on, and he was bored. “Sorry I missed the party. I know it’s a big deal.”
Gran made a dismissive noise. “Nonsense. There’s always next year.”
When Cole was a child, Gran had raised a huge fuss about ensuring he was there for every Samhain—no Halloween parties for him—so that made him raise his eyebrows, but he didn’t comment.
“We were just lucky your young man was around,” she went on. “Without his quick thinking… and if he hadn’t known where to find your EpiPen!”
Something about that came out a little too casual. Cole sat up straighter, narrowing his eyes. We were just lucky, she said. “Were we really?”
Gran covered quickly, but Cole still caught it: a brief flash of guilt, or maybe panic. “Of course! Without Leo—”
“Are you telling me you didn’t See any of this?” Cole broke in bravely. Because he didn’t believe that for a second. When Ella was born, Gran had had the date circled on her calendar for months. Cousin Julie went into false labor twice, but Gran never wavered; the baby would come when she’d Seen it.
There—another chink in the armor. Gran clasped her hands in front of her. She’d always told Cole that crossing his arms made him look defensive. “Cole—”
But the sound of someone else at the door interrupted. Cole and his gran both swung their heads toward the newcomer, and for a second Cole almost felt bad for whoever it was; they probably looked like cobras about to strike. Then he took in the man standing in the doorway—dark-wash jeans, leather jacket, ebony skin, perfectly sculpted hair, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. He was handsome in a movie-star way, the kind of handsome Cole would never be. Even the way he stood spoke of charisma. And under all the beauty and charm pulsed the unmistakable red aura of a vampire.
Roman.
“What are you doing here?” Gran and Roman said at the same time.
Roman answered first, maybe because Gran was just as terrifying to the undead. “Looking for Leo,” he said in a rich baritone, cutting his eyes quickly to Cole. “James said I’d probably find him here.”
Damn it, Jimmy, Cole thought. Also, did Roman have to have a beautiful voice on top of everything else? Talk about insult to injury.
“Well, as you can see, James was mistaken.” Each clipped word dripped icicles. Gran wanted him gone.
All of a sudden exhaustion reared its head again. Cole just wanted the damn truth. “So,” he said conversationally, “how do you two know each other?”
Gran turned sharply toward him, and there was no mistaking the stricken expression nor the guilt in her eyes. Cole had her dead to rights and she knew it.
Roman said smoothly, “I was a would-be client,” and that cemented it.
Cole let suspicion harden his features, holding Gran’s gaze. They were going to have this out here and now—but not with an audience. “I see,” he said. “Roman—it is Roman, isn’t it?”
Roman nodded. Even his nod radiated power and self-assurance.
“Roman, would you give my grandmother and me a moment? We have some important matters to discuss.”
He probably could have argued. But maybe he sensed that Cole was on his side, because he simply inclined his head and took a step back, half closing the door behind him.
Cole very deliberately did not cross his arms. He wasn’t on the defensive here. “Why did you do it?” he asked quietly. “What could you possibly gain from cursing Leo?” He didn’t want to believe she’d done it, but what else was he supposed to think?
Gran’s tone when she answered was just as frigid as it had been when she spoke to Roman. “I don’t have to explain myself—”
“I think you do,” Cole interrupted. “I think you do, Gran, because this level of petty curse on a man you didn’t even know is skirting pretty close to gray magic. And you always told me that was wrong, and that it would knock the universe out of balance. So I think you better explain what you were doing.”
“You don’t understand.” Now that cold refusal had failed, Gran turned pleading. “Cole, some things, a Seer just knows. Sometimes we have to act.”
“To do what?” Cole half shouted. Someone in the hallway might overhear, but he was beyond caring. “What could cursing Leo possibly accomplish?”
“Saving your life!” Gran shouted back. “What happened yesterday, I Saw it when you were eight years old, before your mother ever moved away! I saw it a hundred different ways—I saw you die in Florida, in Tuscany, in Baha. I fought like hell to keep you here because I knew if I didn’t, if I didn’t find the right man, if I didn’t make sure he was there, you were going to die.”
For a second Cole stared at her, incredulous, imagining the weight of that knowledge. Then a wave of ice washed over him, receding with the last of his sympathy—and his patience. “So, what? Instead of warning me to be extra careful around chocolate on Halloween, you….” Roman had said he was a would-be client. “Roman came to you to ask your price for a revenge hex,” he guessed, and Gran’s miniscule flinch let him know he’d guessed right. “He must have brought a picture and you saw. You knew it was the man from your vision. So you cursed him.”
“I didn’t officially ask her to go through with it!” Roman said loudly from the other side of the door. “In case you’re wondering why I’m pissed!”
“Shut up!” Cole and Gran chorused.
But Cole wasn’t done. “You cursed him just as Roman had suggested—so that he wouldn’t be able to act on any of his feelings.” His stomach twisted. “You must have known that eventually he would come to me.”
After all, Cole was the best cursebreaker in Southwestern Ontario.
This time Gran said nothing in self-defense. To Cole, she might as well have signed a confession.
“You manipulated us,” he said, his heart sinking. “You played us from the very beginning. The whole thing was a setup.” So much for free will.
“How could you?” he whispered, his voice breaking. “How could you do that to me?”
Gran took one faltering step toward him. “I was trying to protect you. I love you. I couldn’t stand it if—”
“If I got hurt?” Cole filled in venomously. “Because guess what, Gran? I am hurt.” Not completely true. He was devastated. He and Leo had built their life on what he’d thought was a solid foundation. Now he discovered it was made of sand. “God, and even that wasn’t enough, was it? Setting us up? No, you had to go further and—you sent those flowers to Leo with that enchanted vase so you could scry him, and then you stole the florist’s memories—”
Did she even realize she’d crossed an elf? Had she been so consumed by her quest that she didn’t care?
“I had to make sure!” Gran said, wringing her hands now. “I couldn’t take any chances!”
Cole laughed hollowly, sinking back against his pillows. “Do you know what the funny thing is, Gran?” His eyes wanted to close with grief and exhaustion, but he needed to see her face when she realized the truth. “I never would have come into contact with those hazelnuts if it weren’t for Leo. He’s the one who asked if he could invite Amy along. I almost died because you interfered.”
It happened as if in slow motion. Gran’s mouth fell open, and her eyes went wide. Then realization overwhelmed the shock and her expression crumpled, the lines on her face deepening and her chin caving in. She raised a hand to her mouth. “What have I done?”
Watching the impact of his words, Cole expected to feel a grim satisfaction, a stinging balm over his own wounds.
Instead he felt immeasurably worse.
“Gran,” he said helplessly, his eyes burning. “You can’t—you can’t ever do that to anyone again.”
Gran nodded, wordless, face dripping with tears.
“Okay,” Cole said. His voice cracked. “I’m really mad at you and I think you understand why. But now I need a hug.”
She shuffled to the bed and put her arms around his shoulders. He wrapped his around her waist, and they both pretended the other wasn’t crying. Then they pulled away, Gran dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, Cole wiping his on the neck of his hospital gown.
Knock knock knock.
Cole looked up, sharp words for Roman ready on his tongue, only to see Leo standing in the doorway, expression serious.
No. Oh no. Cole’s heart had been in his stomach; now it sank to his knees.
“Irene, I’d like to speak to Cole privately, please.”
Gran shot Cole another stricken look but nodded wordlessly and walked toward the door, still dabbing at her eyes.
“There’s coffee at the nurses’ station,” Leo murmured as she passed him. “Not as good as your tea, but they’ll give you a cup if you tell them I sent you.”
Gran bit her lip, as though she could not bear to receive kindness from someone she’d been so callous to, and then she nodded again and left.
When Leo closed the door, it clicked definitively. Cole thought about that sunny September day when Leo had walked into his candy shop and thought it was fitting; their time together had begun with a door opening, and now this one had closed.
“Roman put the doll in my bed,” Leo said conversationally, surprising him. “Apparently I should have locked my windows. Did you know he could turn into a bat?”
Cole shook his head, scrambling for his conversational bearings. “Uh,” he said. “No. I didn’t know that.”
“Well, that makes two of us.” Leo shook his head. “Apparently he felt bad for letting his pride get the better of him and turning a witch on me, and tried to counter the spell.”
Of course he had. All this, and Cole didn’t even have the simple comfort of Leo’s ex being an asshole. “So that’s it, then,” he said. “Mystery solved.”
“Yeah. And Roman says he’s got Kyle in the equivalent of vampire therapy to cope with the fact that he’s gonna have acne for like two hundred years, so we can stop worrying about Jimmy too.”
Cole dug for a smile and mustered one that felt like wax on his face. “Great.” He took a breath and swallowed. “Look, you didn’t sign up for any of this, and it’s not fair to you. If you want to just—forget this ever happened, I understand. I can… we can make that happen.” At least Cole could go on knowing they hadn’t fucked up Leo’s life for good, even if his own heart broke in the process.
Leo stared at him as though he’d grown a second head. “No, I don’t want—are you offering to Eternal Sunshine me?”
Cole’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Technically I’m offering to have Gran do it,” he said by rote. “Or Kate, if you never want to speak to Gran again, which I wouldn’t blame you for.”
For another handful of seconds Leo didn’t say anything, didn’t move. Then he shook his head and asked, “What is wrong with you? I know you didn’t hit your head when you fell.”
This time Cole couldn’t find any words to fill the hole of his mouth.
Apparently he didn’t need to; Leo continued on, undaunted. “What, you think that my feelings for you aren’t real because your grandmother manipulated us into spending time together?” He scoffed. “I’ve spent a lot more time with a lot of other people, Cole. I roomed with the same guy for three years in university and I didn’t fall in love with him.”
Cole realized he was still searching for a rebuttal, then realized that was stupid. “So you’re….”
“Well, I’m not exactly pleased to be part of a weird morality lesson on self-fulfilling prophecies.” He took Cole’s hand in both of his. “It’s a little strange to realize that someone set us up on a really underhanded, extended blind date.”
At that, Cole managed a real smile, though it felt tenuous. Hope bloomed in his chest. “A blind date that could only end with true love’s kiss,” he admitted. His heart was in his throat now.
Leo inched closer. “Well, I’m not going to argue with the results.”
“Oh,” Cole said, his whole body filling with relief. “Okay.” He paused. “Same.”
Leo laughed softly, leaning his head against Cole’s. Cole closed his eyes and let warmth and contentment seep into his bones. “God, what a day. I could use one of those lemon fizzies.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Cole murmured, tilting his head. After all, true love’s kiss had its own kind of magic.