Dammit. I was being an asshole to the people I actually cared about. My father could and would march right through the wall if he wanted to yell some more. Fluke couldn’t, and even having known him for only two days, I didn’t doubt that Gideon wouldn’t.
I opened the door and looked down into Fluke’s chocolate eyes. He whined again, and it was full of concern and question. He didn’t need words to ask if I was okay.
Instead of giving him words back, I knelt next to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. He licked my cheek, but didn’t otherwise move, just leaned on me and let me hug him.
Finally, I sighed and leaned back. “We’re supposed to inventory the magazines today. What do you think?”
The bell over the door jingled, so I hopped to my feet, heading past the wall of shelves between the door and the office. The ash-blond figure that awaited me was a surprise.
“David?” I asked. “What are you doing here? It’s definitely not Wednesday.”
He gave me his bright Boy Scout grin, the sheepish version, and a half-hearted shrug. “I was down at the coffee shop, and I heard you were in there when . . . well, I thought I’d come check on you.”
“That’s so sweet. Not necessary, but sweet.”
He looked me over, and I wondered if I still looked like a petulant door-slamming teenager who’d just gotten in a fight with his father about his work ethic. “Still got the fox, I see,” he said, looking at Fluke with bemusement.
Fluke, for his part, sat down next to me and jutted his head into the air, chin high, watching David down his nose. Weirdo.
“Yeah, I guess no one has reported him missing yet.” Yet, my ass. If they hadn’t, it wasn’t likely they would. No, whoever his mage was, they were probably dead. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t just tell David that, but something about it felt wrong. “We dropped by the registration office today,” I assured him.
“Nothing on the board?” he asked, and looked Fluke over, like he was searching for obvious markings.
I didn’t point out the way his legs were a shade darker than his back and head, and that made me frown at my own selfishness. Would I really steal Fluke from the mage he was supposed to be with? What kind of mage kept someone else’s familiar? But every part of me insisted that Fluke was with me. He was my friend. He didn’t want to leave.
Next to me, he sneezed.
I grinned down at him. “You okay, buddy? How about we open up those treats?”
That got his attention. He hopped to his feet, tail swishing with excitement.
I headed for the counter, where I’d left the bag, and addressed David at the same time. “I’ll keep checking, but it kind of looks like whoever had him before isn’t going to come forward. He’s obviously tame since he doesn’t have a problem with dog food, but there hasn’t been a peep from anyone about him.”
David shrugged it off, but I could tell he was still uneasy. He probably dealt with assholes like me who stole other mage’s familiars all the time. “That wasn’t what I came down about anyway. I was just worried. The employees at the coffee shop were pretty shaken up, and they said you were the closest person to the victim.”
“Kurt,” I told him. “His name was Kurt.” I stopped, hip leaned against the counter, and scrubbed a hand down my face. “Yeah, I guess I was closest. It—it was bad.”
Fluke leaned on my leg, not whining and looking for treats, but just staring up at me. I decided to willfully misinterpret it as a demand for food and reached for the treats, opening the bag and pulling out two of them. He hadn’t been begging, but he clearly wasn’t going to turn down offered treats. Oddly, however, he didn’t eat them. He picked them up, delicately, and went over to set them on the couch, right next to Gideon, before coming back to my side. Like Gideon would protect them for him, and he could go back later.
Gideon looked like the gunslinger I’d initially taken him for. He was wearing a hat he hadn’t been before, pulled low over his eyes, and glaring at David like the guy had pissed in his coffee. For fuck’s sake, his hand was on his thigh next to his damned