Free Bone Walker by Angela Korra'ti

up. “Petty, jealous thoughts. You don’t want to hear ’em, Kenna.”
    Oh-ho-ho? I blinked at this and stopped on the sidewalk so I could loop my arms around Christopher’s waist. Two months this man had been my boyfriend, and he was still surprising me. “Wait, what? What in God’s name do you have to be jealous about?”
    Christopher humored me, wrapping his arms around me in turn, though the gaze he turned down to meet mine was an unhappy one. “He clung to you like you were his last hope,” he said, “and I didn’t care for that, much.”
    My face fell as I went still in Christopher’s embrace. “Neither did I,” I admitted. With that gaze of his upon me, dark against the wan October morning, I could offer nothing less than absolute honesty. “He scares me. Showing up out of nowhere like that, and who knows what the Queen did to him? And then Melisanda shows up out of the blue, and”—I flailed one hand about, seeking words that refused to let me voice them, and I had to finish weakly—“and everything else happened. And all I can think is how they’re Mom’s people, how I got that blood, and am I going to turn out like that someday?”
    â€œIf you can ask that question, lass,” said Christopher, “I’m thinking it’s not a problem.” His expression gentled, and he tipped his head down towards me, brushing his lips across mine. He did no more than that, since we were standing on a public sidewalk with early Sunday traffic trickling past us, yet that relatively chaste contact played havoc with the rhythm of my pulse. That he was in fact old-school in our relationship wasn’t something I really wanted to push, since I wasn’t done savoring its charm, not in the slightest. But when he made those sorts of overtures, with intriguing little presses from his hands… well. I’m as healthy as the next fey-blooded girl. I’m sure you can work it out.
    Still, though, my smile was crumpled. “You
don’t
have anything to be jealous about,” I murmured. And, retro charm of Christopher’s courting me aside, I wasn’t done with honesty either. “For the record? The wrong guy was in my bed last night. Just so you know.”
    A certain speculative gleam lit his eyes at that, and a grin I couldn’t call anything but
male
tugged at his mouth. “Good to know,” he murmured back. I had just enough time to wonder if my Boy Scout of a Newfoundlander was aware of the one-two punch of that smile and the dimple in his chin before he leaned in to kiss me again—and this time, because the street was momentarily clear, with quite a bit more zest.
Go Team Honesty
. All at once the morning was looking up.
    Which, of course, was the exact moment my phone had to buzz in my hip pocket.
    Distracted, we sprang apart without quite breaking our embrace, and while Christopher didn’t lose his grin, it turned distinctly sheepish. “You’d best answer that.”
    He was right, of course, but Team Honesty issued a collective sigh of disappointment in the back of my brain while I fished the phone out of my pocket. A text message was waiting on the screen for my attention. I almost sagged with relief when I saw it was from Jude.
    Chica I know you’re on your way here don’t bother I’m okay really! Go about your business. I need to resume mine from last night. Hasta!
    â€œShe seems okay, or at least as much as I can tell from a text,” I said, blowing out a deep sigh and turning the phone around so Christopher could see what our friend had written. Which was nice and all, except for the part where I couldn’t quite manage to rid myself of my disquiet. Part of it was yet another stab of guilt as I remembered Jude had been dressed better than was normal for her the night before, and I couldn’t help but wonder if our phone call for transport had pulled her