Chapter Thirteen

"Hey!" I said, blinking at Tad in confusion. "What are you doing here? I thought you had class this morning."

"I do. I have a break between classes. Can I come in?"

"Yeah, of course." I waved Tad into the hotel suite. I double-checked the knot I'd tied on my hotel robe as I followed him into the living room, suddenly remembering that I hadn't put on deodorant this morning. Focus, Jesse.

"Are your dad and Mercy here?"

"Nope. They're still at the meeting."

Tad nodded, running a hand through his hair. It looked like he'd been running his hands through his hair a lot this morning. "I wanted to talk to you about last night."

"Is this about me smashing a cannoli on your ex-girlfriend's face? Because I'm gonna tell you right now, that was extremely satisfying and I don't really feel like apologizing."

"No. Well, kind of. It's more about...how Morgan got to be my ex."

"Oookay," I said. I leaned against the arm of the couch and crossed my arms, partly because I felt self-conscious about my lack of bra and partly because I felt like I needed to brace myself for whatever was about to come. If it was about Morgan, I got the feeling I wasn't going to like it.

Tad began to pace, which did not reassure me. "I've been up half the night thinking about what to tell you. I knew Morgan would come up eventually. But I didn't expect to actually run into her the first night you were here." He jammed his hand into his hair again. "I kept telling myself to wait until I saw you tonight to tell you. But then I kept thinking that if we'd already run into Morgan once, odds were way too high we'd run into her again...and I didn't want you to see her again without knowing."

"Tad, you're totally freaking me out over here. What happened?"

He stopped pacing and turned to face me. Opened his mouth. Closed it again. Then: "Morgan tried to sell a video of me to the tabloids."

"What?" I blinked. "Why would the tabloids want a video of you? Did you become famous without me noticing? I feel like I would've noticed you becoming famous."

"No, it was..." He looked away, gripping his hair again. "Morgan took a video of me without my glamour on."

I stared at him. How was Izzy always right? About everything?

"You let Morgan take a video of you without your glamour on?" I said dumbly, trying very hard not to think about what else Tad may or may not have had on in this scenario.

"No," Tad said quickly. "I mean, I didn't let her. I had no idea Morgan was recording me. I thought...well, never mind. The point is, it was all a setup. The whole relationship."

"What? You mean Morgan dated you just to get a video of you?"

My disbelief wasn't about why Morgan had wanted the video. That much was obvious: there hadn't been any Freak Zone back where Morgan and Tad had dated, which meant there hadn't been any videos of un-glamoured fae had been floating around the internet. Morgan's video of Tad would definitely have gone viral, if she'd succeeded in posting it. Which obviously she hadn't.

What I couldn't get past was the thought of Morgan actually being enough of an asshole to do that. To Tad. Even just on the surface, Tad was a likable guy. And under that, he was more than just likable. He was...

"Morgan's uncle runs a tabloid," Tad said flatly. "He literally paid Morgan to get close to me so she could get the video."

I blinked at him. Okay, forget cannolis: the next time I saw Morgan, she was getting my fist in her face.

Tad went on, "Lucky for me, Morgan blew her own cover. Right after I left her dorm that day, she texted her friends to brag about getting the video of me. But Morgan didn't count on some of her friends actually liking me. One of them called and told me everything. I got back to Morgan's room just in time to stop her from sending the video."

"Good," I said darkly. "Although if Morgan's friends liked you so much, they should've told you way sooner."

"I guess they thought she wouldn't go through with it," Tad said with a shrug. "But that doesn't matter so much. What matters is that when I got back to Morgan's dorm room, I stopped her from sending the video...by destroying her phone, her computer, and her camera. With my powers."

Whaaaaaaaat.

I had never heard of Tad losing control like that. Not when he was battling a lava monster. Not when he was fighting a bridge troll. Not even when he'd gone off to vanquish a freaking Gray Lord. Then again, none of those monsters had fake-dated him for a tabloid story.

"She deserved it," I said. "She deserved worse than that."

But Tad just shook his head. "I shouldn't have done it, Jesse. The second I did, Morgan had every right to press charges against me. Which she was definitely going to do. She wanted to get me expelled, too."

"What? But she was the one messing with you!"

Okay, forget fists. The next time I saw Morgan, she was getting my nail bat in her face. That bitch was so lucky I wasn't a werewolf, or I would already be halfway across town, sniffing out her scent, tracking her down and -

"Jesse." The warm weight of Tad's hands settled on my shoulders, and my revenge fantasies slowly faded as Tad's face came back into focus. "It doesn't matter. It's over now."

"If it's over, then why is Morgan walking around acting like she has something over you?" I said. I couldn't get Morgan's cat-ate-the-canary grin out of my mind. The one she'd given Tad when she'd first spotted his on the street last night.

"Because she did have something over me," Tad said grimly. "Morgan knew I couldn't afford to fight the charges she was going to throw against me in court. But I wasn't about to let her ruin everything. So...I bargained with her."

I gaped at him. "Does Morgan even understand what that means?"

I had never bargained with a fae myself. But I knew enough to know that it was a much bigger deal than bargaining with a human. Bargains with fae were binding. Unbreakable. And even though Tad was only half-fae, and therefore capable of lying, I knew he'd never back out on any bargain once he'd made it.

"Oh, she knew exactly what it meant," Tad said bitterly. "I'm the idiot who told her."

The bitterness in his voice finally broke through my anger and indignation. I reached up and took his face in my hands. "Hey. You are not an idiot."

"Sure I am," he said. "I-"

There was a loud knock at the door, and we both jumped. For a wild moment, I was convinced we'd somehow conjured up Morgan on the other side of the door. But then came the muffled call of "Room service!" and I let out a relieved breath.

"Hold that thought," I said. I let in the room service guy, my stomach immediately growling at the smell of bacon and coffee.

After I'd tipped the guy and set the tray down on the coffee table, I turned to find Tad frowning at me. "You haven't even had breakfast yet."

"So?"

"So...this was crazy." Tad scrubbed his face with his hands. "It's 7am back home. You're still jet lagged. Your dad and Mercy could come back anytime. I shouldn't have..."

"Tad. Give yourself a break." I crossed the room and wrapped my arms around him. Tad returned the embrace, holding me tight. "I'm glad you came over," I said, my voice muffled against his chest. "I would've been glad to see you even if you'd come over for no reason at all."

Tad leaned down, burying his face in my hair, and I drank in the feel of him, his slightly metallic scent, the softness of his shirt over his strong, sturdy frame. We didn't say anything else, but I could feel reassurance and affection and a certain right-ness flow between us, until Tad let out a deep breath, gave me a gentle squeeze, and let me go.

"Do you want to stay and have some bacon?" I asked.

Tad checked the time on his phone. "I should get going, actually. But I'll see you tonight."

"Okay," I said. He leaned down to give me a quick kiss good-bye. As I walked him to the door, I added, "Just for the record, Tad, I'm glad you told me about Morgan."

"Are you sure?" he said. "For a minute, you looked like you were about to go seek vengeance on her."

"Well, she deserves a little vengeance. But don't worry. I think I've had enough trouble for one year. I'm not going to go looking for any more."

By the time my dad and Mercy got back, I'd showered and changed and devoured my breakfast. I could tell instantly that they had good news, because my dad didn't look like he wanted to punch something.

"I take it you worked out a deal?" I said, as Mercy plopped down on the couch across from mine.

"About as good a deal as we could make," Mercy said, looking relieved.

My dad came over and dropped a kiss on top of my head - a rare gesture that I interpreted as his own way of expressing relief. "If anything happens to you in Boston, Jesse, heads will roll."

"Literally or figuratively?" I asked. My dad tried to give me a stern look in response, but he couldn't keep a self-satisfied grin off his face. "Well, I'm glad that's settled. Now I just have to see whether I like B.U. or not."

I was really hoping I didn't end up hating the school. Because now, officially, the move to Boston had been approved by my dad. And that meant living here, going to school, being with Tad - all of it was suddenly, actually, vividly real.

And I felt giddy and slightly terrified about it, all at the same time.

It turned out that I did not, in fact, hate Boston University. Several hours and one comprehensive campus tour later, I discovered that I loved it. And the more I saw of Boston, with its long, winding streets and historical markers on every other corner, the more I loved the city, too.

We decided to walk all the way across town to meet up with Tad later that afternoon (because, as everyone knows, an under-exercised werewolf is a cranky werewolf), and Tad met us in Harvard Square. He grinned from ear to ear when he heard that the meeting with the local Alpha had gone well.

"Never had any doubt," he said, and I did my best not to let my sudden giddiness show stupidly all over my face.

Tad walked us all around Harvard, showing us his favorite spots on campus before leading us back to the Square for dinner. I gave Tad a rundown of everything I'd seen and liked about BU, but all the while, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking, This is real! This is actually happening! This is going to be your life!

I kept wanting to pinch myself to make sure everything was real. Or maybe I just wanted to hit pause and wait for it all to sink in.

After dinner, my dad and Mercy made themselves scarce again and Tad took me to a cafe with at least ten different kinds of hot chocolate for dessert. We got our drinks to go, and I was still sipping my peppermint hot cocoa when we arrived at his dorm room.

"It's not much, but, well...it's not much," Tad declared, as he opened the door.

"Wow, you weren't kidding." His single was basically a glorified closet, with just enough room for a bed, desk, and dresser, plus a sad little window looking out on the building's fire escape. "Well, at least it's cozy." I made a very brief circle of the space, inspecting with particular interest the stack of books on Tad's desk - all engineering and science textbooks, with one Neil Gaiman book on the top.

"Jesse," Tad said, and I turned toward him, surprised to see that he was looking nervous. Or actually, maybe not that surprised, considering I was also hyper-aware we were alone in a room together without any chance of being interrupted for the first time...ever.

"Yeah?" I said, as my heart started up its whole thwomp-thwomp routine.

"I didn't just come over this morning to tell you about Morgan. I, um..."

"Wanted to make out with my face?" I suggested.

Tad laughed. "I mean, obviously. But also..."

He was killing me with all the trailing off today. "Also what?"

"He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing, which did not help out my whole thwomp situation. "I realized this morning, when I was talking about Morgan -"

"Let's not talk about Morgan," I said.

"Yeah. Good call," Tad agreed. "It's just, I realized this morning... There are only a handful of people who have seen me without my glamour on. And it's not right that you... I mean... I just think you should be one of them. Or, I want you to be."

OH DANG. Keep calm, Jesse. STAY CHILL!

Because let's be real: I have been curious about what Tad looks like without his glamour on ever since I realized he had a glamour. But I would never, ever, not in a million years, have asked him to show me. It would have been too weird and personal. Like asking a member of my dad's pack to transform in front of me just so I could watch them. And especially after hearing about what Morgan had done to him...

"I mean, if you want," Tad said quickly. "It's up to you, Jesse. I mean, if you don't want -"

"No, I do," I said. I set down my hot chocolate, my hands feeling slightly shaky. "I mean, if you want to show me."

"I want to, Jesse," he said, meeting my gaze. His expression was determined, serious.

"Okay," I said. "Should I, um, turn around? Or..."

Tad let out another laugh, sounding more nervous this time. "No, you don't have to turn around. I, um... come here." He held out his hands, and I stepped closer, twining my hands with his. This contact helped, somehow. Made me feel more grounded. "It's not like when the wolves transform. It only takes a second."

"Okay," I said again. "Um...ready when you are?"

Tad nodded, took a deep breath, and by the time he exhaled, he'd changed.

Holy. Shit.

He was...how can I put this?...freaking gorgeous. But not in the way humans are usually gorgeous. It was an otherworldly kind of beauty; he was taller and more chiseled, like he'd been sculpted into being instead of born. The tips of his ears were pointed, sticking up between locks of his suddenly glossy-looking chestnut hair. And his eyes...holy shit, his eyes.

Tad looked more human than any un-glamoured fae I'd ever seen, but those eyes...they were a gleaming, metallic silver with cat's-eye pupils of vivid purple. Looking at them, I suddenly understood all the old tales of humans being lured into Fairyland. These were the kind of eyes you would follow without thinking. If they beckoned you to come, you would come. If they frowned at you to stay, you would stay right where you were for a thousand years. If-

"Jesse?" Tad said, and his voice that it pulled me back to the present.

"What? Yeah. I'm here."

Tad grinned. And dang, what a grin. Eat your heart out, Hollywood. My boyfriend is secretly the most beautiful person on the PLANET.

But it was a little unsettling, too. I knew the shape of Tad's face, but I didn't know this face. It wasn't until I looked into Tad's eyes again and saw the familiar expression of warm amusement that I felt like I recognized him again. Despite the gleaming silver and the cat's-eye pupils, I could suddenly see that the person looking out from those eyes was, well...Tad.

"I feel like Belle," I murmured, and reached up to touch his face gently.

"Belle? Like from Beauty and the Beast?" Tad said. His eyebrows shot up in surprise, and I recognized that expression on his unfamiliar features, too.

"Yeah," I said. "At the end, when she sees him transform back into a human - "

"Hang on," Tad said, his voice teasing. "Are you calling my glamour beast-like?"

"What? No!" I said, my face flushing. "That's not what I meant."

"Because I'm pretty sure whole point of the movie is that the Beast form is super unattractive."

"No, the whole point of the movie is that Belle digs him no matter what form he's in!"

"Are you sure?" Tad said. "Because I could make my glamour a little less beast-like. If you want."

"Wait, what?"

"I mean...I could make my glamour look more like this. Like my fae form. Not a crazy amount, because people still have to recognize me, but if you wanted a slightly hotter boyfriend-"

"Hold up. Tad, are you serious?" I said, flabbergasted.

Apparently he was. "Jesse, you are so outrageously beautiful that sometimes when I look at you, I actually feel it. Like...a kick in the gut."

"That sounds painful."

Tad gave a wry smile. "I don't know how else to explain it. But sometimes I think...there's so much I can't do for you. I can't stop the fae from trying to wage war. I can't stop Aiden from setting things on fire in his sleep. I can't stop the pack from getting involved in...everything they get involved in. But this I can do for you. If you want. When we're alone, I could even look however you want. I-"

"Tad, stop." I said, my head spinning. "Listen to me. If you want to go around looking more like your un-glamoured form, then you should. But don't make it about me. I don't want you to change how you look for me."

He looked at me with those unsettling silver eyes. "I chose my human glamour on purpose, Jesse. To make me look unremarkable. Even unmemorable. But the way you looked at me just now, when I took my glamour off-"

"Whoa. I mean, don't get me wrong, Tad. You are stupid hot without your glamour on. But if you think I fell in love with you because of the way you look, then you're just plain st-"

I cut myself off, realizing what I'd just said.

I'd never said the L-word to any boyfriend before. Not even to Gabriel. I definitely hadn't been planning on saying it to Tad off the cuff like that. Or, you know, at all.

I looked up at him, feeling slightly mortified. But when I tried to step back, he held me fast. In a blink of an eye, he'd turned back to his usual appearance - flat nose, goofy ears, and all. "I love you, Jesse," he said, and pulled me into a kiss. "I hate not being with you." He kissed me again. "I miss you all the time."

"I miss you all the time," I said, as he pulled me into another kiss.

We went on like that for a while, murmuring sweet nonsense to each other while my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. And for once, my brain didn't plague me with any worries or doubts. I might not have been planning to say it, but the moment it came out of my mouth I knew it was true.

I was in love with Tad.

And I didn't care anymore if it made me a dope: I was one hundred percent going to be counting down the days until I could be with him in Boston next school year.

"Jesse?"

"Hm?" I said. We were curled up in Tad's bed - not doing anything my dad would disapprove of, just wanting to be close. I mean, obviously we'd rolled around a little bit and let our hands do some exploring. But saying I love you felt so huge and momentous, and my heart was so full from it, that I didn't feel like I could handle anything else tonight. I just wanted to be as close to him as possible, for as long as possible, before I had to fly across the country again.

"You remember the day with the bridge troll?" Tad said.

"Duh," I said, rolling over so I could face him. I propped myself up on my elbow so I could see his face. "What about it?"

Tad reached up to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind my ear. His hand lingered there, and he wound strands of my hair around his fingers as he spoke. "A lot has changed for me since last year. After Morgan...I pulled away from everyone at school. I didn't feel like I could trust anyone. For a while, it felt like the only people I really talked to were my dad and Mercy. And even then, the one thing I really needed to talk about, I couldn't. My dad would've gone ballistic if I'd told him about the bargain. Mercy...didn't need to know. And then the Gray Lords happened."

I felt a clench in my gut, and I wasn't sure if it was in anger or in empathy. If the Gray Lords hadn't already been taken care of by Tad and Zee, they would've been on my shit list, along with Morgan.

"I was a wreck," Tad went on. "Even before everything had happened with the Gray Lords. And then after...well, you know most of it. My dad and I had to go into hiding. Looking back, it was only a few weeks, but at the time we didn't know how or when we'd get out of it. By the time the bridge troll attack came, it felt like I hadn't seen anyone but my dad and Aiden for years. And afterward, when we went back to your house for the cookout...it was surreal, Jesse. To suddenly be at your dad's house, surrounded by people I could trust. And then I saw you." He cupped my face in his hand, brushing his thumb along my cheek.

"What about me?"

Tad gave me a rueful smile. "There's no way this isn't going to sound cheesy."

"I like cheese," I reminded him. "Parmesan. Gouda."

"All right. When I saw you...it felt like a light had gone on in a dark room. You were so bright, it was like you lit up everything around you."

"Aww, Tad," I said. He was right: it was cheesy - and it was making my insides turned to mush.

"I knew right then I was in trouble," he said. "Even though at the time, it seemed like a terrible idea."

"Yes, i seem to remember you pushing me away. It was both stupid and adorable."

"Adorable?" Tad echoed. "I do not remember that being your reaction at the time."

"Well, that's because it wasn't adorable at the time. It only gets to be adorable in hindsight. You know, now that you've gotten over your stupid-ness and confessed your eternal love for me."

"I don't recall saying eternal."

I gasped theatrically, putting a hand to my forehead. "You wound me to the core!"

"But in an adorable way," Tad said.

"See, this is why you should never give men compliments. It over-inflates their egos like that." I snapped my fingers for dramatic effect. Tad used this opportunity to take hold of my hand and lace his fingers through mine.

"What about you?" he said, bringing the conversation back around. "When did you know?"

"That you were my personal light bulb?" I teased.

"Hey, that's my metaphor. Get your own."

"Why can't we share the metaphor? I'll you be the light. You be the...switch."

A huge smile spread across Tad's face. "Jesse Hauptman. Are you saying I turn you on?"

"Maybe, maybe not. If you won't let me share the metaphor, I guess you'll never know."

"Metaphor accepted. Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially the biggest turn-on Jesse Hauptman has ever had."

"What? I did not say that!"

"Sure you did. You said I turn you on like a light switch. Just admit it."

"Nope."

"It's okay. You don't have to. I can tell."

"Aughh," I said, dropping my head on his shoulder. "See, this is what I'm talking about. Stupid. Male. Ego."

"You say it's stupid. But how stupid can it be, really, if it turns you on?"

"Okay, that's it. I'm going home," I said, and attempted to wriggle away from him.

"Nooo," Tad said, and rolled over, pinning me beneath him. "See, now you can't go."

"Rude. Also: inaccurate."

"Is it, though?" Tad said, leaning down to nuzzle my neck. He knew the exact spot that made my breath hitch, and went straight for it. No fair. "See, I think you've got a little handicap," he went on, brushing his lips along my jaw. "I think you don't really want to leave." He trailed kisses down my other cheek. "I think you're a little bit in love with me."

"I don't know where you got that idea," I said, completely undermining myself by sounding short of breath. "Must be your ego talking again."

Tad lifted his head, pressing a kiss to the corner of my mouth before pulling back so he could look at me. "No, see, if my ego had been trying to tell me you were in love with me, I wouldn't have believed it. My ego tries to trick me all the time into believing that the things I want are true."

I reached up, threading his hair between my fingers. "I knew when I gave you the haircut," I said. "That was the day I realized things were different between us."

I gazed up at him in the pale light, seeing Tad, who was beautiful but wanted people to see him as plain. Tad, who could lift a bus if the occasion called for it but who still touched me so gently sometimes it made me shiver. Tad, who had been treated so poorly by life but still knew how to be goofy, how to laugh.

Tad, who I'd only known as a family friend for so long, but now was completely mine.

I drew him down toward me, wrapping myself around him, and only got a little carried away with how much he did, in fact, turn me on.