Chapter 46: Her Boyfriend Was Not a Receipt

Dove looked at the empty tray, then at the men Garran had brought to watch her fill it. Neither met her eyes for long. That did not tell her they agreed with him, but it certainly told her which person they expected to remain in charge tomorrow.

"What exactly are you testing?" she asked. "Because if you’re worried the buttons might breed, I’ve got some reassuring numbers."

"We need to know the supplies are safe," Garran said. "Ash left me responsible for the hall."

She put his signed copy of the instruction on the counter without handing it over. The order prohibited seizing her belongings over a rumor. Garran read it, pointed to the word rumor, and said an inspection was not a seizure.

"Then list what you take, where it goes, who opens it, and when I get it back," Dove replied. "I’ll keep the duplicate. You don’t get a free shop because you brought a tray."

One witness shifted his weight, looking at the empty space where Kael usually checked merchandise. Garran said the healer’s earlier examinations had been limited, which was true and did not make him a healer by promotion.

Dove offered the sealed balm for inspection without opening it, as Kael had done, and one owned button they could inspect at the counter. She would not surrender every product while the person qualified to test them was away. Her hands remained steady because she kept them flat against the wood.

Garran leaned over the paper just enough to make her want to move back. She stayed where she was. Behind him, Thorne came through the hall carrying a repaired lamp frame, stopped, and put it on the keeper’s bench.

"She’s offered inspection," he said. "What does removing everything accomplish?"

Garran looked from him to Dove. "You’re very invested in a business you don’t own."

"So are you," Dove answered. "His hobby is less expensive for me."

Nobody laughed. The joke helped her breathe anyway. She hated that they were all looking at her mouth, waiting for the cruel woman they remembered to arrive and make the argument easier to dismiss.

The keeper crossed from his bench and asked Garran which shelf the collected goods were meant to occupy. It was an ordinary question about storage, and its very ordinariness forced the deputy to explain the plan out loud.

There was no designated shelf yet. There was no written return time. Dove waited without helping him invent either one.

Garran took the tray away after saying the inspection would resume when proper arrangements were ready. Dove watched him leave, then noticed she had pressed a button-shaped mark into her palm. She put the button down carefully instead of throwing it after him.

Thorne asked whether she wanted the lamp moved farther from the tarp. She knew he was offering a small question because the large one had no easy answer, and she was grateful enough to find that irritating.

"Yes, please," she said. "I’d prefer management to be the only thing setting me on fire today."

He moved the lamp and stayed outside her gate. When the hall quieted, she returned the final consignment whistle and paid the one-normal-coin fee. Six normal coins and thirty-nine Favor remained. Both daily missions were finished; defending ownership had earned no extra sales reward.

She brought two cups of ordinary kitchen tea to the bench. Thorne waited for her to choose where she sat, then took the cup she offered without examining her face for gratitude.

"Is this what being courted is supposed to look like?" she asked. "Because there’s been a surprising amount of inventory management."

His mouth curved before he answered. "It can include fewer arguments. I’ve heard rumors."

She laughed, then looked down at the warm cup. The question she actually wanted to ask had been bothering her since Hale looked at them together, and she was tired of treating important information like something that would become rude if she requested it.

"What counts as accepting a mate? Not gloves. Not sitting together. I know those parts. What is the part I could actually agree to? Are there any hidden loopholes?"

Thorne set his cup down. He explained that a bond required both people to choose it openly, with a spoken promise and joined hands against the male’s chest. The mark appeared over his heart when the bond took. Gifts, attraction, kissing, and sex alone did not create it.

"A male only forms that bond once," he said. "For his life. A female can choose more than one male, but each bond has to be wanted."

Dove stared at him. "That’s a serious amount of commitment for a society that keeps flirting over soap."

"Yes," he answered, and there was no joke in his face now. "It’s why I’m telling you before you might want to choose."

She held the cup with both hands while she thought about having enough of a future to promise any of it away. Yesterday she had been counting coins for underwear. That was not a reason to laugh at what he offered, but it was a reason to want time before answering. For once, she could ask for time without being told the offer would expire.

She was not choosing tonight. He accepted that without asking how many nights he should count, and something inside her relaxed because the information had not arrived with a deadline attached.

Later, Sprout confirmed the explanation when she asked privately. A newly visible bond-support tier offered a one-time thousand-Favor award for a first voluntary bond. Afterward, a completed daily Favor mission containing a bonded male’s qualifying reaction would add one extra Favor Coin, once that day.

"You put a loyalty program on lifelong commitment," Dove muttered. "Of course you fucking did."

She closed the offer without accepting any new bond. The numbers could wait. What stayed with her was the way Thorne had told her the truth before it might cost him the answer he wanted.

At the duty table, Garran opened a separate folder and slid a transfer form beneath tomorrow’s schedule. Dove could read the heading from her counter before his hand covered the destination.