Happiness in Numbers Read online

  Table of Contents

  Happiness in Numbers

  Book Details

  Dedication

  If Wishes were Fishes

  Heart & Parcel

  Lucie

  Foxglove

  Fen

  Lucie

  Suri

  Foxglove

  Fen

  Suri

  Fen

  Foxglove

  Lucie

  Suri

  Fen

  Lucie

  Foxglove

  The Fifth Wheel

  Sundown, Holiday, Beacon

  Shoots in the Trellis

  The Consort

  Ten Days of Harmony

  Hemlock

  Maple

  Lilac

  Cedar

  Blackberry

  The Easy Choice

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Epilogue

  About the Editor

  About the Authors

  Meredith Katz

  Aveline Reynard

  N.R. Dunham

  K.L. Noone

  Olivia Sitter

  Annabelle Kitch

  Meyari McFarland

  Robin Tennant

  Happiness in Numbers

  EDITED BY NICOLE FIELD

  If Wishes Were Fishes by Meredith Katz—After fighting off evil spirits, unwilling psychic Keith would love to take his time and enjoy dating Lucas, the ghost attached to him, and Hiraeth, the deer-like Other he met not long after being dragged into the world of the paranormal. But when Hiraeth's son shows up asking for help with a curse, Keith's got a lot more to deal with than just finding time for a date!

  Heart and Parcel by Aveline Reynard—Lucie is used to hiding the fact she's a witch, but she wasn't expecting to find out her girlfriend is also keeping a secret—that she's the crown princess. Invited to meet Suri's parents, Lucie instead finds herself helping Suri's bodyguard-slash-lover in unravelling an attempted political coup that threatens more than meet-the-parents night.

  The Fifth Wheel by N.R. Dunham—When Rebecca is hired to tutor the son of a young couple, she expects it to be like any other job. Instead, she finds herself growing far too attached to the family, and deeply curious about their relationship with the women next door.

  Sundown, Holiday, Beacon by K.L. Noone—Superheroes (and one reformed supervillain) in love! The aftermath of a melodramatic battle! Lasagna and secret-base home-improvement projects! And a promise to come home to each other's arms, despite villains and thunderstorms and secret missions, forever...

  Shoots in the Trellis by Olivia Sitter—In the dead of night, Helva and xer companions are forced to break camp and run for their lives, or risk capture by the soldiers they've been evading. But though they manage to escape, it's only to find themselves across the border in a country that does not welcome them with open arms, and opens wounds new and old within the group. If they're going to survive soldiers, bandits, prejudice, and worse, they're going to have to learn to believe in each other—fast.

  The Consort by Annabelle Kitch—After defeating a dragon and returning triumphantly to rescue her love, Princess Trina, from a wretched engagement, Pidge hoped to live happily ever after. But it's not so easy for a commoner to adapt to royal life, especially when the princess must take a male consort to produce an heir. Overwhelmed and outnumbered, Pidge flees to a life on the road—but neither prince nor princess plan to let her go so easily.

  Ten Days of Harmony by Meyari McFarland—In need of crucial components for a major ritual, Giang is referred to Deidre MacClellan's land, 100 acres of undisturbed forest that should be perfect for Giana's needs. Along the way to getting permission, however, Giang finds xyrself being seduced by Deidre and her fire-mage husband, as well as the fairy dragon living on their land...

  The Easy Choice by Robin Tennant—Forced to accompany his father and a group of ambassadors to a planet that has little cause to tolerate them, Jacob wants only for the trip to be over. But a simple, if tense, trip turns massively complicated when he uncovers deceit from within, and two Juek people he doesn't want to bid goodbye.

  Happiness in Numbers

  Edited by Nicole Field

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Nicole Field

  Cover designed by Aisha Akeju

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition February 2019

  If Wishes Were Fishes Copyright © 2019 by Meredith Katz; Heart and Parcel Copyright © 2019 by Aveline Reynard; The Fifth Wheel Copyright © 2019 by N.R. Dunham; Sundown, Holiday, Beacon Copyright © 2019 by K.L. Noone; Shoots in the Trellis Copyright © 2019 by Olivia Sitter; The Consort Copyright © 2019 by Annabelle Kitch; Ten Days of Harmony Copyright © 2019 by Meyari McFarland; The Easy Choice Copyright © 2019 by Robin Tennant

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781684314409

  Print ISBN 9781684314607

  To anyone who has ever wanted to see their own relationship on the pages of a book

  If Wishes were Fishes

  MEREDITH KATZ

  To my dear love, Aveline. If wishes were fishes, I'd already be feasting, because you give me everything I could wish for! I'm so happy that we're both part and parcel of this anthology<3

  Keith Marose's room at his parents' house was, by any way of measuring it, larger than his room in the dorm at Stonybridge U, but several things made it feel smaller.

  First was the fact that it was his room in his parents' house. Whenever he visited them, he only felt more relieved to not be living with them anymore. As much as he loved them, they had nothing in common—his seeing ghosts and monsters was only just part of that. Besides, whenever they (accurately) thought he was still seeing them, they got worried.

  Their worry was understandable, no matter how much Keith hated it. His visions had started after the accident—he'd been crossing the street, unaware of the car barreling toward him, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground, shoved out of the way by a total stranger who'd taken the impact for him. No wonder he'd thought the visions were just the result of trauma. They all had. And his parents had done their best for him in that stressful circumstance—got him therapy, tried to keep talking to him about it, checked in on him after he'd moved out for school.

  That whole thing had fucked him up pretty bad, and he knew it. There were days still when the idea of going out and seeing other people was just impossible, where having to get out of bed and do anything made his chest tight and his breathing short and his head ache—

  But those days weren't that frequent now, five years later.

  And the ghost, Lucas, the man who'd saved him… well, Lucas was still there. And not just hanging around, either—Keith was now dating said ghost and one of those so-called monsters he'd started to see after the accident.

  But, of course, none of that was anything he could even begin to talk about with his parents. They would think the truth was a sign of a backslide at best. Even so, it wasn't easy to avoid, not when they constantly asked what was going on in his life, how he was feeling… all of it.

  Only ten minutes ago, Keith had tried to get a breather from their overprotective, but well-meaning, love, and had ducked up to his room to 'grab a book to take back with him to the dorms'. But
that was an activity that would only take so long, and he had to head back down soon.

  "Ughhh, I'm trapped in a cocoon of lieeeees," Keith groaned aloud, muffled by his pillowcase. It had been washed since he'd last slept in it; it smelled and looked just fine. But to his other senses, the ones that the accident had awakened, it was still stained by the tears he'd shed into it over the years, shadows sticking to it and sliding off like a thick oil.

  Lucas made a sort-of-amused sympathetic noise from where he hovered at the end of the bed, which didn't bend under his insubstantial weight. "Yeah, you're all wrapped up in it, aren't you. 'What've you been up to?' 'Oh, you know…'" Lucas paused for several beats too long. "'Definitely not saving the Otherworld and practicing my psychic powers.'"

  "Lucaaaaas," Keith whined plaintively.

  Lucas laughed, leaning over and pushing Keith's messy black hair off his pale forehead with a hand that had no more strength to it than a cold breeze did. "Yeah, yeah," he said. "But they missed you."

  Keith's parents had never known Lucas, but Lucas knew them. He, too, had wanted to help Keith through the aftermath of his death, but had kind of been in a bind. Lucas had known he was no hallucination, after all, and had been desperate to be seen and heard.

  "It's just complicated," Keith muttered. They might live in the same town, but he'd been avoiding them a little. He'd skipped out of seeing them over Christmas break except for Christmas Day itself, and knew that his answers as to why had sounded horribly vague.

  How could they be anything but? He'd wanted to spend the time with his new boyfriends. He wasn't even out to his parents about being gay, let alone poly, let alone all the supernatural parts of it.

  Even if he told one part, he couldn't tell the rest, and it made the idea of talking about any of it choke in his throat. The last time he'd tried to figure out how, his anxiety attack had lasted two days.

  "Keith?" his mother called up the stairs. "You find that book you were looking for?"

  He grabbed one off the shelves almost at random. "Yeah!" he called back. "Be right down!"

  And then he turned back to Lucas, giving him a plaintive face. "I'm… sorry."

  Lucas didn't ask about what. Around his family, Keith couldn't talk to him, look at him, give any sign that something was up. At school, he had a reputation for weirdness because he'd still mutter to Lucas now and then, and because he watched Lucas constantly. But nobody there cared about him, not like they did here. His parents longed for him to be recovered, to be normal again.

  "It's cool," Lucas said gently. "I'll be here anyway."

  He had to be; he couldn't go too far from Keith, bound to him as his anchor to this world. But Keith tried to take the words as intended and held out a closed fist to him.

  Lucas fistbumped back, a cold pressure, there and gone.

  *~*~*

  Halfway through dinner, the phone in Keith's pocket rang. Rather than answer it, he completely froze.

  Neon Hitch's voice sang out another few lines about bad dogs and, probably, fucking them—Hiraeth had switched his ringtone to it for fun and Keith hadn't got around to changing it back—before Keith's mother asked him, "Aren't you going to answer that?"

  Keith contemplated the possibility of astrally projecting to get out of this situation, but fainting at the dinner table probably wouldn't help anything in the long run.

  "Yeah, uh," he said, knowing that it was almost certainly Hiraeth on the phone. Hanging up would earn him questions. Saying the wrong thing would, too.

  But he wanted to talk to Hiraeth like he wanted to talk to Lucas, watching him with raised eyebrows from across the room, and he could make only one of those things happen.

  He swiped to answer. "Uh, hey?"

  "Hello, love," Hiraeth said. "Busy?"

  "Kinda," Keith said, hyper-aware of his parents pretending not to listen to his half of the conversation. "I'm eating dinner. At my parents' place."

  "Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt, my darling! I forgot. Must be getting old," Hiraeth joked in that lilting voice of his.

  Once, Hiraeth had implied he'd been around in the foundational days of the ancient Greek city-states. Keith managed not to make too much of a face at the phone. "I'll call you back later?"

  "Sure, though it's nothing much. Just wondering if you're free tomorrow?"

  "I should be," Keith said, hoping, for once, that he wasn't going to be asked out on a date. He really wasn't sure his poker face was up to it. "Why?"

  Hiraeth said, "I'll give you the details later, but my son's coming into town tomorrow and I'd love to introduce the two of you to him."

  Keith managed to choke on air.

  "What?" he hissed, almost forgetting where he was.

  "Son. Visiting. Going to show you off," Hiraeth said with good-natured patience.

  "Your—" He cut himself off from repeating Hiraeth's words at the last moment.

  "My eldest," Hiraeth said, which didn't clarify things much at all. "Anyway, call me back later, I've drunk so much coffee today trying to track some things down at the shop that I don't think I'll be sleeping tonight, regardless of when you call."

  "I…" Keith's parents were looking at anywhere but him in an attempt to give him a polite facade of privacy. "Yeah. I'll call you back later."

  "Or you could just come over tonight," Hiraeth said.

  Keith wondered how much of the lewd tone of Hiraeth's voice could be heard in the room, even if his exact words couldn't. "Bye," he said, forcefully.

  He hung up and dropped the phone next to his plate. "Sorry about that," he said, a bit weakly. "I forgot to put it on silent, didn't mean to interrupt dinner—"

  "Oh, no, it's fine," his mother said quickly. "You never used to get calls!"

  "I know, I know," he said, giving her an awkward smile. "Don't rub it in."

  His father grabbed the pepper and shook it out over his unseasoned potatoes. "A girl?" he asked, too-casually.

  Well, at least that probably implied that Hiraeth's voice couldn't be heard by them after all. Even so, Keith felt his shoulders hunch a little defensively. "No," he said. "Not a girl."

  "Too bad," his father joked lightly. "But I'm glad you're making friends. Someone from school?"

  "No, he's—" Scenarios felt like they were spinning out of control, things he could say, things he couldn't say, what excuses he might have to make, what bits of the truth he could sneak in. "He's not from school. We met at the place he works. Just… a friend."

  Two truths and a lie. He suddenly felt kind of tired. Lucas's expression was a mix between laughter and horror.

  "Well, that's good, though," Keith's mother said. "You can invite him over any time, you know!"

  "Mom," Keith protested.

  "I know, I know, I guess that's embarrassing, you in your twenties and all," she said. "But kids your age never eat well, so if you ever want to bring him by for dinner, he's welcome here."

  It'd almost be worse to introduce him and later have to admit they were dating. "He's… a vegetarian," Keith said.

  "I can cook vegetarian," his mother protested, even though her usual approach to vegetables was 'boil, butter, salt'. "It'll be fun to try something new!"

  Keith's dad laughed. "Don't embarrass him too much, Nan," he teased. "You can't coddle everyone he knows."

  She stuck her tongue out at him.

  Something about the byplay between them made Keith feel even worse, wistful and longing and afraid. He ducked his head over his food. "Maybe later," he mumbled.

  *~*~*

  It was already fully dark by the time they stepped outside but, despite the heightened risk of encountering things that only moved around in darkness, Keith found himself relaxing at once. He breathed the cold, rainy air in, and shivered.

  "Sorry," Lucas said. "Am I standing too close?"

  "No, you could stand closer." He reached out for that bond he knew was between them and imagined giving it a tug. He couldn't do much with it—at least, not yet, not consciously—but i
t, like everything else he'd been learning to manipulate, was just energy.

  Lucas let out a surprised laugh and stumbled a few steps toward him, as if Keith had grabbed his hand and yanked him closer. Just like he'd wanted to do. "Keith…!"

  Keith glanced aside at him, nearly invisible even to Keith's sixth sense, transparent brown skin and dark polo shirt vanishing against the darker backdrop of suburban bushes. He gave Lucas a little smile, almost shy.

  "Hey," Keith said.

  "Hey," Lucas echoed back. He nudged his cold hand against Keith's; Keith held it as best he could.

  They walked in silence a short distance, heading for the bus stop, before Lucas cleared his throat. "So, what was the call about?"

  Flushing a little at the memory, Keith said, "Hiraeth's kid's coming to town, and he wants to introduce us."

  "He's got a kid?" Lucas almost sounded impressed. "Is the kid already there? Or-"

  "Tomorrow," Keith said. "He said to come over tonight anyway."

  Lucas grinned a little. "Yeah, I bet he did."

  "Maybe just to get us up to speed on what to expect?" Keith suggested, just a little slyly.

  "What to expect, huh…" Meeting Keith's gaze with a solemn expression, Lucas raised his hand and made a jerk-off motion.

  Bursting into laughter, Keith swatted a hand through him. "That too. C'mon, pipe down, bus is coming."

  "Hey, you're the only one who can see me," Lucas said innocently. "What harm does it do?"

  "Everyone can see me blush, so…" Keith pulled a face at him, then schooled his expression as the bus doors opened.

  The ride passed quickly; it was late enough for the bus not to be crowded and for nobody to question the fact he had an empty seat beside him, one he listed into slightly as if tired. He was downtown in less than half an hour, heading not to the bus he'd normally transfer to so he could head back to his dorm, but walking instead down Antique Row.

  Hiraeth's shop was out of the way and easy to miss for most people, set back a little from the road with its shop front shadowed. But it was clearly marked to those with Otherly senses, a big supernatural arrow slapped down on the ground, glowing even more obviously to Keith's second sight in the evening than it had been in the light of day when he'd first seen it. Hiraeth didn't mind selling his antiques to humans, after all, but he had a large special collection of items meant especially for Others like himself, and they were the ones whose attention he tried to get.