Rafe rose, twisting and stretching his wings out to either side, the late evening sun glowing through their dark membrane. I didn't know if gargoyles took mates or if their hearts were as impenetrable as their stone bodies, but I hoped Rafe ran into someone who twisted his head up. He deserved to suffer at the hands of romance.

* * *

I rolled my shoulders for the third time, my body hunched over the far-too-short grocery cart, vowing that next time, I would make the trek to an orcish grocers, if only for more aisle space and taller carts.

A young impish woman and her horde of children passed me as I pushed up against a wall of cereal boxes to give them space. She ignored me, and one of her implings—leashed to the belt around her waist and flying on tiny wings—bapped its fist against my shoulder on its way by. I stifled my chuckle and reached an arm across the aisle to grab a tub of oats.

When I turned forward again, there was a glimpse of familiar peachy pink, just visible between an elderly couple. My cart hit the corner of a cardboard display as I craned my head.

A flick of blonde hair. The fluttering skirt of a sundress in late October.

Sunny.

I narrowly avoided barreling down the display, and the elderly couple for that matter, as I rushed for the end of the aisle.

I'd sensed it—the slight easing of the painful tension that had simmered in my chest since I'd left Sunny at the cottage. I was closer. Was she here? I could collide my cart into hers. There was no convenient nook behind this big-box grocery store, but there were always the hidden places under the rails of the L train, and the roar of a train would cover Sunny's cries as I—

My steps stalled at the end of the aisle, and my nose wrinkled at the harsh edge of strong perfume. There was none of Sunny's tart sweetness, but if she was perfumed, it might've disguised her natural scent.

I pushed forward, eyes searching the aisles for three rows and then—

There! That peach!

A tall man stepped aside and there was—

Oh.

My hands were hot, crowded together on the push bar of the cart, and my shoulders sagged as I straightened. The young woman in the aisle was tall and slim. She wore a suit jacket over the dress, and her lips were the wrong shade of pink. The blonde hair I'd caught a glimpse of was two shades too light and not a natural tone, and it was braided back, the tail hitting her waist.

She glanced up the aisle at me with bright blue eyes, blinking once and then offering me a sly, secretive smile.

I turned away, hunching back over my cart and walking blindly forward. Not Sunny at all. She wasn't here.