Torn
Page 28

It took Tink a moment to realize I was talking about him. “I’m very powerful, Ivy. I’ve told you that a hundred thousand times before, but you probably just ignored me. Big things come in small packages.”
“That . . . explains nothing,” I stated.
He cocked his head to the side. “Well, I am kind of like a house elf.”
“Oh my God!” I shrieked, jumping off the couch. “You are not a house elf! This isn’t the wizarding world of fucked up! You’re fully grown. Like man-sized grown.”
“I’m going to pretend you did not speak of the wizarding world in such a tone,’” he replied snottily. “Anyway, I’m a brownie. We have a remarkable ability that allows us to shrink ourselves. It’s sort of like a defense mechanism. Just like opossums playing dead.”
My entire face scrunched up. “That . . . that is not the same as an opossum playing dead.”
“But it’s the same idea. We can make ourselves smaller so that we are grossly underestimated,” Tink explained with a shrug. “It works. Obviously. None of you thought I could—”
I held up a hand, and he must have read the crazy in my face, because he shut up. “So, you’re telling me that this entire time you’ve actually been pretending to be small?”
“Not exactly pretending,” he replied thoughtfully. “Being small is the same as being large.”
I widened my eyes. “That makes no sense.”
“I warned you, Ivy. I even asked you if you knew what you had living in your house.” Ren kindly took that exact moment to remind me of this.
I turned devil eyes on him. “Did you know he was actually six-and-a-half-feet tall and anatomically correct?”
Ren’s nose wrinkled. “Well, no.”
“Then shut the hell up!”
Ren threw his hands up. “Alrighty then.”
“Why would you think I wasn’t anatomically correct in the first place?” Tink asked, sounding offended.
Turning back to naked, person-sized Tink, I ignored his question and shouted, “And where are your goddamn wings?”
He frowned. “I have them hidden now. In this form, they’re pretty big and would be knocking shit over left and right, and considering how unstable you are, I doubt that’s—”
“I’m unstable because you’re not the size of a fucking Barbie doll.”
“I don’t see how this is a problem,” Tink responded. “I’m actually more useful this way. You don’t have to carry my deliveries when I’m—”
“Oh my God!” I screamed once more. I couldn’t believe it. Tink wasn’t the size of a doll at all. He’d just chosen that size, and the whole time he’d been living here, he was really like Ren-sized, and he’d seen me in my bra and undies, and . . .”Oh my God, I’m going to kill you!”
Tink drew back, his eyes wide. “That’s a little drastic.”
“I can get behind that thought process,” Ren said dryly.
“I saved your life,” Tink gasped, whirling toward Ren. “How dare you?”
Ren rolled his eyes. “I had it handled.”
“It looked like the only thing you had handled was the art of getting your ass kicked.”
I sat back down on the couch, having absolutely no idea of what was happening.
“Keep telling yourself that.” Ren came around the side of the couch and picked up the damaged lamp. He placed it on the end table. “Can you put some damn clothes on?”
Tink arched a brow. “You have a problem with male nudity?”
“I have a problem with your dick hanging out.”
“You didn’t have a problem walking around the apartment with your junk all out and in everyone’s face,” Tink retorted, referencing the first morning those two met.
“That’s because I didn’t know you were here.”
Tink smirked. “You know what I think the problem is? You’re intimidated by my size.”
Oh my God.
Ren laughed. “Yeah, I’m not intimated. That’s not a problem.”
Considering I fortunately knew Ren’s size and unfortunately now knew Tink’s size, I could confirm that was, indeed, not a problem. Picking up a throw pillow, I tossed it at Tink. He caught it and sighed, holding it so it covered up parts of him I hadn’t wanted to ever see.
I pressed my fingers to my temples. “This is a nightmare. I’m going to wake up in a few minutes, the lock on my front door won’t be broken, there will have been no knight, and Tink will still be a foot tall playing with troll dolls.”
“Oh, I’ll still play with them,” Tink replied.I squeezed my eyes shut.
“If it makes you feel better, I can return to your Tink-approved size,” he offered.
“It’s not going to make me feel better.” I opened my eyes. “Now that I know you’re really full grown.”
“Okay.” He sat down on the edge of the coffee table, bare ass and balls just everywhere. Jesus. He stretched out his long legs. “So . . . this is awkward.”
No shit. This entire time I thought I’d been living with this cute little brownie, but really I’d been living with this extraordinarily hot, super tall, fully-grown male creature of the Otherworld. Because I’d thought of him as this tiny thing with wings, I had never really worried about accidentally flashing him with my boobs or worse.