I’m not yet sure if that is a good or bad thing.
She wiggles her fingers in a wave when she notices me sitting at a table in the back corner, and I return it as she moves through the crowd toward me. Her thick tresses are piled on top of her head in a messy bun, her face slightly flushed red as if she’d only just finished her workout. She unwraps herself from her heavy coat before she settles across the table from me, revealing neon fabric that covers her from wrist to neck to ankle but the tightness of it still leaves little to the imagination.
“Sorry,” she tells me as she sits. “Session started late. Instructor got stuck in traffic.” She pushes one honeyed tendril from her forehead, tucking it behind her ear. “I should have texted you to let you know.”
“It’s fine,” I tell her, pointedly not looking at her outfit. It’s very tight. Is this standard yoga wear? “I haven’t been here long.”
It’s a lie, but she doesn’t have to know that.
“So . . .” She leans on her elbows. “How are you? Still freaking out?”
“I haven’t freaked out.”
Her lips twitch. “Literally all of your texts have felt like you were checking to make sure I hadn’t changed my mind.”
“Well . . . I can’t say that I haven’t worried that you might.”
She waves me off. “Stop your fretting. I’m not going to ditch you, promise.” She leans in closer then, looking serious. “So, what’s our plan?”
It takes me a second to register the question, since her leaning in only worsens the potency of her scent, which clouds between us. Why have I never noticed it before all of this?
“Our plan,” I answer distractedly. “Right.”
She smells a bit like me as well, I think idly. But I guess that’s the point.
She presses a hand to her stomach then as she cranes her neck, sniffing the air. “Shit. I’m hungry. Do you mind if I grab something first?”
“Oh, that’s fine. I . . . let me. I’ll get it.”
She looks at me strangely. “You don’t have to.”
“It’s the least I can do,” I insist. “Since we’re supposed to be on a date.”
Her cheeks flush, but barely, her eyes widening. “Oh yeah. I guess that’s true.” Her expression returns to normal, and she leans back in her seat with a smile. “Never thought I’d be on a lunch date with scary old Noah Taylor. Can’t pass up the opportunity.”
I frown. “Old?”
“It’s an expression. Don’t get all pissy.” Her nose wrinkles. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Oh, that’s not so bad. I guess that kills my plan of settling down with a drastically older man for money,” she says flippantly.
I shake my head. “Are the jokes part of the deal, or do you intend to let up on them at some point?”
“To be determined. You kind of make it easy.”
Not sure what she means by that, but okay.
“What do you want to eat?”
“Get me the soup of the day.”
“Don’t you want to know what it is?”
She shakes her head. “Nope. It’s soup. I’ll like it.”
“Okay?” I slide out of my chair, pulling my gaze away from the length of her throat when she lifts her arms above her head in a stretch. “Anything else?”
“They have a good copycat pink drink here. Can you get me one of those too?”
I make a face. “Pink drink?”
“Just ask. They’ll know what it is.”
I nod. “All right then.”
Ordering her soup is easy enough, but the look the waitress gives me when I ask for Mackenzie’s “copycat pink drink”—that I could have done without. I bring it all back to the table and set it in front of Mackenzie, who looks delighted until she notices I haven’t gotten anything for myself.
“You’re not going to eat?”
I shake my head. “I ate at home.”
“I think you’re behind on the concept of a date.”
“That’s an understatement,” I tell her truthfully.
She smiles around the straw of her drink. “Oh, right. I forgot who I’m talking to.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, not sure why, really. “This is new for me.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s fine. All my dates in the last good while have been unwanted, so I’m not that much better off. Don’t worry about it.”
“Have they really been so bad that you would agree to something like this?” She looks at me with one raised brow as she opens the lid of her soup container, so I add, “Not that I’m complaining.”
“Awful,” she says. “I’m talking real bottom of the barrel stuff here. My last date? He asked me if it was true that shifters had a halfway form.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Like”—she grimaces, remembering—“he wanted to know if I could keep the ears and tail if we were to . . . you know . . .”
It only takes me a second. “Gross.”
She laughs, taking a careful slurp from her spoon before humming in content. “Beef and barley. Yum.”
I’m still curious as to what her story might be, but I get the sense she doesn’t want to elaborate, since . . . Well, she doesn’t.
“So,” she says instead. “What do I need to know about you? Give me your top five most important Noah facts.”
“Top five?”
“I’m sure you have at least five.”
I frown at the table. “I’ve been an interventional cardiologist for the last three years.”
“No kidding?” She gasps softly, but even I can tell she’s being facetious. “Not doctor stuff, dummy. Give me some actual facts. Stuff a mate would know.”
I have to think about that. Are there actually any noteworthy facts that one might deem intimate? “Um . . . I completed my specialization residency here. Under the former department head, Dr. Ackard. He’s the one who recommended me to take his place. We’re still friends, actually.”
“This is still doctor stuff, Noah,” she laughs. “Although, you having an actual friend is definitely top secret information.”
I give her a helpless look. She must sense my struggle, because she tosses me a bone.
“What about your parents?” She licks a bit of broth from her spoon, and my eyes catch the movement of her tongue, distracting me for a second. “They live here?”
I nod dumbly. “Yes. They live uptown.”
“Fancy,” she notes. “Are they as grumpy as you? Or are you some sort of anomaly?”
“They’re . . . normal. I guess. Quiet. They like golf and brunch. Not much to tell there. Yours?”
“Don’t have them,” she says casually. “My gran and grandpa raised me. Since I was about twelve.”
“Why?”
Her brow knits. “It’s not going to come up on a test or anything.”
“I’m curious.”
And I am, strangely.
She looks wary of telling me, but after a minute and another bite of her soup, she shrugs, relenting. “My mom died when I was little. Car accident. My dad was never okay after that. They were mates, you know? Like, one of those fairy-tale romances. The whole nine yards.” She looks away from me then, her eyes distant. “When she was gone . . . he just sort of fell apart.”
“Did something happen to him?”