She pauses, her spoon resting against her bowl as her lips tug down. “I think I reminded him of her. I think it got too hard to look at me. Probably why he took off.”
I’m not sure how to process this, feeling a sharp tug of sympathy in my chest but not knowing what to do with it or how to even begin to express it. “I’m . . . very sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She waves me off, returning her attention to her food. “It’s ancient history.”
“Still. It had to have been a hard thing to experience as a kid.”
Mackenzie shrugs. “I barely remember them now. Just goes to show you that mating is overrated. I’ll stick to being an aficionado of all things pretend mate.”
“You did say you were an old pro,” I remind her flatly.
“Exactly,” she says with a grin. She waves her spoon at me again. “Seriously. It’s not a big thing. My grandparents are great. Well, except for the whole blind date nonsense. But that’s all Gran. She thinks I need to ‘settle down’ to be happy or something.” She cleans her spoon again with her mouth, eyes studying my face, and again I can’t pretend to miss the motion of her tongue against the plastic. “She’s going to be over the moon about you.”
“Sounds like a lot of pressure,” I mutter.
“Nah. You’re a doctor. You’re a shifter. She’s already planning our wedding, and she’s never even met you.”
“Again, a lot of pressure.”
“Don’t worry,” she laughs. “When you run off to Albuquerque, I’ll make sure to talk proper shit about you.”
“Fair.”
She polishes off her soup, making a satisfied sound before she drops the plastic spoon into the bowl and pushes it away. “That was great. Thanks.”
“Soup seems like a pretty cheap payment for the favor you’re doing me.”
“It’s a down payment,” she says seriously. “Expect much bigger requests going forward.”
My mouth quirks. “Of course.”
“Oh my God, did you almost smile just now?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Oh, good. I was afraid you might hurt yourself.”
“Is your coat the same color as your hair?”
Mackenzie looks as surprised by the question as I am to have suddenly asked it. I’m not even sure why I did, it’s just that I’ve been curious ever since she walked in here.
She blinks. “What?”
“Sorry. I just . . . that’s something I would know, right?”
“Oh. Yeah. I guess.” She nods airily. “It is. Same color. Was that your way of asking if this is my natural hair color?”
“I . . . No? I was just curious. It’s a nice color.”
It is, really. With the sun streaming in from the wide windows of the café, the wheat-like shade of her hair seems to catch the light in a way that makes it appear almost golden. Even as I think these things, I find myself wondering where the train of thought is coming from.
She pulls out her phone, distracting me from this line of thought, concentrating on the screen as she ignores me to tap something out there. “Sorry,” she says. “I wanted to make a note of your first compliment. Who knows when you’ll give me another?”
“You’re determined not to make this easy, aren’t you?”
She shrugs, smiling as she puts her phone away. “Where would the fun in that be?”
“Mhm.”
“So you didn’t finish telling me your five facts.”
“I’m still trying to think of them, to be honest.”
“What’s your favorite food?”
I have to think about it. “Steak?”
“How do you eat it?”
“Medium rare.”
Another nose wrinkle for my trouble. “Ew. Do you have to go so wolfy with it?”
“It tastes better.” I cross my arms against my chest. “What’s yours?”
“Soup,” she informs me without any hesitation.
“Any particular one?”
“Nope.” She shrugs. “If it’s in soup form, I’ll eat it.”
“That’s . . . interesting.”
She looks at me curiously. “Is your coat the same color as your hair?”
“I . . . maybe a little darker? It’s been a while since I shifted. The suppressants stave off the need to.”
“That’s how you end up mauling a hiker,” she tuts.
I roll my eyes. “Hardly. When was the last time you shifted?”
Her nose wrinkles, drawing my eye. “Mm. Not since my last heat cycle. I went to one of those heat spas outside of town. They have a lot of woods around the place.”
It hadn’t occurred to me, the implications of my question—because of course she shifted during her heat. The hormone spikes make it incredibly uncomfortable not to. I wish this had come to mind before I opened my mouth. Now I’m unwittingly thinking about Mackenzie’s heat cycle. Which is not at all appropriate.
“Did you stop taking your suppressants, by the way?”
“I did.” It’s not something I’m particularly happy about either. “For the last couple of days now.”
“How long do you think it will take for them to fully get out of your system?”
I don’t tell her that they’re already making a good go of it, if the potency of her scent is any indication. “I don’t know exactly, to be honest. I haven’t been off of them since my teen years. Why?”
Her expression is unreadable, but her nostrils flare ever so slightly in an inhale. “Just curious.”
“Cat will be out of the bag then,” I grouse. “Everyone at the hospital will know.”
Mackenzie’s mouth splits into a grin. “They’re going to be even more afraid of you than they were before.”
“I’m glad you find the idea so amusing.”
“I’m trying to decide what rumors I can start about you. Would you prefer people thinking you once played bass in an all-shifter heavy metal band or that you belong to a secret alpha biker gang?”
“Is there a third option that involves me being an interventional cardiologist and nothing else?”
She blows a raspberry. “You’re no fun.”
“Are we actually going to be able to pull this off?”
She must notice my uncertainty then, her amusement dissipating as she gives me a more serious expression. “I won’t screw things up, I promise.”
I think back to our conversation after we spoke to the board; she had promised something similar then, despite how remarkably easy the board had accepted our ruse. Almost as if they had just been desperate to not have to be put in the position to deal with the alternative. Her promises are unnecessary, I think, given that she could have told me to fuck off instead of agreeing to help me in the first place, but I can’t lie and say her dedication doesn’t put me at ease.
“Okay,” I say, taking her at her word. “When will I be expected to perform for your grandmother?”
“She wants me to bring you to dinner soon,” Mackenzie says with a grimace. “She’s wasting absolutely no time. I think I can hold her off for another week or so, at least. Hopefully that will give us a bit more time to prepare.”
I don’t tell her that I’m fairly certain that all the time in the world would not be enough to prepare us for this ridiculous situation, assuming it would be unhelpful.
“Do you work tomorrow?”
She nods. “Day shift. You?”
“I have two consultations in the morning and then a bypass at three.”