The purr of an engine drew my attention. An absolute beauty of the car pulled into a parking spot near the sidewalk.
"Wow,” I breathed. “That’s so…" Sleek lines and a black, shiny exterior that looked positively lick-able, the small vehicle demanded attention.
"Sexy?" Chase filled in.
"Yeah." Apparently cars could be sexy.
"Hey, you’ve got great taste in sports cars. This baby is a Ferrari 812 with a V12 engine that revs up to 9,000 rpm.”
"Uh… I believe you." None of those words meant anything to me.
"You were talking about the car, right, not the guy driving it? He’s sexy as hell too."
"Uh…" A lithe blond man emerged from the vehicle, removing his sunglasses as the wind tousled his hair.
"That’s the most awesome person in the world,” Chase explained with clear affection. “You good with saying hello?"
Oh. This was Chase’s mate. The ‘mates’ concept was complicated. Both Chase and Aaron had mates and were not absolute monsters. For both those points to be true, it meant both they and their chosen partners had agreed to be together and make the ultimate commitment. But my introduction to mates was not so pleasant. In the scenario set up by the Brokers, one person had all the power and the other was chained to them. That still came to mind first when thinking of mates.
But meeting Chase’s mate now? Yeah, that much I could manage. Chase made the introductions when the other man joined us.
"Max, this is my partner, Lucas Milton."
"Nice to meet you."
Lucas rested against Chase’s side as he extended a hand, but Chase immediately jumped away and put distance between them. I almost told him that was completely unnecessary before I saw he’d only separated himself in order to dramatically gesture to the sports car. "And this is Clive.”
"The car doesn’t have a name," Lucas disagreed immediately. “This is acompany carthat you must stop getting attached to because it’s not even ours.”
Lucas settled into Chase’s side again and Chase wrapped an arm around him. He nodded to his partner and grinned at me. "Lucas started a new job this month. He works for a fancy tech company that does stuff I can’t begin to understand.Theyreached out tohim.”
"Chase, not everyone needs to hear this story.”
Lucas pulled away in embarrassment and untangled himself but when Chase pouted and held out a hand, he returned. He groaned as he buried his head in Chase’s shoulder, though the bottom of his face was still visible. He was smiling.
Chase looked to me, wondering if he should go on. I nodded.
"So they bring him in to interview, giving him the impression the job is very mathematical and technical, like his last job. But then they asked all these brainiacs questions that you have to be high to understand, trying to see who can think creatively on the fly.”
"You can turn away if you want,” Lucas told me. “Or just go inside. He won’t be bothered, he’s still gonna tell the whole story."
"They asked Lucas what kind of app he’d design for the loch ness monster. He told them he had no business pretending he understood how the loch ness monster thought but he knew exactly the kind of app he’d design to make life easier for the modern werewolf, given that he lives with one everyday.”
“Kind of cheated, didn’t I?” Lucas wondered. “They thought I was being clever and had no idea I was just telling the truth about my boyfriend. I hope none of them find out about the supernatural anytime soon.”
“You did good, yououtfoxedthem.” Chase waggled his eyebrows ridiculously, proud of himself for the pun. “And you still made up an app on the spot and blew their freaking minds. That’s why you got the job, because you didn’t cry like all the other nerds.”
"Nobody cried, and you wouldn’t know if they did, you weren’t even there.”
"Neither were you. Come on, some of them had to cry.”
He craned his head to look at Chase, eyes narrowing. "Are you calling me a nerd?"
"I’m calling your brain the sexiest brain ever, and god, your eyes, thisass."His hand presumably drifted down to the last body part he mentioned before he coughed and realized he’d gotten carried away, shooting me a sheepish smile in apology.
…huh. Romance, relationships, all the matters of the heart that were so messy and complicated even when done in the right way, there was no place for any of that in my already complicated life, not right now. This was so absurdly obvious I hadn’t given it a second thought…or even much of a first thought.
Liking someone else, that was like Advanced Level Being a Person stuff. And I wasn’t on advanced courses yet. I didn’t even know how to drive a car. So it had been pretty easy to focus on my concerns when Lysander confessed his feelings for me. I didn’t even really need to wonder if I liked him back.
