“Twice.”
Leo’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “The selkie? Marina?”
“She cried into her soup twice about her ex.” Delos grabbed the beer that appeared in front of him and drained half of it in one go. “Her ex who is apparently the ocean.”
Theo frowned. “The ocean isn’t a person.”
“She’s a selkie, Theo. The ocean is a person to selkies.” Delos pressed his palms against his eyes. “She told me about the kelp.”
“The kelp?” Wyatt’s eyebrow twitched. It was the closest he ever came to visible emotion.
“The kelp that reminded her of their love. I sat there for forty-five minutes while she sobbed about seaweed, gentlemen. While my lobster bisque went cold.”
Leo was shaking with suppressed laughter. Even Theo’s mouth had curved into a near-smile.
“How did you get out?” Beck asked, sliding another beer across the table.
“I told her I needed to use the restroom.”
“And?”
“I climbed out the window.”
Silence.
Then the table exploded.
“You climbed out a window?” Leo was crying now, tears streaming down his face. “You’re a dragon. You’re a literal fire-breathing dragon, and you escaped a sad selkie through a bathroom window?”
“The restaurant was small! I couldn’t shift without destroying the building!” Delos’s voice rose defensively. “I hate all of you.”
Hux found himself laughing. Actually laughing, the tension in his shoulders loosening for the first time in days. There was an absurd comfort in watching a hundred-year-old dragon describehis catastrophic first date with the same misery as a human teenager.
“Sue Tidewell set this up?” Theo asked, recovering enough to speak.
“Of course, she did.” Delos scowled. “She said Marina was ‘perfect for me.’ That we had ‘compatible temperaments.’” He crossed his arms. “I’m done. Finished. The elders can take their matchmaking and shove it directly into the Mariana Trench.”
Delos opened his mouth to elaborate, then closed it. Defeated. Because they all knew Sue Tidewell got her way, and the next terrible date was probably already being arranged.
The conversation drifted into safer territory—Beck’s new IPA recipe, Theo’s upcoming expansion of the wolf pack territory, Cal’s detailed descriptions of French pastries that had everyone groaning with food envy. Normal talk. Comfortable talk.
Until Leo, because he was a bastard, turned to Hux with that gleam in his eye.
“So. I hear you met Junie’s cousin.”
The table went quiet.
Every head swiveled toward Hux. Even Cal’s pixelated face on the tablet screen seemed to lean forward.
“The new botanist.” Hux kept his voice level. “Yes. Standard introduction. Standard procedure.”
“She also said you watched her walk away for a full thirty seconds.”
“I was ensuring she left the premises safely.”
“Through her ass?”
Hux’s hands tightened on his beer glass. The urge to leap across the table and strangle Leo with his own stupid smile was almost overwhelming.
