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A half-chuffed sigh.
I took it as a yes. That was the rule we’d established when he was a dog, anyway.
“Did you win?”
That got me a sharp laugh. “I did,” he replied.
“So not shifters, then.”
“No. There were five of them, though. And the crowbar hit me directly in the eye.”
“Fuck.”
He shrugged. “Es o es.”
“What?”
Another twitched smile. “It is what it is,” he translated.
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Not really.”
“Does anything bother you?” I asked, slightly annoyed in spite of myself.
“Of course. But I’m used to it, and there’s nothing I can do to change it.”
I honestly envied his equanimity. I felt like my insides were a perpetual churn of things—annoyance, anger, more annoyance… Okay, not a lot of things. Mostly just annoyance and anger, which didn’t really say much good about me as a person. I wanted to be more like Taavi—able to just move on with things, to not dwell or fester.
“You got pretty mad at me for going to the anti-MFM rally,” I pointed out. In fact, he’d been so pissed off that he’d taken a shit on my kitchen floor. In dog form, of course.
His cheeks flushed, their chestnut tone going slightly darker. “Sorry about that.”
“It was rather effective at getting your point across,” I admitted. “And at least you had the decency to not shit on my carpet.”
The look he gave me was chagrined, although I could see the corner of his mouth twitching. “I’m not a monster,” he replied, and I felt myself smiling back at him.
The server reappeared with our food—my fried green tomato grilled cheese and Taavi’s chicken melt, along with some sweet potato fries and onion strings to share—and I used it as an excuse to turn the conversation again.
“What’s your favorite dessert?”
He thought about it, chewing a bite of his sandwich, then eating an onion string before answering. “Capirotada.”
“Um. What?” It was rare that somebody named a dessert I’d never heard of in my life.
He laughed. “Capirotada. Bread pudding, but better.”
I made a mental note to look that up. Or try to, anyway. I wasn’t sure how to spell it and was equally sure I wasn’t going to remember it right by the time I got home. I was going to try, though.
“Why?” Taavi asked.
“Oh. Um. Just curious.”
“Should I have said brownies?” he asked, and I could feel my ears burning again, even though I could tell he was teasing me. Goddammit.
“Shit, no. Not what I was going for.” I deliberately took another bite of my sandwich so I could feel less awkward about not knowing what to say. It didn’t really help.
He tilted his head to the side and looked at me. “Why are you so nervous?”
