The host nods at me. “He fed some of his meatballs to the dog. Automatic disqualification.”
“I don’t mind if my dog is on his team,” Cari assures him, shooting me a mushy grin that tells me I’m the real winner. Apparently, the best way to her heart is still through Radar.
“Our restaurant, our rules,” the host says cheerfully, producing another gold crown and plopping it on her head, where its plastic gleam can’t compete with the shine of her sleek blonde bob. “Meatball Matchup goes to the Carnivore Queen!”
“Carnivore Queen! Carnivore Queen!” the other servers chime in, clapping. Cari beams at them, adjusting her crown and preening until the hubbub dies down.
“All right, lovebirds. I’ll be back with your final celebration course,” the host chirps, dashing off again.
“It’s not really fair that I won,” Cari says, sounding a little self-conscious as we both take off our crowns and place them on the table. She slips Radar another one of the leftover meatballs, which he gobbles down so quickly that he could be part dragon.
“You were going to win anyway. You were way ahead.”
“Only because you let me.”
“Only because I couldn’t stop watching you put away those meatballs. You’re…”
“A piggy piggy?” She giggle-snorts. “Seriously, though, don’t call me that.”
“A wonder. I’ve always thought so.”
A smile rounds her cheeks, but there’s puzzlement in her clear blue eyes. “Why did you mean before, when you said you shouldn’t have listened to other people?”
I wince. “I listened to friends who said I should leave you alone after you didn’t respond to my messages.” It sounds dumb when I say it out loud, especially now that it’s so clear that Cari’s my alokoi. My feral form, which has been sated into sleep by the sausage and meatballs, wakes up enough to agree. He told me all along that she was special.
Surprise flits through her expression. “You messaged me?”
I nod. “Your @SeeRadarRun account. I…uh…am a fan.” A huge fan. The biggest fan. The kind who keeps spreadsheets. She doesn’t need to know that, though. “My username is Zedible. Like ‘edible’ with a Z. I thought I was being clever when I picked it, but I didn’t realize the uh…connotations. Let’s just say it’s led to a lot of unsolicited messages.”
Cari giggles as she pulls out her phone. She scrolls through it, her forehead scrunched in concentration. “Oh my god. Here you are.” She flashes the screen toward me, where I see my name and the unread message, sent seven years ago.
I remember what it says because I agonized over every word.
Zedible
I ran across your account and recognized Radar.
(Lies. I’d been following for years already.)
Zedible
You probably don’t remember me from high school, but I just wanted to say hi!
(Another lie. Of course she’d remember the dragon who destroyed her house on the first date.)
Zedible
If you ever find yourself in Apple Grove, I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee and catch up.
(Lie upon lie. How about, “I’d love to lick you from head to toe and make you mine forever”? That’d be a whole lot more accurate.)
“I wish I’d seen this,” she says sadly, turning it back to read through the message. “I would have said yes in a heartbeat. This was during a really bad time, so I wasn’t reading messages.” She swallows hard and clicks off the phone, like she’s banishing the source of the bad memories.
“What happened?” I’m gripping the edge of the table so hard, my claws make grooves in the wooden surface.
“I had a pretty persistent cyberstalker. He harassed me every way he could. Emails, voicemails, messages, letters, gifts. Every time I blocked him, he would just make new accounts. It got so bad that I almost shut down my socials. I wasthisclose, but I really needed the income to pay for vet school.
“Instead I stopped reading direct messages and had all of my brand deals go through an agent. It took some of the fear away to be less accessible to him. He still left me weird porch presents, but I didn’t have to listen to the creepy voice memos he sent or read his sick fantasies.”
