“Awww. That was sweet of you.” She beams at me, still barefoot, and I drink up her approval. “I hate to leave him outside all day, but my dad won’t let him stay in the house.”
“No big deal.” I shrug. I’d skip school every day if she smiled at me like that. My mom would probably kill me, though. She’s might murder me for skippingoneday, now that I think about it. “I have to go. My mom wants me to help roast a boar tonight, and if I don’t get home on time, I won’t be able to come save youtomorrow.” I laugh at my own joke, although I’m definitely not kidding.
Cari’s eyebrows rise. “A whole boar?”
I nod. “We take turns roasting it. We’re allowed to flame because it’s indoors in a special firepit.”
“Really? That’s so cool! Can I come watch, or is that weird?”
I grin at her. “Not weird. Just…most humans find it a little scary to hang out with fifty fire-breathing dragons.”
“I’m not scared,” she says, eyes shining with anticipation. But then, I already knew that Cari isn’t like most humans.
She and Radar come to the boar roast and have a great time. From that night forward, the two of them become regulars at hive feast days. We spend as much time together as we can in between school and sports and family obligations.
In October, Cari and Radar cheer at the finish line of my cross-country running meet. I get eighth place out of nine but feel like the grand champion.
In November, we build a bonfire at the beach for a bunch of our friends, after which Gabe admits that Cari is “all right for a human.”
In December, she bakes me Christmas cookies, which I eat even though the gluten in them screws up my flame for the next three weeks. In January, she sneaks into the forest to stargaze in the snow with me, lying side-by-side on a wool blanket, our pinky fingers barely touching.
I leave her favorite flowers, sunflowers, on her front porch for Valentine’s Day and watch from beyond the fence as she pretends she doesn’t know who left them so her father doesn’t get mad.
And in March, while we’re studying in the public library after school, I work up the nerve to ask her to the South Lincoln Vernal Revel, the monster equivalent of human prom.
She pauses, finger on her place in a book, to glance up at me. “Of course.”
I can’t believe it. “Not as friends,” I say, just to be sure. “I want a real date. A boyfriend-girlfriend date. No more meeting up in secret. I want everyone to know you’re with me. Even your dad.”
“Okay,” Cari says. She slides the book back and the shelf and boosts up on tiptoe. “Prove it. Kiss me right here in the middle of the reference section.”
“Uhh…” I grab the end of my tail so it will stop smacking nervously against the bookshelf behind me. Why didn’t I read more about human cultural practices before I asked one out on a date? I guess I put Cari into a different category and forgot she has these quirks. “Right now?”
“Right now.” She puckers her lips expectantly into a soft, pink bow.
“I’m not…I’ve never…I don’t know how,” I blurt out, cringing when a table of humans behind me starts snickering. “Our kind doesn’t kiss.”
“Never?!” Her mouth rounds into an O. I shake my head, mortified steam from my nostrils fogging up my vision. She giggles when I wave it away. “Well, we are going to have to do something about that, aren’t we?”
The thought of Cari’s lips pressed against mine? My feral formroarsto be let out. I’m barely hanging on by a thread. One more flirtation from her, and she’ll be faced with a side of me I’m sure she’s not ready to see.
“Next Saturday. I’ll pick you up,” I gasp, and dash for the door. I barely make it to the forest before my wings burst out of my back, horns and claws and teeth lengthening as my body expands, shredding my school clothes.
“How am I going to make it through a whole evening with her?” I ask Gabe later, after I’ve done a few circuits around the forest and managed to shift back. “I’m going to pop out a second dick if she tries to hold my hand.”
He hands me a pair of pants from his backpack, shaking his furry head as I tug them on. “Why are you trying to date a human, anyway? Seems like more trouble than it’s worth. Find a nice dragon girl, and she won’t care that you suck at shifting.”
I snort a laugh, then cough on my own smoke. “You don’t know dragon females.”
“Oh, so that’s why? Can’t date your own kind, so you’re going for easier prey?” Gabe sounds bitter. Maybe he’s had some bad luck with a Bigfoot gal or something.
“No. There’s just…something about her. I keep wondering if she might be my…” I don’t finish the sentence because it’s a crazy thought.
Alokoi,my less-logical feral form growls inside my head. It has no problem putting the label on her, human or not.Mate.
Gabe, whose species doesn’t have fated pairings, shrugs. “My advice? Rub one out before you pick her up. Then you’ll have post-nut clarity and see her for the waste of time she really is. Or at the very least, you’ll be able to keep your dicks in your pants.”
“What bug crawled up your butt?” I ask him, giving him a playful shove.
