“You’re quite a bit younger than I am,” Keith said.
“That doesn’t always matter.”
“Maybe not, but it matters to me.”
She studied him for a moment and then gave a crisp nod. “That’s fair enough.” She borrowed one of his pens, wrote DECLINED on a Post-It note, and stuck it on the lapel of her jacket.
“Want to marry me?” Logan Vega casually offered from his nearby desk.
“Your actual mate isright here,” Keith said, gesturing to Iz.
“I am,” Iz said, unfazed, “and I’m the one who said he should ask too. We have to cover all our bases.”
“I’ll admit my heart’s not really in this,” Logan said. He was looking at Keith, and his gaze suddenly sharpened to full, blazing hellhound intensity. “But she’s right. You might as well marry someone here instead of a total stranger.”
“She’s not a total stranger. I’m almost sure I’ve met her before.”
“That’s a ringing endorsement,” Logan said dryly.
About an hour after that, Simon Park sauntered by to make his own offer.
Simon was one of the people Keith had tried to learn from. His stick-up-his-ass former self hadn’t been the most likable person in the world, and he wanted to be better. He’d always figured he couldn’t go wrong if he tried to be more like Simon, who was effortlessly popular everywhere he went. He was a tiger shifter, and he had a kind of graceful, lazy confidence that made him seem like he was comfortable no matter where he was or what he was doing.
Besides, at least some of Simon’s easygoing cool had to be teachable, Keith figured, because it wasn’t like Simon’s life was as carefree as his unbothered approach to it would suggest. Even by shifter standards, his senses were uncannily sharp; his hearing was especially heightened. They’d all gotten used to speaking a little more softly when Simon was around, and the office phones had ringtones that could either be turned down to purrs or converted to flashing lights.
Even with all that, Simon ended most days with a headache—not that he ever complained about it. Keith only knew it was a problem because Simon went through bottles of aspirin like clockwork.
And it was late in the day now, so he was probably already feeling the strain. But there was no sign of any tension in his face as he leaned against Keith’s desk.
“You could marry me,” Simon suggested.
“I could, but I won’t.”
“Why not? Aside from us both being straight guys, we’d be really compatible.”
Keith frowned, genuinely curious about this assessment. “Would we?”
“No,” Evie Anderson said, joining them. “Simon just thinks he’s compatible with everyone else because he’s laid-back.”
“I’m so laid-back I’m practically a recliner,” Simon said. “But in a sexy way. I have it on good authority.”
Evie’s lips quirked at that, but she kept her attention focused on Keith. “I’m not a straight guy, so I have that going for me. I’m happy to marry you if you need a backup plan. Although I don’t know if your people would be too thrilled about welcoming a spider into the fold.”
A lot of shifter communities looked askance at Evie’s shift form, like there was something inherently disreputable and untrustworthy about it. They trotted out a lot of folklore to try to make their distaste sound reasonable, but Keith was pretty sure it all just boiled down to being squeamish about spiders. He didn’t like that Evie had to bear the brunt of all that.
In this case, though, he was happy to say that wouldn’t have been a problem.
“The Silver Council would mind me marryinganybodywithout permission,” Keith said, “but they actually wouldn’t mind the spider thing.”
“Really? I thought they were supposed to be sticklers for propriety.”
“They are.Weare, I guess. But it’s more about behavior than anything else—that’s where the Council really cracks down on people. We mostly just get judgmental about what people do, not who they are.”
Mostlywas key there. He had to admit that his world bore an old and largely one-sided grudge against dragons.
“I guess getting stuffy about actual choices is the better kind of judgmental, if you have to be judgmental at all.”
“And we do have to be,” Keith said. “There’s a blood oath.”
