Should she have let him finish? She sighed and dropped her head into her arms.
“Terrible date?”
“What—I haven’t been on adate. I’ve been working, and looking after Tomás, and—have you been spying on me?” She lifted her head in time to catch a drift of tiny golden blossoms whirling around her stovetop—Felicity’s magic—and two firmly raised eyebrows. “No, don’t use your judging face on me. You’re here to make drinks, not make up stories about me going on dates.”
“I’m not the one who’s been making up stories.”
“Oh, no.” Maya froze. “Someone saw us? Or heard us? Or … telepathically … oh no. Oh, no, no, no.”
“No no no? No no what? Jacqueline said you went and talked to Corin, that’s all.” Felicity’s eyes were wide. “So what’s with the no no no?”
“Nothing!”
“Bullshit.” Felicity sat down next to her. “Is everything okay?”
Maya gestured helplessly. “Why would everything be okay?”
“Because your old boss rolled into town? The same guy who chased you here in the first place? The guy we’re all pretty sure is your mate, even if you refuse to mention it, and—oh. You said whywouldeverything be okay, not whywouldn’t.”
She reached across the table and grabbed Maya’s hand. “You’re not okay?”
“I’m … it’s…”
“Complicated?” Felicity suggested.
Maya nodded. “Complicated.”
Felicity reached behind herself to stir the hot chocolate on the stove. “And your not-date today involved something you’re worried people might have seen, or heard, or telepathically tuned into. Which, I haven’t heard anything about anything like that, so stop worrying about it. But, Maya…”
“He’s my mate,” Maya blurted out. “But everyone else already figured that out, right?”
The silence told her everything.
“How long have you suspected?” she groaned.
“Since you arrived here with him hot on your tail a couple months ago?”
“Ohgod.”
“Apollo suspected.”
“You’ve been talking about me?”
Her voice shrilled and Felicity stared at her wide-eyed and concerned. “Only because we’re yourfriends,” she said firmly. “Because we worry about you. And I, specifically, know howgood you are at not talking about stuff that’s worryingyou. Which also makes me worry, so, really, it’s all your own fault.”
“Can’t I have the friendship without people noticing things about me that I haven’t even noticed myself?”
Felicity stirred the hot chocolate on the stove. “It was easier when all people noticed about you was that you were Corin Blackburn’s assistant?”
“Yes!”
“And thewhole timeyou were Corin Blackburn’s assistant, you wanted to wrestle him down onto his table and do the nasty?”
“I—you—who saysdo the nasty?” Maya retorted, which was the sort of answer that told Felicity everything.
“You deserve some sort of award for holding out so long.” Felicity poured two mugs of hot chocolate, topped them with marshmallows, and plonked them down on the table. “I couldn’t think about anything else after I met Apollo. And I was still trying to get over the fact that he was a dragon shifter. That magic and all this existed. You’ve had longer to deal with that side of it, at least. But you and Mr. Blackburn never…?”
“Never.” She explained Corin’s idea of them seeing each other again being like a rubber band snapping back. Felicity snorted.
