She still couldn’tquiteresist swinging her hips a little as she made her departure, Maisie couldn’t help but notice. She looked after her a little sourly, before giving herself a good mental shake.
C’mon, what are you? Fourteen? Stop being so weird!
But try as she might, Maisie couldn’t put it out of her mind.
“That lady was absolutely hitting on you,” she informed Rhys as they made their way toward the kiosk she’d mentioned.
Rhys blinked, as if he was surprised. “Was she? I didn’t notice.”
“She definitely was,” Maisie told him. “And she was pretty cute too, don’t you think?”
“Maybe?” Rhys said, as if this was a completely new idea. “I don’t really remember.”
“Well,beautiful, actually,” Maisie said. “You didn’t think so?”
“Nope.” Rhys looked around. “Oh, do you think this is the breakfast place? C’mon, I’m so hungry I could eat a horse and chase the jockey.”
Maisie sighed, following him over to the counter. Clearly, the only thing on Rhys’s mind right now was food, andnotextremely good-looking, extremely blonde desk attendants. She was being ridiculous.
Whatwasn’tridiculous, however, was the gurgle her stomach let out a moment later – maybe she’d been too distracted to realize how hungry she was before, but she wasdefinitelyfeeling it now.
“Sounds like you could do with a feed too,” Rhys laughed, before he scanned the menu board. “Since it’s on Michael, what do you say to two Breakfast of Champions?”
“Sounds perfect,” Maisie told him, even though she hadn’t even looked.
Itwas, in fact, perfect – two plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, hash browns and mushrooms, with a mug of coffee on the side. For the moment at least, there wasn’t much time to talk – just to shovel food into their mouths as fast as they could, though Maisie tapped out halfway through her plate. She might have been hungry, but she wasn’t a bottomless pit – unlike Rhys apparently, who demolished his own plate and then finished off hers as well.
“That’s a bit better,” he said, as he sat back in his chair, sighing contentedly. “Nothing like a good feed.”
“You must have metabolism like a wildfire,” Maisie observed – though with all those muscles, she couldn’t really say she was surprised.
Rhys looked at her a little oddly, before he said cautiously, “Yeah, tends to be the way with shifters. It takes a lot of energy – but I guess I also just like to eat.”
Swallowing, Maisie looked down.Ah yes. That.
She supposed they’d have to talk about it sometime. And to be honest, she wasburningwith curiosity to know more.
“So… yeah. That whole thing,” she said, not sure exactly how to put it – was it rude to ask shifters about these things? “Were you, um, born that way? Or did you…becomea griffin later in life?”
Rhys let out a low laugh, so Maisiehopedshe hadn’t offended him.
“Nah – it’s a family thing. Everyone in my family are griffins. My brother and sister, my parents,theirparents, going back whoknows how many generations. It’s just a thing. There’s plenty of shifters out there. You’ve probably met a few and never knew it.”
“Well, I definitely never would have known it about you if you hadn’t shown me,” Maisie said. “Or Michael or Shaz, either. Well, Ididn’thave any clue until Michael turned into a quokka right in front of me. And Shaz turnedoutof a cassowary.”
Rhys laughed again. “Yeah – you weren’t supposed to see any of that, sorry. It was kind of the worst possible way to introduce you to the idea of shifters.”
Maisie felt herself relaxing a little as she laughed. “Yeah, ‘death by enraged cassowary’ was not how I’d imagined a trip to your friend’s house would go! But after I got over the initial shock, it wasn’t so bad. Seeing a quokka probably helped reduce the stress, too.” She screwed up her nose. “Just as long as you aren’t planning on springing anymoresurprises on me – I think finding out you’re a secret agent who can turn into a griffin is enough for now.”
Rhys blinked, his mouth opening, before it quickly closed again.
If Maisie didn’t know better, she would have said the look that came over his face was decidedly… evasive.
Oh, God, there’s notmoreis there?!
She didn’t think she could handle another surprise right now – especially not this early in the morning.
At least let me get just one day on the beach before you spring anything else on me, like… I don’t know, that that half-goat, half-man thing really was true after all.
