Julian sat a few tables in with the pretty auburn professor from earlier. Even though Julian explained he was doing it for the mission, it still hurt to see him with her, to see her place her hand on his and for him to let her.
I swallowed and turned my back on them, chewing on my lower lip. “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” Tate rubbed a hand down my back.
I glanced up at him with a grimace. “Did Kyren talk to you about my history with that hunter professor?”
Tate arched a brow and then shot a look behind us, quickly finding Julian’s table. “Oh, him. Do you want to go somewhere else?”
I was torn between not wanting to let it bother me and wanting to have a nice night out with Tate. Unfortunately, I knew that if we stayed there, I’d be tense and unable to enjoy myself, always checking on what Julian was doing or if he was looking at me.
“Would you mind?” I winced, feeling guilty. “You brought me to such a nice place, I’d hate to ruin our night.”
Tate wrapped his arm around my shoulders and kissed the side of my head. “Princess, I want whatever makes you most comfortable. If that means ditching this place for a taco truck, that’s what we’ll do.”
I smiled shyly up at him. “Tacos sound great.”
“Then that’s what you’ll get. Come on.”
Tate led me out of the restaurant and back into the car. We drove a few minutes before stopping a few cars away from a white, green, and red truck. They had little red paper balls of light hanging over their window and several picnic tables set out on the sidewalk. The line up to the window was six people long, telling me it had to be good.
“Kyren brought me to this place the first day we came to this town.” Tate held my hand and stepped to the back of the line.“He said they were the closest thing he’d tasted to the kind ofantojitoshe’d eaten before he became a vampire.”
The scent of the corn tortillas and meat grilling smelled heavenly, and my stomach growled with anticipation. Someone played Latin music on their Bluetooth speaker to really give the place an authentic vibe.
“How old is Kyren, anyway?”
Tate shot a look my way as we stepped up in line. “Over a hundred and fifty.”
I glanced at my fingers, counting back the years. “So he’d have been changed during the… Spanish American War? Was he a soldier?”
“Yes.” Giving me a knowing look, Tate’s fingers stroked over my knuckles. “His mother was Cuban and his dad was Irish. A real scandal back then, from what he told me. You know, you could ask him about all this.”
I dipped my head, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “Yeah, I know. I just…”
“You kissed.”
My head jerked up. “Did he tell you?”
Tate leaned down and licked across my lower lip. “I tasted you.”
I blushed from the top of my ears to the tips of my toes. The implication heated my blood and made me shift from one foot to the other. Tate chuckled at my embarrassment, moving us forward in the line.
When we finally reached the front of the line, I pushed up on my toes, anxious to see how they made their tacos orantojitos,as Tate had called them.
Tate held his hand up, speaking rapidly in Spanish. Whatever he said made the older Hispanic man in the truck laugh. His eyes dipped to me with a bob of his head.
We stepped to the side once we had our food and found a seat at one of the picnic tables. The golden tortillas were piled high with what looked like white fish and some fried vegetables. One bite into it, and I groaned, closing my eyes briefly.
“This is so good.” I covered my mouth while chewing. “By the way, what did you say to him?”
Tate shoved a whole taco into his mouth, taking a drink of his cup before answering. “I told him that I had to get some food into my girl before she turned feral on me.”
“I wouldn’t go fe—”
“Hey! Jackio!”
My shoulders bunched up to my ears, my heart almost stopping.
