He winced.
“Want to go do some shopping?”
We were going to have to work on his distraction techniques.
“Yes.”
Chapter 28
Braun
“My mother says we need to walk past the coffee shop so we can give her a first-hand account of the situation.” Checking texts from her was always dangerous.
My mate was smart enough not to react too strongly as I read through the message again because even he knew it could’ve been about literally anything. “What situation? I don’t understand.”
Dorian was frowning as I looked up from my phone. “Well, first of all, Emeric is safe, having a blast, and might need a nightlight in his room tonight.”
I was really hoping that wince wasn’t aimed at me.
“But evidently the new guy is hot and everyone is taking bets on if they’re going to have sex on the sidewalk.” I wasn’t sure what was going on, but the new guy in town had the phone tree buzzing.
He blinked at me a few times and set down the candle he’d been studying too hard. He wasn’t ready to go back to the ghost conversation, but I wasn’t sure what his inner monologue looked like at the moment. “Okay.”
My boy really didn’t want to talk about possibly having a ghostly ancestor.
I thought dead was better than being related to someone like the people he worked with but that just might’ve been my perspective.
“Who is doing what again?” Dorian cocked his head like he was reviewing what I’d said about her text. “I think I missed something that made that make sense.”
Probably not…it was weird for several reasons.
“Treymane found his mate through that matchmaker everyone has been using lately.” Marium, the shop owner, couldn’t hold back her excitement. “I’d have gone to check it out, but my wife will pitch a fit if I close the store again to see what everyone is doing.”
Yep, because she did it at least three times a week.
“I’m sorry.” Looking slightly confused, probably because he didn’t know what the social rules were for the situation, Dorian scrambled for a response. “Would you like us to stop back by and let you know what happened?”
“Yes.” Her smile said Dorian was now her favorite person in the world…which now made it completely impossible for us to get out of the errand. Had he done that just to get out of the ghost conversation? “The texts are confusing. I’m not sure how a polite greeting can be so steamy half the coffee shop wants to explode.”
Treymane was kind of dramatic, so if anyone could do it, he could.
“Vampires.” Shaking my head, I didn’t react when Dorian squeezed my hand. “They always look so restrained until they meet their mates. I remember my uncle telling stories about the first one who moved here years ago.”
That’d been before all of our times, but the stories were still being passed around as cautionary tales.
Don’t have sex in the town square unless you want everyone to talk about it for the next hundred plus years.
“I know.” Her sighed-out response had Dorian fighting off a laugh or possibly giggles, but she was too wrapped up in fantasies and gossip to see it. “Don’t hold back on the good stuff. Oh, and can you get me a coffee while you’re heading that way?”
Dorian managed to give calm, human-in-the-know kind of responses until we managed to escape. However, once we were out the door, his eyes went wide and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Vampires?”
Had I not mentioned them?
What did that expression mean?
Was I in trouble or not?
“Okay, in my defense, I don’t hang out with the guy and we’ve only got one.” He was kind of stuffy and really didn’t like how exuberant shifters could be. He thought we were annoying…and he was probably right…but it kept him from socializing much with us…or in general. “He stays home a lot and doesn’t do a lot of entertaining. I’d have remembered to mention him at some point.”
