Melvin held her gaze calmly. “Didn’t know there was a test.”
“There isn’t,” she said. “Not the kind you notice.”
Mac shook his head slightly, but there was no real protest in it.
After a moment she smiled, easy again. “Besides,” she added, “anyone who can make him relax this much has already passed.”
Melvin glanced sideways at Mac.
“That obvious?”
“To me?” she said. “Yeah.”
Mac took a sip of his drink mostly to give himself something else to do. Rachel leaned back in her chair, satisfied now in a way that stilled the air around the table.
Mac realized after a moment that the tension he hadn’t quite admitted to carrying since they walked in had eased. Rachel trusted Melvin.
That mattered more than he would ever say out loud.
They sat back in their seats, the moment passing without needing to be named. Rachel had a way of asking questions that didn’t feel like questions, and Mac watched Melvin relax into it with quiet ease.
Jasmine arrived not long after, moving with a purposeful stride, blazer over a simple shirt, eyes sharp as they took in the room before settling on him.
She shook Rachel’s hand with a firm grip that matched the directness in her gaze, then turned to Mac with a look that made him straighten a fraction before he realized it.
Melvin leaned slightly toward him. “You didn’t mention she outranked you,” he murmured.
Mac shot him a brief sideways look. “Don’t start,” he murmured.
Then Jasmine pulled out her chair and sat. “So,” she said, “this the real thing?”
Mac met her eyes without hesitation. “Still figuring that out,” he said evenly. “But yeah. It feels that way.”
Jasmine studied him for a moment longer, then gave a small nod. “Good,” she said simply.
Something in Mac eased at that.
Dinner unfolded without effort.
Rachel told stories the way she always had, drifting easily from one memory to the next until Mac found himself hearing pieces of his own past from an angle he hadn’t considered before.
She reminded him of the summer he tried to build a tree stand in the scrub oak behind their parents’ place and ended up dropping a hammer squarely on his own boot.
“He healed in a few days,” she said, “but he stomped around like it didn’t hurt the whole time.”
“It didn’t.”
Rachel gave Melvin a look. “It did.”
Then, a little more quietly, she added, “His wolf’s always had its hands full with him. Good thing the healing keeps up.”
Melvin smiled into his glass.
Mac shook his head. “I’m sitting right here.”
Rachel didn’t look the least bit apologetic. “Exactly.”
Melvin listened with quiet amusement, asking questions that kept the stories moving without ever drawing attention to himself. Across from him Jasmine shook her head when Melvin admitted he’d written poetry in middle school. “Terrible poetry,” Melvin said.
