“At a restaurant?” Rux looked horrified. “With other humans around? What if someone else looks at him? What if another male tries to court him?”
“Then we’ll politely indicate that he’s spoken for…”
“By breathing fire at them?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of mild intimidation…”
“That’s just fire with fewer steps!”
Mabon held up his phone again. “‘Show genuine interest in their hobbies and passions.’ What are Sam’s hobbies?”
They all looked at each other.
“Coffee?” Rux offered.
“That’s his job, not his hobby.”
“Walking?”
“Everyone walks, that doesn’t count.”
“He has a cat,” Urien said. “I heard him call it Basil. He likes his cat.”
“So we...what? Give him cat toys? ‘Hello, fated mate, I noticed you have a feline, please accept this fuzzy mouse on a string as a token of my eternal devotion’?”
“You’re mocking it, but that actually doesn’t sound terrible…”
“It sounds insane.”
Mabon scrolled further. “‘Be respectful of boundaries.’” He paused. “We watched him from a carfor over twenty minutes and got removed by the police. I think we’ve already violated this one.”
“That was reconnaissance.”
“The police called it loitering.”
“We weren’t loitering, we were…” Rux stopped. “What’s the legal definition of loitering?”
“Standing around suspiciously with no clear purpose.”
“Damn it.”
Urien reached for the phone. “Let me see that list.”
“‘Make eye contact but don’t stare,’” Mabon read. “How long is eye contact before it becomes staring? Is there a timer?”
“‘Smile warmly.’” Rux practiced a smile. It looked feral. “Like this?”
“No, no, not like that. You look like you’re about to eat someone.”
“I’m smiling.”
“You’re baring your teeth. There’s a difference.”
“How do humans smile without looking threatening?”
“I don’t know! We’ve been alive for centuries, and apparently, we never learned.”
Urien grabbed the phone and kept reading. “‘Don’t be too available. Maintain some mystery.’”
