Page 22
“We saw you on the internet!”
Rowan groaned.
He left his sister’s house soon after breakfast.
Well, left wasn’t quite the right choice of word. She kicked his ass to the curb.
Doing the walk of shame home after staying at his sister’s place without even a hookup to show for it was just the cherry on top of a great few days of his life. And remembering halfway to his apartment that he’d left his car parked outside the bar was the sprinkles.
He rode the bus to the bar, trying to ignore all the judging looks about his appearance. Everyone knew what the clothes meant. He’d lost control. Shifted accidentally with zero contingencies in place. Like a teenager. It was embarrassing at his age.
He grumbled deep in his chest, wisps of smoke curling out the sides of his nose, and a few of the smarter oglers looked away until he happily disembarked.
He should have shifted and flown here instead. Not that he had an active flying license. He needed to renew that thing.
Pointedly not looking at the bar or facing the memories of last night, he got into his car and drove swiftly toward his apartment, hoping to leave all of that behind.
His head was still pounding, and he made the split-second decision to pull over at the sight of a coffee shop he’d never been to before.
A sign saying Sips and Scales sat proudly above the door, with a small dragon wrapped around an old-fashioned weighing scale, its tail curled around a coffee cup.
The long line out the door promised something good, so he joined it, feeling more people start queueing behind him as it slowly edged forward. At least the coffee-driven zombies weren’t paying him a lick of attention, their gazes fixed on the coffee list through the window as they manifested their next fix.
Ember roasted coffee beans.
Scorched bread.
Cinder-salted pretzels.
His mouth watered.
Eventually he made it into the building, the smell of coffee beans roasting and pastries promising some sweet relief.
There was something else in the air that seemed to be soothing his hangover too, but he couldn’t put his claw on it. He would take it over feeling like hot garbage though. This was turning out to be a good decision.
He glanced at the baristas as they kept shuffling on, the calling of names and sounds of steaming milk and grinding coffee combining into a background hum. They were dressed in red shirts with the logo on the back, black aprons tied around their waists. There were three of them—one stout dragon who looked to be in her late twenties who was working on drink orders, with green scales running up into her hairline and bright amber eyes. A man in his forties was manning the ovens, dark-skinned, with golden scales that gleamed down his arms.
And then Rowan’s eyes lit on the person taking payments, platinum hair gleaming under the mood lighting, cerulean eyes as electric as he remembered them, and an oversized sweatshirt with COFFEE & CHAOS printed over it hanging off his narrow shoulders.
This was the worst decision.
HOW?!
HOW WAS IT EVEN POSSIBLE THAT MILO WAS HERE AGAIN?
DID HE HAVE CLONES?
WAS HE A TRIPLET?
WAS HE PART OF A POD PERSON INVASION?
Rowan tried to turn and escape, but there was hardly any room and no one wanted to move anywhere but forward in their grumpy march. He got shoved and shuffled back into his spot.
He looked toward the door over everyone’s heads, contemplating pushing his way through bodily when he spotted an old lady with a walker slowly, oh so painfully slowly, shuffling her way out the door while someone held it open for her.
Time seemed to move in slow motion along with her rickety steps, and the line toward the counter seemed to speed up.
Four customers turned into three, then two, in quick succession.
