Page 5

I mumbled that it was kind of her and didn’t tell Jon I hated bananas. That sickly sweet smell made me nauseous, and my beast gagged at the scent. I continued painting, and Jon kept gossiping. Being useful was easier than I thought, and my dragon liked that I was using the same mesmerizing stroke, over and over, taking Miles’s wall from cream to a cleaner, crisper light blue.

Indigo poked her head in before school and asked if the new tenant had any children. “There’s no one in the building for me to play with. They’re all too old or too young.”

“You have Marmalade. Go have adventures with her,” I told her.

“I adore her, but she is a cat, you know. She can’t ride a bike or play computer games.”

Like Jon, Indigo got paint on her clothes, and I suspected her dads wouldn’t be impressed because it was her school clothes. Before she skipped out the door, she told me she wasn’t allowed to call me a hoarder because it was rude.

“Radley, wouldn’t it be cool if the new tenant was your mate, just like Miles and Dad?” She squeed. “I’d love that.”

For a moment, I allowed myself to believe that was possible. That a dragon would ignore my scars and my past and mate me. But I pulled myself back from that fantasy because it would only lead to heartbreak.

As she left, Jon turned quickly while holding the roller, and a white arc swept over the floor. He’d been instructing me on the difference between the bright white paint which he had a sample of and the winter white we’d been using, but I assumed he was just making that up.

“Oh, I get it now.” I pointed to the paint on the floor. “I can see the difference. Winter white isn’t as in your face. It’s just on the floor.”

You made a joke. My dragon was tee-heeing.

Jon gave me a look and cleaned it up.

I was on the second coat when I caught it. A scent in the far corner of the room near a window half buried under paint and dust. Someone had stood here and looked outside, and that someone had a unique scent that made my dragon sit up and stare at the empty corner.

It’s him. He didn’t have to say anything else because, like my beast, I knew.

But knowing and acting on it were not the same, and it required the other person to participate, and that wasn’t going to happen.

I put more paint on the roller than I needed and did the wall again, trying to distract myself.

“Jon.” I kept my eyes on that corner. “The new tenant. What are they?”

“Huh? What are they what?”

“What type of shifter are they?”

“Oh.” He stopped painting the window glass which was a good thing. “I don’t know. The application listed the income and references, and they asked if pets were allowed.” He added that he’d told the new tenant that everyone here was a pet most of the time. “Pet was an odd word to use, don’t you think?”

He stared at the roller. “I was so pleased I’d found someone to rent the place, I didn’t ask them what they were. I have no idea. They could be anything.”

I didn’t comment, though I agreed with him and glanced at the corner where the scent was strongest.

“But he might be a dragon. Imagine that. And maybe Indigo’s right and he’ll be your mate.”

He laughed and returned to painting.

I stared at the corner and pictured a nest, like the one in my place, only better, more comfortable and sumptuous. If I had a mate, they wouldn’t just stay for Sunday dinner. My dragon whined, refusing to believe a mate was out of the question. Even if the new tenant was a bear or a wolf, they’d understand the significance of a scarred dragon, one with no flight. Mates were for dragons who could stand in front of their flight. I had to ignore that scent in the corner and pretend I’d never picked up on it.

Whoever was coming to live in this apartment would catch my scent on the stairwell, discover the scar reaching up to my jaw, and be glad they lived a floor below me.

“You’re quiet.” Jon was mopping up more spilled paint.

“It’s a dragon trait.” That wasn’t true, though since I’d lost everything, it was now my most prominent characteristic.

We finished the walls by mid-afternoon, and the kitchen tap only needed a new washer. I changed it and the dripping stopped. The bedroom door was swollen at the corner, so I took it off the hinges and planed the edge.

Jon watched me from the other room. “You’re wasted as a hermit.”

“Nah, I’m great at it. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”