by Sophie Stern
So, did Christopher have a date for the office party?
No.
Was he going to get one?
Also no.
To be fair, taking someone like Allison might not be so bad. She was sweet and funny and cute. Maybe spending an evening wrapped in her arms would be fun and enjoyable. They could dance and drink and eat cookies.
“No, I don’t have a date.” Even as Christopher said the words, he was disappointed with himself. He was wimping out. He knew that. He should have asked if she wanted to go with him. He should have asked if she was planning to attend. He didn’t, though, because he was her boss, and he knew it would be wrong.
“Oh,” Allison nodded knowingly. “Is it because your girlfriend will be out of town?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Christopher looked at Allison, curiously. She knew that he wasn’t dating anyone. Everyone knew it.
“Oh, okay.”
“Allison?”
“Yes, boss man?” Allison looked up at Christopher with desire in her eyes, with heat. She looked at him like she had definitely thought about him naked before. What the hell? How had he never noticed that before? While he himself was quite taken with the little human, he had never considered that she might like him, too. At least, not in a serious way.
She was looking at him differently now, though. She was looking at him like she wanted to jump his bones, and he had no complaints about that. Being the object of Allison’s desire was perfectly fine with him.
“Why are you asking me about the holiday party?”
“Because I want to go.”
“And are you bringing a date?” Christopher finally asked.
It was none of his business. He knew that. He wasn’t supposed to ask employees about their love lives. He especially wasn’t supposed to ask someone like Allison. It wasn’t his place to find out whether she was bringing someone, yet he found he couldn’t resist.
Allison and Christopher had worked together for a long time. She’d been around when Christopher and Monique had started dating, and she’d hated Monique. Christopher didn’t blame her. Monique hadn’t been a very kind person, but she’d been interested in Christopher, and she’d been playful in bed, and she hadn’t demanded anything from him. She’d been easy enough to get along with, at least until the end of their relationship. After things ended, Allison had been there for Christopher.
He’d called her up once. He’d been drinking, and he’d called Allison. He’d poured his heart out to her in one of the worst moments of his life, and Allison hadn’t judged him. She’d just listened, and she’d told him to go to bed, and she’d been kind. They’d never spoken of that night, and Allison had been so very normal and ordinary since then. Sometimes Christopher wondered if she even remembered he’d called her. He thought she probably had. She was just an angel.
“Maybe,” Allison shrugged.
“Maybe?”
“It depends on whether I finally work up the nerve to ask the person I want to ask,” she explained. “Not everyone is as brave as you, Christopher.”
“Is that so?” Christopher hadn’t really thought of himself as brave. He considered himself to be normal and ordinary, for the most part. Sometimes, he thought of himself as strong or clever. Mostly, though, he just thought he was a guy who had a company and who worked hard.
“That’s so.”
“Allison, any guy who turns you down is a fool.”
“Maybe I’m not even going with a guy,” she shrugged. “Maybe the person I want to ask is a woman. What then, Chris?”
Nobody ever called him Chris except for his mom, and sometimes his brothers. Hearing Allison use a nickname didn’t feel bad, though. He was a little surprised she felt so comfortable with him, but then again, they’d known each other forever.
“I wouldn’t judge you if you went with a woman.”
She laughed, shaking her head.
“Of course, you wouldn’t,” she said gently. “You never judge, do you?”
“Not unless somebody really deserves it.”
“Well, then I guess it’s settled. I’ll try to work up the nerve, and hopefully the person I’m interested in will be as clever as you seem to think they will be.”
“They’ve got to be,” Christopher said confidently. “Otherwise, they’d be a fool.”
He reached for his food again and took another bite, diverting his gaze from Allison. Even though their conversation was pretty light and breezy, there was a part of him that wondered what would happen if he asked Allison.
What would she think if a guy like Christopher asked her to the party?
And why did it bother him so much that she wanted to go with someone else?
Chapter 2
"Nice going, dumbass.” Allison stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, wondering why she couldn’t pull herself together. The woman looking back at her glared.
She’d been that close.
Too close.
She’d been right on the brink of asking Christopher if he’d be her date for the party, but she’d chickened out. It had been right there on the tip of her tongue. She’d been thinking about asking him for weeks, and that had been the perfect opportunity. She could have just blurted it out. How hard would it have been?
“Hey, I was thinking, what if we go together?”
“Hey, handsome man, would you like to go with me to the party?”
“I don’t have a date, and you don’t have a date, so what if we don’t have dates together?”
Ugh.
Everything she thought of sounded so stupid and lame, but it still wasn’t as lame as just not asking him at all. What was wrong with Allison? How had she turned into such a lame little chicken?
Christopher had been so charming at lunch. He’d been funny and chatty and so fucking sexy. She thought about him all the time. She thought about what he’d be like in bed and whether he’d be rough and tumble or soft and gentle. She’d been thinking about him today, too. When they were having lunch, it was so hard not to just walk around the desk and climb onto his lap.
She didn’t really know what had come over her. It had just hit her, really. All of a sudden, she’d just wanted to kiss him.
No, it had been more than that.
She’d needed to kiss him.
Then Christopher had gone and said all that stuff about her being a good person and he’d promised anyone would be lucky to go with her. He’d said she would definitely be able to find a date. Christopher seemed to think that Allison was marketable when it came to finding a holiday date, and that anyone she chose would be lucky to get to be by her side.
Well, that was the entire issue, wasn’t it?
She didn’t want anyone.
She wanted him.
She wanted the boss.
Nobody in the entire world came close to comparing to Christopher Monster, and if Allison couldn’t have him, then she didn’t want anyone. That was childish and naïve and a little bit stupid, but she didn’t care.
“Pull yourself together,” she told herself.
It was a stupid little crush, she knew. After all, Christopher was the owner of an incredible company. Oh, his brothers owned it with him, of course, but that didn’t matter. Christopher was the one she cared about. He was the one she was wild about, and she was so, so crazy about him.
Ever since she’d started working at Monster Brothers Security, she’d been drawn to the dragon. She worked with Declan and Brian from time-to-time, of course, but she spent the most time with Christopher. Part of that was on purpose. She’d been at the firm long enough to know how to jiggle certain projects, so they’d end up together.
Allison had spent many long nights hunched over notes and emails and technical analysis paperwork with Christopher. She knew how he smelled like cinnamon bark, and she knew how he smiled like the entire world was his to claim, and she knew exactly how much he loved his family. Maybe that was what she liked most about him.
He seemed like a
good person.
He seemed like family was truly important to him, and that taking care of the people around him was one of the best things he could do.
Today, Allison had been offered a rare chance by the universe to ask Christopher to the party. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about it. Too much time. If she was being honest, her crush on Christopher had grown into an obsession, and she needed to stop. Her sister always said that once you got too attached to the idea of someone, you needed to fuck them out of your system.
Was that what Allison needed to do?
Did she need to just go crazy and sleep with a bunch of people?
Maybe.
“Long day?”
Allison looked over to see a woman standing by the sink beside her. She had dark blue hair that hung just past her shoulders. It was curled to perfection, and the woman’s makeup matched. She had deep red lipstick, but her eyeshadow was the exact same shade of blue as her hair. It was perfect and wild, and she loved it.
“You could say that,” Allison muttered. She turned on the sink in front of her and started washing her hands.
“It’s just one of those days, isn’t it?”
“Pretty much. Are you in IT?”
Allison didn’t recognize the woman beside her. Allison worked on the top floor with Christopher, Declan, and Brian. There were a few other people who worked up there, as well. The IT team probably should have been on the second or third floor of the building, but they had a whole wing on the top floor to themselves. Allison knew it was so that the dragon brothers wouldn’t have to go far to get the help they needed if any sort of technical issue arose.
“Nope, I work downstairs,” the girl explained. “I’m in marketing and publicity, down on the second floor. I don’t come up here too often, but the new guy had some questions and asked me to come help. Some of these new people, man, they’re full of questions.” The woman rolled her eyes, as though she was exasperated.
“I know what you mean,” Allison nodded, but she didn’t know what she meant. There were few reasons for the marketing team to wander up to the top floor, especially without a meeting of some sort.
Who had called someone from downstairs? And in marketing? It had to have been James. He was the only new person working in the IT department, but why would he have called downstairs with a question? Allison sighed. Was this going to be another issue that she had to deal with? She just wasn’t sure if she could deal with anything else going wrong today. James was supposed to be a project manager, but everything he did or needed to do would be happening on this floor. More specifically, it would be happening down his hallway.
“What did the new guy want?” Allison tried to sound casual. She must have been successful because the girl reached for a paper towel and started drying her hands. Then she shrugged.
“What does every guy want? He had about a million and nine questions about where stuff was located in this building. If you ask me, this should have been covered in his orientation,” she sighed and shook her head. “Then again, maybe it was, and he just didn’t listen. You know how guys can be.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Allison nodded.
“Well, have a good one.”
“You, too.”
Allison started drying her hands, too. She took her time, and then she turned back to the mirror. She looked at the reflection there. Allison looked at the woman in the mirror who had soft features and carefully applied makeup. She looked at the woman who seemed so brave, but whose heart was fragile.
“What the hell is going on?” Allison asked the woman.
The woman blinked back at Allison.
She didn’t know, either.
THAT NIGHT, ALLISON sat around the dinner table with her mom, stepdad, sister, and three younger brothers.
“This is delicious,” she bit into the pasta her mom had prepared. Nobody made pasta like Lyla did.
“Just for you, dear,” Allison’s mother smiled at her.
“I like it, too!”
“Me too!
“And me!”
Allison’s little brothers all spoke at once, expressing their excitement about the food choice. It wasn’t really a secret that dragon shifters loved treasure. What was probably a lesser-known fact was that they also loved carbs.
To say that Allison was from a big family was an understatement. Now, as she sat with her siblings, mother, and stepfather, she felt warm and fuzzy and comfortable. It was nice to have people to care about.
Allison wasn’t a dragon shifter. She was totally, completely human. Her family had moved to Sapphire Island a long time ago. It had been years, in fact.
“It’s an old family recipe,” Lyla explained. “My grandmother used to make this, and her grandmother before her.”
“You’ll have to teach me,” Allison spoke with her mouth full of food. It was rude, but nobody seemed to mind. The little kids just laughed, giggling at how their big sister seemed to get away with eating while chewing.
“Definitely teach her,” Steve, Allison’s stepdad, chuckled. He smiled at Allison and nodded. “You’re a fast learner, kiddo. You’ll have no trouble at all.”
Allison smiled at her stepfather. He really was a nice guy. After Allison’s dad passed away, her mother had been lonely for a long time. When Steve waltzed into their lives, he had been the perfect boyfriend to Allison’s mother. Lyla had been lonely, worried, and isolated when they’d started dating, but it wasn’t hard to see how Lyla bloomed in their relationship.
Then Steve had dropped the info bomb on the family.
He was a dragon.
Not only was he a dragon, but he was from a place called Sapphire Island. There were lots of islands where shifters lived, he explained, but in his humble opinion, Sapphire Island was the best. He’d proposed, and Lyla had agreed, and the entire family had moved to Sapphire Island during Allison’s senior year of high school. She’d graduated with honors despite being the only human at her high school, and life had continued on.
“Then you can come over and feed us,” Trevor, one of Allison’s little brothers, nodded seriously.
Allison’s younger brothers, who were actually her half-siblings, still lived at home. They were constantly full of energy. Being around them for too long all at once made Allison feel wildly tired. She didn’t understand how her mother managed to juggle everything.
“You can feed me, too,” Yvette said, reaching for a piece of garlic bread.
Yvette was Allison’s full-blooded, totally-human sister, and she was only a year younger than Allison. Yvette had moved away from Sapphire Island once she’d turned 18. She came back for special events or for family dinners like the one their mother was hosting that evening.
“So, how’s work going?” Steve asked, turning his attention to Allison. Steve was a good guy. Allison hadn’t known, at first, how things were going to work in their family. It was strange to know that her stepdad was a shapeshifter. When Mom had first told her, Allison had laughed and thought it was some sort of joke.
It hadn’t been a joke.
“Not bad,” Allison said, sipping her water. “I like my job a lot, and I’m working on some fun projects now. This week, I’m helping to train our new project manager, which sounds much more boring than it actually is.”
“Sounds like fun, dear,” Lyla said politely. Allison’s mother was always very polite. She’d been raised by a very strict mother who had cared about proper manners above all else, and even though it had been years upon years since Lyla moved away, she was still very proper in her daily speech. Allison was just glad her mother had calmed down enough to let Allison and Yvette get away with casual behavior. When they were younger, their mom had been much stricter than she was now.
Then again, maybe giving birth to three dragon babies took a lot out of a woman.
“Can we be excused?” Allison’s tiny brothers were six, seven, and eight years old, respectively. They were half-dragon shifter and half-human. Once they hit puberty, they’d deve
lop their ability to shift. At least, everyone suspected that they would. There was a chance that being part-human would mean they couldn’t shift, but nobody really thought that was going to be an issue. Whether the boys could shift or not, Allison knew that both Lyla and Steve would love and support them.
“Sure,” Steve said. “Go ahead and start your homework, okay?” The boys had reading homework every night, and sometimes they had other projects to work on, too. Even though they were only in elementary school, it seemed like they were always working on something.
“But dad,” Caleb, the 6-year-old, fussed, “I don’t want to.”
“It’s important,” Steve said. “And I’ll come help you in a few minutes. Head on upstairs now.”
The boys grumbled. They didn’t seem too upset, though, because they shook the entire house as they ran out of the kitchen and toward the stairs. Allison waved as her little brothers took off. She wasn’t really sure how her mom managed to handle it. Allison’s mother wasn’t old by any means, but she was in her 50s. Allison was barely 30, and she was already exhausted. She couldn’t imagine having kids at all, much less later in life.
Once the boys were gone, the rest of the family finished eating, and then Steve went to help the kids with their homework. That left Lyla, Yvette, and Allison to clear the table and start the dishes.
“It’s because we’re girls,” Yvette muttered.
“No, it’s because we don’t want to go do multiplication homework,” Allison reminded her sister.
“Oh yeah.”
“So, Yvette, how’s life in grad school?” Lyla asked, starting to run the hot water. She plugged the sink and added soap, and then she started scrubbing.
“Not bad,” Yvette shrugged. Allison’s sister had originally gone to college and majored in history. Later, she’d decided that she wanted to try something else, so she was going back to school to study psychology. She was working on her master’s degree and hoped to eventually work with teenagers who were struggling. It was a noble endeavor, Allison thought.