“You want a muffin? They do fantastic gluten-free white chocolate muffins here.”
I make a big show of digging through my purse, careful to avoid eye contact. There’s no way I’m giving Zora the pleasure of knowing she’d touched a nerve. I might still have a small crush on Janine. Just a tiny, perfectly inconsequential crush. Nothing worth mentioning at all.
“My point is,” Zora begins, louder than she needs to be, voice slightly strained. “Your dating life is exactly like your choice in breakfast foods: boring. I’m sick of seeing you at home all the time, holed up with Netflix and a tub of ice-cream.”
I shift in my chair, barely keeping my mouth from dripping into a pout. “I only do that during, you know when.”
“Which is like two weeks in four for you. Just ask someone out, Paddington. Jake, if you feel like wolf. Janine, if you don’t. I don’t. Care. What’s the worst that could happen?”
That question brings me up short. What’s the worst that could happen, really? It’s not like I’m worried about him going British werewolf on me. I’ve seen Jake during the full moon. He’s big, but I’ve got at least one hundred pounds on him. Nothing intimidating at all. Just pure animal hotness.
“He says no?”
“Honestly, Paddington.” Another extravagant eye-roll. Zora’s such a drama queen. “Just go out and ask him before someone else snags him, and he suddenly becomes daddy to a million puppies.”
I don’t have a comeback. Defeated, I push out of my chair and just pout at Zora, who is grinning like the cat who caught a canary made out of custard and Chanel one-offs.
“Muffins?”
“Muffins.”
(Thank god for adaptive digestive systems. And thank god for not being a werepanda. Bamboo, I’m told, tastes awful.)
Chapter Two
HERE’S THE LOW DOWN ON Jake and I. We’ve actually known each other for ages and ages. Jake was the first person I met in primary school, in fact, and even as a gap-toothed kid, he was cute. But then puberty struck, and he rocketed from adorable to magnificent. Every girl within a five-year radius fell for him like navy-skirted dominoes.
Not that he really cared.
More than anything else, Jake loved being a werewolf. For the first two years of high school, he did nothing but practice being a werewolf. Which meant he very quickly acquired an abdomen you could break hearts on and shoulders to carry this girl’s most elaborate sexual fantasies.
After that, of course, he did nothing but use said gorgeous, glorious assets. By the time we graduated, there wasn’t a girl in school that he hadn’t tumbled into bed with. (You didn’t hear it from me, but I heard that his family had to call in so many mind wipes, they started asking the crews to Christmas as a token of appreciation.)
Except the supernaturally inclined ones, of course.
Like me.
Here’s the thing about shapeshifters. We’re all apex predators, at least the ones that survived long enough to become a part of today’s immigrant landscape. Wolf, bear, ferret. Even the moose (Mooses? Meese? Whatever) are pretty fierce, from what I hear.
And the problem with that is that nature never intended for there to be more than one apex predator in an ecosystem. As you can imagine, it’s all a bit tense, especially since there’s absolutely no way (or politically correct reason) to police the distribution of shapeshifters. As such, what you end up with is a pack of nervy were-things, jumping at every shadow, and eyeing each other funny. Thank god for the Ministry, the various bureaus, the byzantine agreements that allow for interspecies relationships, human-suprahuman interactions, and well—
Anyway.
Long story short, cross-species romances are rare and occasionally fatal. Antelope and crocodile? Nope. Wolf and dog? Horrible, horrible idea. Wolf and bear could have, in theory, gone somewhere, but we were two genetics-crossed teenagers brimming with youthful hormones, who were also laser-focused on surviving high school, not eating anyone, or being eaten by someone else.
Consequently, we stayed out of each other’s ways, exchanging cordial words when we could not. Jake went on to become a zookeeper. I got a temp job in Vogue house, and somehow we ended up living practically adjacent to each other.
Purely by coincidence.
Purely.
Okay, I might have had some help from Becky in Sebastian Roche, but it was only fair. Two years ago, Becky made me cover for her after she decided to have a ‘trial elopment.’ It didn’t work out, of course, and she came slinking back with her tail between her legs after about a week. But for seven days, I had to help her pretend she was at a self-improvement retreat, looking for her True Self instead of drinking tequila on the shores of dreary Brighton.
So, she helped me get a place in Kensington. For entirely too cheap. Right next to Jake. Purely by happenstance.
Honest.
“Just knock!” Zora hisses from the safety of our doorway. “We can both smell him. He’s obviously in there.”
“What if he’s with a lady friend?” I babble, clutching my casserole dish like a divine talisman.
“Once again, let me point out the fact that we’ve got heightened senses. If he was, in fact, doing the lobster kettle with an attractive female, we’d be able to tell.”
“Wait. What the hell’s a lobster kettle—”
“Look.” Zora’s voice grows flat. “You’re the one who doesn’t want to text, tweet, Snapchat, or message him on Facebook. You don’t get a say.”
“Zora, you know shapeshifters—”
“Yes, yes.” She flaps a hand. “All courtship must be conducted with a show of one’s ability to supply food. I don’t understand why you can’t just ask him to dinner—”
“It’s not the same. Besides, this is a step beyond getting a permit and asking him to bloody hunt for tourists in Picadilly.”
“Zelda.”
“Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean it like that. Anyway, point is, it’s just tradition, and—”
“Will you just knock on the goddamned door already!”
Before I can comply, the door swings open, revealing Jake in nothing but a low-hanging towel. I gape. Water drips along the topography of his pectorals, down the tributaries of his washboard abdomen, all the way to the beginnings of an Adonis’ belt and—
“Yes?”
“I—” I tear my eyes from his hips. “Casserole?”
Jake blinks, slowly, and cocks a stare at me from under lashes thick as sin. “Casserole?”
I shiver. Who knew a faint Scottish brogue could make a boring word like casserole sound so beautiful? His voice feels like a warm tongue pressed against somewhere private. When I finally find my tongue, my voice is a croak. “Yeah. Casserole.”
Behind me, I can hear Zora slapping her face.
“Is it for me?” Jake prompts, peering into the corridor. He makes eye contact with Zora over my shoulder and bobs his head curtly in way of greeting. Werewolves and vampires have long, bloody histories, thanks to pop-culture. (Which is why Zora spends so many hours at those Species United meetings. As everyone knows, the only way forward is through co-existence. Or possibly uncivil war. Take your pick.)
“Yes.” I say, after another fifteen seconds of constrained panic. “Yes. This is for you. It has peppers, courgettes, lentils, sweet smoked paprika. And lamb brains. Because you are a virile beast who needs his meat.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
Damn it, Zelda. “Lamb brains are good for dogs?”
“Dogs.”
“I mean canines! Wolves and dogs are canids, right? Ahaha. Ha. Ha.” I shuttle looks between Jake and Zora. Neither of them are laughing. In fact, Zora looks like she’s about to asphyxiate on shame-by-proxy and Jake is, well. Let’s just say I’ve seen dead trout that looked less aghast. “I should stop talking.”
“Thank you—” Jake is the first to break t
he silence. He smiles stiffly, and curls his hands around the proffered tupperware, fingertips brushing against mine. “—for the casserole, um…”
“Paddington,” Zora inserts helpfully.
His eyes raise. “Really?”
“Zora.” I hiss.
“Your name’s Zora?” Jake drops his gaze once again, face pinching with confusion. “Zora Paddington?”
I’m going to kill her. I’m so going to kill her. I’m going to stake her in the heart, find a necromancer to bring her back, kill her. Then do it all over again. As I contemplate different ways to murder that which is already dead, I feel the cool of Zora’s skin and turn in time to see her slinking up to my side, teeth bared in a Cheshire grin. “Actually—”
“Zora.”
“—her name is Zelda McCartney. And the whole reason we’re standing in this corridor, instead of cuddled up in our respective habitats is because she really, really wants—”
No. Nonono. “Zora.”
“—to ask you out to dinner some time.” Zora raps the curve of her lower lip. “And possibly do the dirty. But, you know. That’s up to you two.”
Someone end me now.
“Have we met?” He holds my stare.
To lie or not to lie?
To lie. Definitely. Jake absolutely doesn’t need to remember the fashion calamity that was a teenaged Zelda.
“No.”
“Mm.” He thrums the noise inside his chest. “Sure.”
I jolt from my misery at the sound of Jake’s agreement, fish-mouthing all the while. “What?”
“I said sure.” His smile is like a supernova in my knickers. “Dinner sounds good.”
“Ah.” I wet my lips, and try to ignore the way his eyes seem to be tracking my tongue’s orbit, and the way his towel keeps drifting incrementally lower with every breath.
Focus, Zelda. Focus.
“So, this weekend?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll pick you up?”
Damn it.
“At eight?” I add, hastily, backing up even as Jake and Zora level matching looks of disbelief. “Should I pick you up at eight?”
Jake sweeps his lidded, bedroom stare around the doorway. When he replies, it’s softly and slowly, each word a butterfly kiss. “If you like, I guess? You could just come over and knock.”
“Yeah.” My voice twitches up an octave. “Cool.”
“Cool.”
“Cool,” Zora echoes, before she appends a hand to my sleeve and begins dragging me back into our flat. Despite the fact she’s practically a twig, Zora’s actually stronger than I am, a fact I have empirical evidence (we armwrestle a lot) for.
She slams the door shut behind us, turns, and beams. She’s grinning so hard that I can see every single tooth, including the pointy ones that she’s normally so embarrassed about.
“I win.”
It’s like Zora yelled “action.” Suddenly, everything is moving in fast-forward. My emotions, Zelda’s fizzy, champagne-bubble giggle of triumph, the highlight reel running through my head.
I asked Jake out for a date.
More accurately, Zora asked Jake for a date on my behalf.
But still.
Still!
He said yes.
Oh. Ehm. Gee.
I’m going on a date with Jake.
“Oh, god.” I sink onto the carpet and resist the urge to beg for a chew toy. “I’m going on a date with Jake.”
Zora, already recovered from her fit of mad ebullience, organizes a scowl. She gives a little sniff. “We already knew that bit. Where’s the part where you say ‘Thank you, Zora. You’re absolutely amazing!’ ‘Where would I be without my best friend, Zora?’ ‘I can’t thank you enough, Zora?’ ‘You win everything, Zora?’”
“I’m—” I bite down on a whimper. “What if he didn’t actually want to? What if he felt compelled to say yes just because we were both there? What if he’s calling up all his friends right now and complaining about how he got emotionally blackmailed into going onto a date with Yogina the Plus-Sized Bear?”
“Firstly,” Zora huffs as she glides across our living room to the liquor cabinet. “You’re not plus-sized. Well, you are. For a human. But you’re also actually quite a small bear.”
“You know that could be construed as offensive, right?”
“I’m just trying to make a point. You’re the one trying to shut yourself down.”
She was right. But also slightly wrong. I’m more of a medium-sized bear, but like my pilates instructor tells me, numbers are an arbitrary construct, meant to create feelings of inadequacy in the target demographic. What matters is how you actually look.
And I look good.
I think.
Bottles and glasses clink and rattle. “Gin and tonic?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
Zora snorts a laugh, even as she picks out bitters and heart-shaped ice cubes. “Do you?”
“It’s a pithy—” I flap a hand. “Simile. Metaphor. Analogy. Thing.”
“Saying, maybe?” Zora pokes a tongue against the side of her cheek, measuring out a careful thimble of Bombay Sapphire for each glass, before doing what she always does: pause, look cross, and then toss in another two servings. “Anyway. Whatever. That’s not important. Like I was saying before, secondly, did you see the way he was looking at you?”
“Yes?” No.
“He looked like he was going to eat you up.”
I pause. The memory of Jake’s eyes (and the soft, dark tuft of down layered over the skin above his towel) burns through me like a good whiskey. Zora was right. He hadn’t looked repulsed. If anything, he had looked hungry. Like he wanted to tear me out of my clothes and slam me hard against the wall, sink his teeth into an earlobe and his cock into my—
“Zelda?”
“Hrzzh?”
“What were you thinking?” Zora is holding out a glass expectantly, head canted just so, her hair a perfect waterfall of mirror-sheen black.
I snatch the cocktail from her and take a gulp. True to form, it’s mostly gin, with the barest bloom of tonic, just enough to provide counterpoint to the bitters. Eyes streaming, I try a smile.
But Zora doesn’t buy it.
“I can smell you, you know?” She declares in that singsong tone, all teeth, all mischief, smugness wafting from her smile like the stink of gin.
“Fine,” I push down on the thought of Jake, his abs gleaming with sweat, his hip-bones grinding against my ass as he pushes up, up into—“I was thinking about Jake, okay? I was thinking about Jake.”
And his hands and his muscled forearms and his pectorals, all taut with power, strong enough to manhandle a werebear at her wildest.
“Hah.” Zora quaffs a victory sip as she sinks into our sofa, our one piece of unreasonably expensive piece of Norwegian furniture. (We’re still paying installment on that nightmare.) She drapes her arms over the back of it, before crossing long, pale legs and tipping her glass. Gin sloshes onto the carpet (cheap IKEA bargain), but neither of us comment. “Called it.”
I take a seat on the overstuffed, paisley-patterned loveseat my grandmother had bequeathed us. It gives a disdainful squeak. “Of course you could tell.”
Zora sticks out her tongue and winks saucily. Much to my relief, though, she doesn’t take the teasing further. Instead, she hoists her glass up and announces:
“To hot animal sex!”
She’s so lucky vampires don’t need to work to get laid.
“To a good date,” I counter.
“To hot. Animal. Sex,” Zora repeats, in that tone she uses when disagreement is not an option, the words slurring ever-so-slightly. One of the drawbacks to vampiric metabolism is their utter inability to hold their liquor.
I glance at the door as Zora s
taggers upright to procure more gin, my pulse speeding alarmingly. Hot animal sex. That didn’t sound too bad, did it? That didn’t sound too bad at all.
I have a date with Jake.
“To hot animal sex,” I concede, finally, breathily and toss my head back, the cocktail glittering down my throat, bright as the promise of paranormal romance.
Chapter Three
“FUCK ME! I NEED A dress.”
The revelation hits halfway through lunch, and it comes out way louder than I intended. Not that I planned to actually vocalize that burning need.
Janine tips a Look at me from over her spectacles, while John and Kelly giggle like school children. Oscar’s no doubt just leering at me right now, but I continue pretending he doesn’t exist. One drunken office party hook-up, and he thinks we’re going to shag forever. The nerve of some men.
“Does that mean we’re goin’ out on a second date then, Zel?”
“No, Oscar. It does not,” I roll my eyes and glance sidelong at the lout. He’s not bad-looking as far as desk monkeys are concerned. Oscar works out. Sometimes. Even has an interesting tattoo on his bum. But all that alcohol and poor attitude is beginning to win the war against decent genetics.
“So, who you goin’ out with then?” He persists, his voice gilded with just the barest hint of jealousy. “What’s he do? He got a lot of money, then? A big cock? You—”
“Enough.”
He shuts up. Everyone shuts up. When Francesca speaks, everyone listens. Suitably cowed, we all turn to stare as the slim, imposingly sleek older woman sitting at the end of the table raps her cigarette holder against the wood. Her ensemble is magnificent: white jacket, white kimono pants, a sequined halter top that has no business looking so perfect on anyone, and this beautiful, wide-brimmed, two-toned hat for a dollop of ‘50s va-vavoom.
Nothing store bought. That’d be too gauche. Rumour has it that even Francesca’s unmentionables are custom-made by a man in Milan.
Bearly a Lady Page 2