In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,31
rattling off a list of food without even looking at it. And all of it involved bamboo. Bamboo lo mien. Bamboo chow fat. Stir-fried bamboo. Steamed bamboo. Sliced chicken and bamboo.
“And you?” Dorie asked Stevie.
“Three orders of chicken with mushrooms and steamed rice. No honey anywhere near my food.”
“Three orders?” Shen repeated, smiling.
“I’m hungry,” she admitted.
Dorie took the menu back from Shen and walked away, then she returned and asked Stevie, “I know what he wants, but what do you want to drink?”
“Oh. Uh. Water, please. Bottled.”
“Sure.”
When she was gone, Stevie added, “I really want a beer, but . . . I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“With new meds? Probably not.”
“Exactly.”
The water arrived and, once the waitress had again gone away, Stevie pulled the bottle of new meds out and took two pills. Her doctor wanted her to take two for her first dose. “To do a hard reset of your system,” she’d said. After that, it was once in the morning and once in the evening. Always with food and lots of water.
After gazing at the pills for a long moment, Stevie blew out a breath, popped them in her mouth, and drank several gulps of water.
She put the bottle down, carefully placed her hands on the table, and looked up to find Shen watching her closely.
That’s when her head hit the table and she went completely limp.
* * *
“Holy shit!”
Shen reached across the table to lift Stevie up and get her to the closest shifter-friendly hospital he could find. But as soon as he had hold of her shoulders, she began laughing.
“Are you joking around?” he demanded.
Stevie sat back, still laughing.
“The way you were looking at me,” she said around her laughter, “it was like you were waiting for me to die.”
Shen sat back down. “Stop fooling around.”
His grumbles, though, only made her laugh harder.
Dorie came back to the table, gaze bouncing back and forth between them before she asked, “I forgot, do you guys want soup?”
“Sizzling rice with chicken,” Shen said automatically, abruptly realizing Stevie had said the same thing at the same time.
They smiled at each other and Shen felt . . . something he wasn’t used to feeling. Like this “zing.” Her smile gave him a zing. He didn’t get a lot of zings.
Stevie pulled out a folded piece of paper and slowly opened it. She sighed, gazing at it.
“What’s that?”
“A list from my doctor,” she said, smoothing it out on the table. “Things she wants me to do as well as taking my medication.”
“Tough stuff?”
“No, but ridiculous. Like she wants me to meditate.”
“I heard meditation is great.”
“It’s awesome. I make Charlie do it to help with her anxiety. But I already meditate.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” She stared at him for thirty seconds. Shen kept waiting for her to say something and she finally did . . . “Bam! Just meditated.”
“Right. Of course.” Shen cleared his throat. “What else is there?”
“Make friends.” She looked up at Shen. “Make friends? I have friends.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. They’re all forty- and fifty-year-old scientists from China and Russia and South Korea . . . but they’re my friends.”
“Do you see them when you’re not working?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Okay. What else?”
“Casual time with my sisters.” She gave a hard shake of her head. “Is she kidding? I spend all my time with my sisters.”
“Yeah, but do you spend casual time with your sisters? Like, going out to dinner at a restaurant or binge-watching movies while lounging on the couch? Or do you only spend time with your sisters when they’re either protecting you or you guys are running for your lives?”
Again, she stared at him for about thirty seconds. Not to meditate, though. “Fine!” Stevie snapped. She again looked down at the sheet of paper. “Okay, what about this? She wants me to start exercising.” She threw her hands up. “Exercising? Me?”
“Why not you?”
“First off, I don’t need to. I’m a shifter.”
“But you have no muscle tone.”
“I do too!”
“No. You don’t. And you come from two very muscular species. Look at Max. She’s honey badger and she is one big muscle, from her head to her toes. Like a pit bull. And Charlie has those wolf shoulders. I’ve seen smaller linebackers in the NFL. But you . . . like a twig.” He tapped the table with his forefinger. “You know, this is a great place to start. Exercise. We can do that.”
“We?”
“You need friends and you need exercise. I can provide you with both.”