vanishing into what seemed like thin air. Her obligation, which was all the woman had ever thought of her granddaughter as, Mia knew, was done. Maybe Ada was still alive, maybe she wasn’t. But she was gone, and Mia had no interest in finding her again. That truth no longer hurt the way it once had, but the words sounded pitiable to her own ears. Still, there was no reason to hide this. She was surprised when Jenner simply shrugged.
“Sorry to hear that, but it might make this easier. I’ve got only my father, at least nominally, but I’ve never told him what I am. Works out better for both of us.”
“You lost your mother, then. I’m sorry,” Mia said, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Jenner’s eyes darkened, and he looked away.
“Don’t be. I don’t know if she’s dead or alive, and I don’t much care. She took off when I was pretty young. My father’s all right, but he found somebody else eventually, had a few more kids. I was always kind of the odd man out.” He smiled, but Mia saw the sadness in it.
“Turning into a werewolf just gave me a more interesting reason to be a loner. It’s not angry or anything. They just don’t quite know what to do with me. Never have.” He shrugged again, seemed to realize he had spoken several complete sentences about himself, and closed the subject with a wicked grin that made Mia feel like melting into a puddle at his feet.
“At least here no one’s going to mistake me for a potential house pet.”
Mia laughed, though the little Jenner had revealed about himself played over and over again in her mind. No mother and what sounded like an indifferent father...but Jenner seemed to have made the best of it. It said a lot about his strength.
Wonderful...another thing to be attracted to. Flustered, and irritated with herself for her inability to get past this stupid infatuation, Mia sought to switch topics. “So why did you think you had tossed Reckoning of Kings? It’s only, like, four months old.”
“Oh,” he said, and this time his smile was more self-effacing than wicked. “Well, you probably noticed it doesn’t really match the kind of stuff I usually go for. I wanted something new and that was the only thing that looked interesting. Turns out that if the game doesn’t involve car chases, guns, or zombies, I suck at it. Lesson learned. How the hell have you beaten that game three times?”
Mia grinned. “A lethal combination of mad skills and no life. If you’re bored later, I can show you how not to die at whatever part you’re stuck at, I guess.”
“Pass. I’ll stick to zombies.” He paused, considering her with those intense eyes of his. “You know, I wouldn’t have pegged you as a web-designing gamer girl,” Jenner said. “Maybe just because I’ve never met one of you before. Are you all this good-looking?”
The flattery, which Jenner immediately looked embarrassed for voicing, released what felt like a fusillade of butterflies in her stomach. That he seemed surprised he’d said it made it even nicer. She knew it was shallow to want him to find her attractive...but what was she supposed to do? Hope he was drawn in by her witty banter and superior gaming skills? Actually, she did hope that...she just wanted it supplemented with animal lust.
“We are,” she said seriously. “We’re just hard to catch outside of darkened rooms with glowing screens.”
He watched her, looking as though he’d found some sort of new and fascinating creature. Mia felt herself flush. She’d gone through plenty of years of being the quirky geek girl back in school, attractive enough to be a curiosity, with interests unusual enough to be considered unworthy of dating. Her odd upbringing and constant fear of being found out as truly different had only compounded the problem. Finding a few like-minded friends in college, plus a lot of just growing into herself, had made a huge difference in her life. But plenty of self-consciousness had lingered, especially when it came to men.
Rattled, Mia sought to steer the conversation back into more comfortable territory. Maybe he thought she was cool, she had no idea. But that might not hold if he ever saw the pictures of her at DragonCon dressed as an elf.
“So you’re a mechanic?” she asked. Tools like his, in this number and apparent quality, probably weren’t just for a hobby. And he had mentioned “the shop” a few