else. Nathaniel didn't do anything but just looked pleasantly at him. It had taken me a while to figure out that was flirting, too. Just letting another human being know that you "see" them is perhaps the most important part of flirting. Nathaniel had taught me that not all flirting is about sex. You flirt, in a way, with friends, family, even a job interviewer; you want them to like you, or you want them to know that you are listening, that you care. I'd learned that I wasn't very good at letting anyone know I liked them unless I was trying to date them. Learning to flirt in a more broad sense had made me a more pleasant person all around, but then it would have been hard to be less pleasant.
There was silence around the table, and I realized that everyone was looking at me; finally even the waiter looked. I blinked up at him. "I'm sorry, what?"
"What do you want to order?" Micah said.
I had no idea. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what I want."
The waiter's eyes flicked back to Nathaniel, then at me, as he said, "I'll give you a few minutes, then check back."
I smiled at him encouragingly. He smiled, gave me a brilliant smile that lit his face up. I think it was only because I was sitting close enough to Nathaniel so he could flash that smile at both of us, but I smiled back, and I noticed that he was tanned and his hair was almost black, straight and tucked into a short ponytail, with a long wisp of hair escaping to trace the edge of a triangular face. His eyes were dark, and sparkling with his desire to catch Nathaniel's attention. He was cute, and that was the problem with this kind of flirting. I couldn't figure out how to let someone know I "saw" them without really seeing them. I couldn't pretend to notice someone. I either noticed them, or I didn't. He smiled flashed that brilliant white smile in his tan and left me to my menu.
"I'm glad we didn't bet on this one," Jason said, "I'd have lost."
Nathaniel looked at him. "You thought he was gay."
"The way he reacted to you-yes."
I was studying my menu, trying to remember what I'd wanted. Some kind of salad, I think. Or had it been the pulled pork sandwich? That was always good.
"But he smiled at both of you, so I'm betting bi."
"Pulled pork sandwich. I'm going to back to work, so I don't have to eat light. But the waiter wasn't smiling at me, he'd noticed he had only looked at Nathaniel and I was the only one close enough to let him look at me and still see Nathaniel."
"You made him see you when you looked up and smiled," Nathaniel said.
"Not on purpose," I said.
"We've all started adopting some of Nathaniel's charms," Micah said.
I looked at him. "You, too?"
He nodded, smiled, and looked down, as if he were a little embarrassed. "I've found that a little charm helps a lot in politics, and you want people to like you; no one is better at getting people to like them than these two." He ended with a wry tone and a look halfway between amused and disgusted, but ended with a smile.
Jason batted blue eyes at him. "Aw, that's so sweet; you've been taking lessons in luuvv from us."
Micah scowled at him, and I realized it was a look more reminiscent of me. Did all couples begin to pick up mannerisms from each other? I knew I'd picked up things from Jean-Claude, but I was his human servant, which meant that personality and psychic gifts literally mingled, or were contagious. But then I was Micah's Nimir-Ra, leopard queen, and Nathaniel was my animal to call, so maybe it was the metaphysics still. I'd learned that my initial attraction to Micah had been vampire powers-mine, not Jean-Claude's. The powers of Belle Morte's line were lust and love, with the caveat for most of them that you could only control someone to the degree you were willing to be controlled. For me it truly was a double-edged sword, and with Nathaniel and Micah I'd been willing to be cut to the heart. By the time I'd made Jason my wolf to call, I'd had more control so we were still just friends. Though I'd bound him to me during a crisis, by accident, just reaching out for the metaphysical help that was