I leaned my face in against his, not sure what to say, because when I’d first met him he had been a prostitute. He’d been a high-priced one catering to an elite clientele, but in the end there had been too many clients who wanted him because a wereanimal could take a lot of damage and still survive. It was too much rough trade, even for someone who enjoyed pain the way Nathaniel did.
"A lot of people think that about strippers," Jason said.
"I know," Nathaniel said.
"I thought we were supposed to cheer up Anita," Micah said, "not be the gloomy ones."
They both looked up, exchanged a glance, then Jason grinned at me. "I think we promised to flirt outrageously."
"You said that, and just assumed I’d go along," Nathaniel said.
Jason aimed the grin at him. "Won’t you?"
Nathaniel smiled, shrugged, and nodded.
"Then let the flirting begin," Jason said.
I was a little nervous about what outrageously might mean, but I’d take silly and a little embarrassing over them being sad. But as usual the flirting confused me.
When Jason had said he and Nathaniel would flirt outrageously, I thought they’d meant flirting within our little group, but when the waiter came to our booth, the plans changed. The waiter started out very sure of himself: "I’m sorry that no one’s been to your table." I was sitting beside Nathaniel, so I got a very good look at what happened to the waiter’s face when Nathaniel looked up at him. That’s all he did, just raise that face, and those eyes, and stare directly at the waiter—who went from reasonably intelligent and competent to stammering. No, I’m not joking. The waiter began to stammer, a lot of uhs, and hmms, and words not in their right order. Nathaniel, having noticed the reaction, smiled at him, which didn’t help at all. The waiter finally, in desperation, said, "Drinks, drinks, can I bring you drinks?"
"Yes," I said, we all said, "drinks would be good."
He took our drink orders while staring at Nathaniel, which meant he didn’t write anything down, which led me to wonder if we’d actually get what we ordered, but we were all merciful and let him flee the table for somewhere safe from Nathaniel’s charm.
Jason turned to me and Micah. "Can he flirt with the waiter?"
"No," we said in unison. Micah said, "Please don’t, because we’ll either get great service or terrible service, and we need to get Anita back to work."