frowned. “What is happening here?”
Alex pressed the wrapped package into my hand. “I thought you might like this. I’m told that flowers and chocolates are outdated.”
“What is happening here?” Dick asked again.
“Thank you.” I opened the package and burst out laughing. He’d given me the illustrated sword guide I’d been holding at the library when the bookshelf tried to murder me.
“Now you don’t have to take the risk of going into the history section,” he said.
“Thank you, that was very sweet, and I think I was unofficially banned from the history section, so it’s extra thoughtful. Did you get this here?” I asked, holding up the purple paper.
“I ordered it over the phone earlier this week,” he said. “It seemed rude to bring a book into someone’s bookstore.”
“Like bringing a cake into a restaurant,” I suggested.
“I haven’t ever done that, but I’m assuming it’s…very bad?” he guessed.
“It’s not good,” Andrea told him.
“What is happening here?” Dick asked again, much louder this time. “Are you here on a date with Ty? Was that book a courting gift?”
My heart sank at Dick’s angry tone. I thought he liked me, but I guess that was easier when I didn’t want to mix in with his kind. I shrunk away from the group ever so slightly, back toward my table, just in case I needed to pack up and get out quickly.
For his part, Alex seemed caught off-guard by Dick’s vehemence. “Is there a problem?”
“Only in that Dick never thinks any man is good enough for the women in his life,” Andrea said as Dick drew me against his side, his arm around my shoulders.
“Damn straight,” Dick muttered. “As someone who’s not good enough for his wife, I know what I’m talking about.”
“He offered to keep a getaway car warm for Jane at her wedding,” Andrea said. “And he was the best man.”
“He gave Erik the shovel speech. In German,” Meadow added. “He paid someone on the Internet to translate a threatening speech into my boyfriend’s native language just so it would come across as more intimidating.”
“I sure the hell did,” Dick agreed. “You’re a nice girl, just like Ty here. Someone needs to look out for you, make sure that anybody who wants to have any sort of connection to you knows that you’re not alone in the world. That you have people who would be very responsive if you were upset or mistreated or even irritated a little bit.”
I gritted my teeth and inhaled deeply through my nose. I would not cry. I had more eye make up on than usual and I did not want to spend half of our first date in the bathroom scraping it off of my cheeks. I was used the pack having my back, but lately, that felt more like having a whole platoon of people who wanted to tell me what I was doing wrong with my life. The support, the assurance that the pack was supposed to give me, had been missing for a long time. I didn’t get this sort of reaction from people. Granted, most of my interactions were with other werewolves, but even within my own pack, I was considered weird. Too bookish, too stubborn, too mouthy, and overall off-putting. I’d only known these people for a short time, and they’d given me more acceptance than I’d had since I was a child.
“Half of that German speech was grammatically incorrect, by the way,” Meadow told him. “But thank you, for trying.”
“Got the point across, didn’t it?” Dick asked, leveling a long, meaningful look at Alex. “So don’t make me learn French, Bonfils. You be a gentleman. Or else.”
“I wouldn’t dream of making you give another ‘shovel speech,’” swore Alex, who seemed to be taking this all very seriously.
Dick squinted at him for a long moment and crossed the store to the self-help section. He came back to the counter and slapped a copy of a softcover book on the counter. It was called A Gentleman in Any Era: An Ancient Vampire’s Guide to Modern Relationships and had a bright blue cover featuring a man in a sharp suit, standing inside an hourglass. “Just in case you have any questions on how to stay a gentleman. Consider it a gift, and a warning.”
“Sorry, hon, he’ll lighten up after a few…years,” Andrea promised me.
“All right then, why don’t you two go sit down, and we’ll make you some drinks. And we’ll be watching, from over here,” Dick said, while Meadow and Andrea rolled