aback by the sudden conversational ambush. “Maybe? You didn’t knock over a bookshelf there a couple of weeks back, did you?”
He grinned. “Nope. Not me. Can I buy you a drink?”
What was going on with me lately? Had I rubbed myself in vampire cat nip or something? He looked sort of familiar and it was possible I had seen him at the library. I tried to stick to my own business there, collapsing bookshelves aside. But I had enough vampire-related issues to deal with now, I didn’t need to add more to them.
“No, thank you.”
“Oh, come on, I’m a nice guy and—”
Suddenly, a tall form appeared at my left. I never thought I’d be glad to see Donnie Ansen, but there he was, tall and handsome as ever. “Hi. Tylene, right?”
Like he hadn’t known me since we were cubs. And then he turned and walked towards the table, without a word to me. I guessed I was supposed to follow.
I gave the vampire a polite smile. “Sorry. Meeting someone. Have a good night.”
He wriggled his eyebrows at me. “See you around.”
“I’m having the weirdest month,” I sighed, walking to the table where Donnie was seated.
“It’s nice to see you again,” I said, sliding into my chair. Unlike Alex, Donnie didn’t pull my seat out from the table. He was too busy staring over my shoulder, watching a baseball game playing on the TV behind the bar. Apparently, I was supposed to be on my best manners, but he wasn’t.
He sat there silently contemplating the menu, to the point where I wondered if I should offer to read it for him. His knee bounced nervously under the table and he looked anywhere but at my face. I supposed I could pass the next thirty-five minutes in silence, though I was sure that was not “minding my manners.”
“So, have you watched anything good lately? I heard Netflix has a bunch of interesting documentaries about people who enjoy tigers and extremely hard drugs.”
He frowned at me, turning his attention away from the TV for a whole three seconds together. “What’s Netflix?”
I had no idea how to respond to that. I felt almost swoony from the shock of it. How on earth was I supposed to find conversational ground, much less the foundation of a lifetime together with someone who seemed so cut off from the things that I centered my world around? Desperately, I missed Alex and his easy conversation. We had so little in common and somehow managed to find something to talk about every minute we were together. I had so much in common with Donnie and…nothing. I knew I was being more than a little unfair to my fellow werewolf. Maybe we were having so much trouble finding a topic because I was the weirdo, in terms of our kind. We’d never really clicked when we’d seen each other at pack meetings. He ran around hunting any game foolish enough to loiter nearby and I usually hid in a tree, reading a book. On the rare occasion he spoke to me, it was to ask after Jolene—which was typical.
The Southern Comfort menu was filled all sorts of delicious-sounding upscale delights that I would gladly scarf down any other night—seven-cheese macaroni, pulled pork smoked with cherries and apples, buttermilk chicken, next to an impressive list of imported bloods for the vampire customers. But a large, delectable meal didn’t fit with my thirty-five-minute plan. Donnie ordered a lot and when I stuck with a fried green tomato appetizer, he finally spoke. “You’re not one of those salad eatin’ girls, are you?”
I smiled, an upward quirk of the lips rather than actually baring my teeth—which I didn’t trust myself to do. “Not usually.”
“I just mean, your Aunt Lurlene said you were a healthy eater, a healthy girl,” he said, frowning.
A healthy girl who would give him lots of healthy babies, was the unspoken implication. It chafed that I was being discussed like a damn brood mare behind my back, but I knew it was no different than how almost any werewolf female was discussed at kitchen tables and wild clearings throughout the country, maybe even the world.
He mumbled, “That seems like a weird thing to bring up on a date, doesn’t it?”
My hand froze over the table as I reached for my drink. “Yes.”
“I don’t think humans talk about that sort of thing on dates, do they?” he mused. “What your relatives might have said about how ya eat.”