“Uh,” I said. “I do like burritos.”
“Of course you do,” he muttered. “What’s not to like?”
“Dammit,” Riggs said. He was looking past me toward the door.
10
Riggs
The small human women beside me both turned to follow my gaze toward the door. I gripped the bar top feeling the wood threatening to crumble beneath my fingertips. Of all the fucking people to show up at this exact moment…
It was Fang.
He was wearing his usual leather getup with random bits of metal dangling in places like he’d tried to put together a motorcycling outfit while on hard drugs.
“Uh,” Sylvie said from beside me. “Friend of yours?”
“He’s under that impression," I said under my breath.
Fang spread his arms when he saw me, approaching with a big, crooked smile. He was short for a werewolf at just under six feet. He wasn’t particularly strong, either. Both the strength and height usually came with the package, but he appeared to have missed out on those benefits, among others. He had dark hair, but he dyed two strips above his ears silver so they ran back and met in a point above the nape of his neck.
He looked young, but apparent age with werewolves was almost as deceptive as with vampires. We didn’t age at normal rates, so a werewolf might be eighty and only look twenty. I happened to know Fang was young—like in his teens, because the dumbass had drunkenly told me. He also had a blog he didn’t think I knew about where he wrote about all things werewolf and tried to pass it off as fiction. I honestly suspected it was why he never left me alone. He just wanted writing material.
“Riggsy,” he said. He went in like I was going to hug him, but I stuck my palm out, stopping him at arm’s length.
Fang smoothly clapped me on the arm like he’d been expecting the gesture.
“I’ve told you not to call me Riggsy,” I said. “And you can fuck off. I’ve got something important going on right now. I don't have time to babysit.”
“Great news. No babies here. Just a man,” he half-growled the last, tilting his chin up at Sylvie like a come on.
“Don’t even look at her,” I gritted through my teeth. “And I don’t have time for you. So I’ll say it again. Fuck. Off.”
"We had time for burritos, apparently," Sylvie noted.
"Anyway," Fang said. There was a hint of southern accent to his voice I wasn't entirely sure was genuine. "Friends don't fuck off when friends need help. They fuck in."
I squinted. "Don't say that again."
Fang smiled easily. "Come on, Riggsy. Nothing wrong with a little fucking in between friends. You don't have to be like that."
"We’re not friends. And I don’t need help. Especially not from you.”
I let out a long, suffering sigh when I saw Sylvie had hopped down and was petting a random, ugly dog that had followed Fang into the bar. She had it by the face and was scratching its wrinkles, sweet talking nonsense to it while it happily tried to lick at her hands and face.
“He’s so cute,” she mouthed, looking up at me with bulging eyes.
Of course. The woman who throws suicidal love notes from her apartment window can’t resist a deformed dog, either.
"Wait," Sylvie said. "We've got to go back and get Gravy Boat. He is not pleasant when he misses his dinner."
"Absolutely not," I said. "Consider your cat dead. We can't go back there."
Sylvie, Maisey, and even Fang all turned to glare at me in the same instant.
"There's a cat in trouble?" Fang asked.
"No," I said. "We are not going back to get that disgusting cat."
11
Sylvie
The night air was warm and sticky. Foot traffic was at a minimum, and many store windows were darkened and closed except for those that catered to night life.
Maisey and I trailed behind Riggs and Fang.
It had only taken a little not-so-gentle convincing to get Riggs to agree we couldn't leave Gravy Boat III to die on his own in the apartment. I thought it had actually been when I promised I'd sneak off to get him myself the moment Riggs tried to sleep, but who really knew.
I had no idea what time it was because my cell phone had died before all this chaos happened. It was only now that we were in a relative moment of calm that I even thought to wonder.
"Do you know what time it is?" I asked Maisey
I hadn't thought about it, but my sister had been abnormally quiet ever since the crazy truck ride to the bar. When I looked at her now, I saw she was sweating slightly and looked... off.
"Hey," I said suddenly, gripping her arm. "Are you okay?"
Maisey startled, then smiled a little shakily. "What? Yeah. I just can't believe all this is happening."
I nodded. "I know. I'm actually waiting for the moment when I have a mental breakdown. All things considered; I'm surprised I've been handling this as well as I have. I mean, vampires and werewolves, right? They're going to have to stop calling it supernatural or paranormal in books. I guess I'll just be reading 'supernormal romance' books from now on." I laughed at the thought, but Maisey only gave me a brief sympathetic smile.
I remembered the guy in the hallway. The one we'd put in the truck and hadn't seen. That wasn't just a random guy to my sister, and I figured that's why she was so preoccupied. Even if Riggs said he'd be okay, we didn't know how much we could trust what came out of his mouth.
That made me think of the cute guy down the hall. Less than twenty-four hours ago, I would’ve considered it the adventure of all adventures to have to-go coffees in my apartment with him. And now look at me.
"It's pretty crazy being out like this," I said, trying to make idle conversation.
Maisey seemed even more sick at that. She reached out and pulled me in for a side hug. "We need to get you somewhere clean as soon as we get Gravy Boat. And I'm going to triple check that we got all your meds when we are back at the apartment."
I nodded. There was the old Maisey.
I thought about asking her more about the whole vampire thing. Our brief conversation was still at the front of my thoughts, but I didn't want to remind her of Steve. I wondered if werewolves like Riggs had supernatural healing abilities, too. What if I became a werewolf instead of a vampire to fix my immune system? I grinned stupidly at the thought, picturing coarse brown hair sprouting from my boobs.
Gross.
But the way Fang had just transformed the tips of his fingers made me wonder how much I really knew about werewolves. They didn't quite seem like the out of control, full moon bound transforming kind. If anything, they reminded me more of shifters from paranormal romance books I'd read. But I wondered how much I really knew. Maybe Fang couldn't transform more than he had without giving in to his inner beast, or something like that.
I stared at the back of Riggs while he stalked in front of us, wondering. It was bizarre to think that he was something I'd only read about in books—something I'd thought was make-believe until just half an hour ago.