by Selena Scott
She stopped in her tracks. She realized now that she’d been expecting to see a certain someone leaned up against her car.
But there was no one there.
It wasn’t that Orion waited by her car every weekday after work, but on the days that he was in the center, especially on the days that were so busy she didn’t have a chance to chat with him, he was almost always there.
But he wasn’t there. And her car looked kinda lonely all on its own.
That was ridiculous. A car couldn’t be lonely. She got in, revved the engine and went home.
The next week went much the same way. She saw Orion at the center on three different days. She received three separate nods and one professional hand wave.
He didn’t wait at her car even once.
And her phone had started to be suspiciously silent. The last text she’d received from him had been the voice memo she’d complained about the morning she’d caught him with the cigarette. He hadn’t called her either. He usually called a few times a week either to say hello or to ask her a question about human culture. Sometimes a curiosity, sometimes it was something he genuinely needed help with.
Diana found herself with a lot more time on her hands than she usually had. She had no Orion-related paperwork to take care of, there was no one to chat with her outside her car for half an hour after work, and no texts to hem and haw over, wondering if she should respond or not.
It was exactly what she’d begged him to give her.
***
“All right,” Diana said a few days after that, catching Orion in the hallway outside the men’s room. It was late afternoon on a Friday and they were almost alone in the center. Carl had left just a few minutes earlier. She strode up to him, her hips ticking side to side in time with those tall, clicky shoes she wore. She had her hands on her hips and a fierce look on her already fiercely featured face. Her hair was pulled back in her usual tight ponytail and it swished behind her, accentuating her aggravation. In short, he could have eaten her with a spoon.
“Let me see your eyes,” she demanded, walking up to Orion so fast she backed him into the wall.
“What?” he barely had time to ask before she was roughly grabbing his jaw, tipping his face down, and using the thumb on her other hand to pull at his lower lids.
She aggressively peered from eye to eye. “Pupils look all right,” she muttered to herself.
She was standing closer to him than she ever had before, her hands on his body, but instead of feeling warm and turned on, the way he’d thought he might, Orion just felt confused. “Diana.”
“Let me smell your breath!” she demanded, leaning forward and pressing her face almost flush against his. She huffed and stepped back. “Walk a straight line!”
She stepped back and pointed to the hallway.
“What?” he asked again, confused at what was going on but also a little dazed by her proximity to him, to the feeling of her bossing him around.
“Do it!” Her voice was fierce enough that he followed directions just to appease her. He walked five feet in a straight line, turned and walked back to her.
She sucked her teeth. “Turn out your pockets!”
“Diana—” But he didn’t have time to finish his sentence before she’d strode over to him and shoved her hands into the pockets of his jeans. She was wrist deep and clutching hard at his thighs, dangerously close to the family jewels when Orion realized that to let this continue was to allow himself to be frogmarched down the road to insanity.
“Diana!” He took her by the shoulders and spun them around so that she was the one who had her back to the wall, her hands still in his pockets. “What the heck is going on?”
“You tell me!” she demanded, her minty breath washing over his face, tendrils of dark hair coming loose from her ponytail, her chest billowing in and out with each ferocious inhale. “You’re complying with Carl. And when I talked to him today he described you as being, and I quote, ‘very amenable’. You’ve dropped off the face of the earth, no calls, no texts. You never wait for me at my car anymore. And yesterday I wore the tightest skirt I own and you didn’t even come speak to me. So you tell me, Orion. What the heck is going on? You’ve joined a gang? A cult? You’re on drugs? You’re drunk? What is it?”
He blinked down at her for a moment before he couldn’t fight back the tremor in his chest. He let out a great, gusty roll of deep laughter, unable to stop the giddy joy rising in his heart. Goddammit, Wren and Ida were geniuses. It had taken their plan less than a week to have Diana Paul sticking her hands in his pockets in a dark hallway and demanding he pay attention to her. He couldn’t believe how well this had worked. They deserved trophies. Or medals. Or to have a song written about their genius. Or whatever it was that humans did for the best and brightest of their kind.
“Don’t laugh!” Diana practically shouted. “Shifters have a fifty percent higher chance of becoming addicted to drugs. Or being homeless. Or being recruited into violent gangs.”
He sobered a little bit. He’d heard those statistics before and they weren’t a laughing matter. He’d seen it with his own eyes in the streets of Portland. Shifters in rags, begging for food or water or money. Shifters passed out in the blinding sun, dead to the world under the weight of whatever they’d just put into their bodies. She’d noticed his complete change in personality and been terrified that he was slipping away down a bad path.
It shouldn’t have warmed him, but it did.
“You’re good at your job, Diana. How closely you pay attention to your clients here.”
She huffed. “Answer my question, Orion.”
“No. I’m not on drugs. I had a beer about six days ago but that was it. I don’t enjoy violence and don’t plan on joining a gang. And I’m still perfectly happy living at Wren’s old house with Phoenix and Dawn. Even though sometimes when Ida stays the night with Phoenix, I wish I was deaf. No one needs to hear how competent their brother is at sex. At top volume. In the middle of a Wednesday night.”
Her mouth quirked like she might just smile, but there was still too much worry in her eyes. Worry that made him want to kiss those plump lips of his. She’d been worried about him. So worried she’d backed him into a wall, prepared to do battle with whatever demons he’d been facing down. Suddenly, the year he’d spent pursuing her to no avail didn’t seem so wasted. She cared about him. Even if she hadn’t been inclined to show it.
“There’s no drugs. No drink. Not homeless,” she ticked off the list. “So, why the huge change in your attitude? Are you depressed? Or…” She bit her lip and he didn’t think she was aware that she was doing it. “Maybe you’ve met someone?” Her eyes dropped.
Orion wanted to sing. “I haven’t met anyone. I’m not depressed. I’m just trying something new, Diana.”
Her eyes lifted to his in confusion.
“You told me that quitting the center would be bad for business around here. And that I was making extra work for you with my behavior. So, I started thinking to myself, what if I didn’t make extra work for Diana? What if I did exactly what she asked me to and made it work with a mentor? What if I left her alone just like she asked? Because I meant what I said, Diana. I want to make your life better. So, this is me trying to do that.”
Diana blinked her light eyes up at him, her confusion giving way to an expression he couldn’t quite interpret. “You— I—”
She dropped her eyes from his face and for the first time seemed to register the position they were in. He had her crowded against a wall, his hands gently on her shoulders. Her hands were still shoved, to the wrists, into his front pockets. One set of her fingers were about a quarter inch from a body part of his that really, really wanted to come out and play.
She yanked her hands away from him all at once and slid out from under his hands. “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes wide. Her hands went to her cheeks as she stared at him. “That was so inappropriate. I just thought that maybe you were in trouble and I went a little c
razy.”
He turned and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning one shoulder into the wall. “It’s nice to know you care.”
“Of course I care. I—” She cut herself off like she’d just admitted way, way more than she’d wanted to. She took a deep breath. “I care about all my clients.”
He pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow, daring her to leave that statement dangling there, the rest unsaid.
She rolled her eyes at him. “And, sure, over the past year you’ve become more than a client.” She cleared her throat and pulled her shoulders back. “You’re my friend, too.”
Friend.
He was equally elated and deflated by the word. He ignored the deflated part and jumped on the elated part. “We’re friends? I always thought you saw me as more of a pest. A really, unbelievably attractive pest.”
Her lips quirked and she rolled her eyes again. “Someone can be a pest and a friend at the same time. The world is a complicated place, Orion. Or haven’t I taught you that yet?”
He smiled at her and tried out her choice of words. “Friend. I like that. What kind of stuff do friends do for each other?”
She eyed him, her eyes narrowing, obviously knowing him well enough to know that he was going to milk every bit out of this situation that he could. “Friends continue to be nice to Carl.”
He laughed. “Easy peasy. Carl’s a peach.”
Now she really looked like she was trying not to laugh. “Friends don’t make paperwork for each other. Or mess up federal grants.”
“Well, I didn’t know I was doing either of those things for you, so you’ll have to tell me if I start doing them again, but sure. Done and done. Friends answer each other’s phone calls,” he volunteered one of his own rules.
“But they don’t call at weird times,” she amended. “Like right when you think the other person is waking up or going to bed.”
He sucked his teeth, conceding the point, knowing he needed to take what he could get. “Fair enough. They talk to each other, though. Real conversation. On the phone and in person.”
“But they do it at prearranged times. You can’t just waltz into my office and expect a tea party. And no more waiting at my car. It’s weird.”
“It’s the only place I know you’ll be!”
She eyed him for a second. “Fine. Well, friends make times that they hang out together. And they get all their talking done then. We could do that.”
Orion attempted not to choke on his tongue. He’d have to check with Ida and Wren, of course, but what she’d just described sounded suspiciously like a date to him. Something he’d never really done with anyone and was deadly curious about. He liked the idea of getting dressed with Diana in mind, eating a meal with her, a meal he paid for. He wanted to see what she’d wear on a date, what kind of food she liked, what topics of conversation she’d bring up.
“I’d like that,” he said, completely sincerely.
“Something told me you might be into that idea,” she said, pursing her lips against the smile that was threatening at the corners of her mouth.
“Tonight?” he asked. “We could hang out tonight?”
She sighed. “No one has tried to talk to you about pushing your luck, have they?”
He shook his head.
“All right,” she conceded. “Tonight. We’ll grab a sandwich and chat. As friends.”
“I love sandwiches,” he said immediately. And I love you.
He was very proud of himself for keeping the last part inside. God only knew how many ways he could botch this potential arrangement between them.
“All right. You know that place about four blocks over?” She pointed.
“The one with the turkey reuben that everyone talks about?”
“Yes. Meet me there at seven.” She glanced at her watch and grimaced. “Better make it 7:30.”
“Deal.”
She nodded, let out a long breath and then her eyes just kind of got caught on him. He couldn’t have interpreted her thoughts then even if someone had paid him a million dollars to do it. After a moment she shook her head and started smoothing back the tendrils of hair that had come loose when she’d wrestled around with him.
“See you tonight.”
She was just turning when he caught her elbow, just two fingers to the knobby bone, stilling her. “You know, this morning, when Carl was talking my ear off about how to apply for health insurance through my new job, I really thought this day was shot, the whole thing down the tubes. But here I am, about to eat sandwiches with you.”
She gave him a droll look. “The world is a magical place.”
And then she was striding away, leaving him to wonder if she actually believed that.
CHAPTER FIVE
It wasn’t a date, Diana reminded herself. So there was no reason to be nervous. And there was also no reason to dress up. She’d intentionally chosen a place that was closer to work than it was to her house so that she wouldn’t even consider the option of running home to change her clothes.
Yet, here she was, a quarter to seven, standing in her closet and trying to figure out what the heck to wear on a friend date with Orion Wolf.
In some ways, she begrudgingly admitted, this would be a lot easier if it were a real date. Because she dated occasionally, she knew how to do that. Maybe four times a year, she said yes to someone who asked her and found herself at some restaurant or another, often pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable the experience was. She liked flowers, which men often brought, she liked wine, which men often bought, and -sue her- she liked the effect she seemed to have on men. She knew that when she was dressed up and makeup-ed up and the lighting was right and the mood was right she was often fairly spellbinding. She’d gotten it from her mother.
Toni had had the same indescribable something that Diana had. Unfortunately, Toni’s had been the ruination of her reputation. Even after Robert had come along. Diana wasn’t about to let that happen to her. So, about four times a year, Diana indulged it that special something with a date with some attractive man who admired her.
But this, she reminded herself again, was not a date. That’s why she’d chosen sandwiches after work. Not sipping red wine at Mucca Osteria. Because the last thing she needed was a date with a client. The rumor mill would love that. And even more than that, the last thing she needed was a date with a man like Orion Wolf. She liked her men more predictable, tamer, and only looking for one night of commitment. She couldn’t exactly say that any of those criteria fit Orion.
Friend. Sandwiches. Casual.
She stripped out of her work clothes and stood barefoot in her closet. She could do this. If he didn’t still want to be friends with her with no makeup and sandals and jeans and T, her typical weekend wear, then honestly, she could stop worrying about this whole thing. Because then maybe his fascination with her would wane and she’d stop having to factor him into her each and every move.
She made her way to the restaurant, wondering what he was going to be wearing. She wondered if he’d try to make this into a romantic date somehow. What would she do if he showed up in a suit? Or even a button down. Yowza. She thought back to the first time she’d ever met him. He’d been just processed by one of the government run shifter integration services that dealt with shifters who had no license or identification. Basically, shifters who’d been in hiding their entire lives. His brother was still in deep recovery-mode from the wildfire and Dawn wasn’t speaking a word to anyone. She’d walked in to the small, windowless room where they were waiting to meet with her and there he’d been. Rising up from his chair, bigger than almost any other man she’d seen in real life, a scruffy beard that reached to his neck, clean but bushy hair, a face blunter than the broad side of a swinging shovel, and a tight, pink T-shirt reading “Malibu”. There’d been palm trees over each pec.
She’d known that it was because the government program dressed its clients in lost and found clothing, for the most part, and that shirt and his torn up jeans
were likely some of the only clothes that this giant could fit into.
As funny as he’d looked, like a mixture between an NFL draft pic, a caveman, and Malibu Ken, she’d still felt a rocking quake of attraction for him. A live wire electricity that she’d never felt before. It must have been his eyes. Or his expression. Which basically said that he’d felt the exact same thing when he’d first seen her.
She’d catalogued all the changes to his appearance over the year. And she’d attempted to do it in an appropriate way, the way she would for any client. Trimmed beard and a haircut implied that he was learning to groom well. Clothes that fit well and started to reflect a certain casual style meant that he was taking pride in the way he looked. These were all good signs, from a client perspective.
But from a man perspective, these were all difficult signs for Diana. Because Orion Wolf was unbelievably hot. And she couldn’t ignore it.
Which was why, as she stepped into the sandwich shop, she dreaded seeing him in a button down. Button down shirts were kind of her kryptonite and she didn’t think she could handle—
The bastard wasn’t even here yet! She glanced at her watch. She’d arrived five minutes late and had been certain that he would be there waiting. He’d been trying to get her to spend time with him outside of the center for an entire year and now, his big chance he was late!?
Diana chose a seat near the window and sat down. Maybe he was late because he’d spent time getting himself together for this friend date. She pictured a new haircut and a beard trim.
“Excuse me,” a voice said next to her. She blinked up into the face of a very attractive man. “You’re not here alone, are you? Because that would be a shame.”
He was mid-thirties, dark hair, instagram-pretty. One of his hands fiddled with the back of the chair across from her.
Uh Oh. Diana didn’t think that Orion would like this if he walked in right now. Some pretty boy angling to get in on their time together. She pictured a spit-shined Orion, all spiffy and pumped up to woo her, grabbing this guy by the collar and promptly removing him from the premises.
