Gargoyle (Woodland Creek)(9)
It had also become an unsaid rule amongst everyone: don’t ask.
That easy. No one asked who they had partnered up with that night.
It was the only way to move on.
Only doctors had been able to do anything, dosing patients up with enough drugs to sedate them. Anyone else not a child or elderly had just been screwed. Literally.
My own bruises—I’d had many—from that night were now healed, but the emotional ones still lingered. The Mayor, him, had somehow finagled a way with the world’s outside press. The world officially thought Woodland Creek was the horniest town in the United States. Even more tourists were showing up.
Stupid humans.
Jackie, my best friend along with Rachel, still fought her own personal demons for whatever had occurred to her that night. So with the town emergency now stopped, Rachel and I had decided Jackie needed shopping therapy on High Street. One of her favorites in Old Town. It did seem to be helping, her arms laden with many bags. Rachel and I only had one a piece, our income taking a drastic hit after the ‘incident.’ Though my temporary job outside of town at Mimi’s Flowers and Balloons had now been secured, it becoming a full-on part-time gig just yesterday…since everyone was buying their loved ones flowers—constantly—to make up for their actions, even if unable to stop them. Guilt. It was a bitch.
We walked to Albrecht Drive, all semi-quiet. Rachel cleared her throat and pointed with her big sale bag to The Bread Basket. “I’m starving.”
Jackie peered up from her digging, having found the new pair of sunglasses she was apparently searching for, placing them on top of her head—almost dumping the contents of two of her bags onto the ground. “I’m hungry, too. They’ve got that amazing chicken breast sandwich there.”
I grinned. Her appetite had finally returned. “Let’s do it.”
Maneuvering through the many tables, I swiftly apologized to the woman that Jackie bashed with one of her bags, my gaze stalling the barest moment on the individual. She was polite enough, but it wasn’t her actions that made me pause. I blinked slowly, recognizing her.
My jaw started to slacken, but I quickly shut it, nodding respectfully to her, then to the rest of her group, who had paused in their munching to glare up. “So sorry to interrupt.”
The Mayor’s sister, Mandy Stone, nodded her head once. “As I said, you’re fine.”
She didn’t recognize me. Thank you, God!
Mandy’s black brow lifted when I only stared.
“Right.” I peered to where my best friends were, almost to the line of the deli, not noticing my disappearance. I mumbled again, “Right. Sorry.”
“Wait a moment,” an incredibly gorgeous wizard stated, lifting a finger around his fork, even as he continued to stare at his lunch. He was the only one of the group I didn’t recognize. The rest were council members or rich townsfolk—all shifters. I paused in turning, staring at his forehead, waiting until his ocean blue eyes lifted up to me. He continued chewing the food in his mouth, properly closed, before he swallowed. He asked easily, “Miss…do you believe in fate?”
My blink was gradual. “Um…” Huh?
“Fate,” he stated slowly, lowering his fork and steepling his fingers. He rested his chin on top of the tips of them. “Do you believe in it?”
I cleared my throat quietly, the shifters around the table still eating, but watching silently. “I like to believe that I create my own destiny. Not that it’s already decided for me.”
He hummed quietly, his head barely cocking. “A life filled with crossroads.”
I shrugged a shoulder, my bag rubbing up and down my leg. “I suppose that’s correct.”
A single brow lifted on his fiercely handsome face. “So if I said I had saved the seat next to me for you, would you sit down beside me or continue on with your oblivious friends for lunch?”
My blonde brows instantly snapped together, glancing once to the empty seat beside him. “You saved that for me?”
“Indeed.”
“Why?”
“Now…what fun would it be if I told you that?”
I snorted softly, glancing once to my friends, seeing they were truly oblivious, not even noticing I was gone as they stood in line and eyed the selection menu. My gaze returned to ocean blue, assessing him a moment. Wizards were frightening. “I think—”
“Choose wisely, miss,” he interrupted me, staring patiently.
My mouth opened and then shut. This was weird.
His lips twitched.
My face scrunched a bit at his action. All right, weird didn’t even begin to describe this.
“Excuse me,” a deep voice rumbled behind me, and then a body gently nudged me to the side, not touching me with his hands, more bumping me. Then the man who now stood beside me completely ignored me, even as I stumbled a step from the abrupt movement. “Please accept our apologies. We hit a traffic jam on the way.”
I blinked, gazing up at the profile of Mike Stone, one of the Mayor’s other siblings—a real S.O.B.
Feeling my eyes on him, he glared once at me, his gaze running up and down my body once, even sniffing in my direction. His attention snapped back and forth between the table and me, just realizing I had been speaking with them. “Am I interrupting something?” He looked at his watch. “I thought our meeting was scheduled—”