Page 22 of Nine-Tenths

Thoughtful bitch.

I love her.

"Don't you have shit to manage at the café?" I ask, instead of blubbering.

"It's all over the phone at this point. I can do that from your horrifying sofa."

I chuckle. It is pretty awful. My first roommate and I had saved it from the curb, and it looks like the ‘70s had vomited all over it. "Pfft, see? I was right."

"About what?"

I swish the water around, stirring up the glitter from my bath bomb.

"You're totally the mom-friend."

"Lies and slander," Hadi says, and hangs up.

Chapter Seven

Ispend the next week sleeping, and reassuring the fam thereis no needto cross the province just because I had a few stitches, I ama big boy.My brother and sister both text back withthe exact same emoji of a face with a long Pinocchio-is-lying nose (either they did it on purpose to annoy me, or they really do have that twin-mind-reading thing.)I eat leftovers, am diligent about my meds, send a thank you card to Auntie Pattie for the bottle of birthday Scotch, read romance, work my way through the massive To Be Read pile of novels I'd neglected during Uni, and convince myself that I'm being a dumbass about Dav.

Dragons are hella secretive. Websites are scanty. Wiki entries are lists of facts and dates, with little speculation. Medical texts are vetted before they're published. Nearly none of them havesocial media. So there’s zero evidence that Dav a) likes dudes, and b) likesme.

Why would he? He's hot. He's charming. He's got style, if a bit old-fashioned. He's presumably rich, being a dragon. (If that's not a speciesist stereotype.) He’s probably in politics, they always are. And he's got a big care-taking streak; he'd spent as much time mother-henning the other people in the waiting room as he had me, popping up to grab tissues for the mother with the baby, translating for someone who'd only spoken French, helping an elderly man to the washroom.

And he clearly has excellent taste in coffee.

No way he’s single.

And if he is, there’s no reason he’d be into me. I'm all elbows and ears, skinny but not fit, and a plush bum that no kind of coin could bounce off. I dress like I shop in bargain stores, because I do. I have permanent late-night-studying bags under my eyes, scruff that I can never seem to shave all the way down, and no idea what to do with my mess of hair, so I do nothing at all. I am abaristafor christssake. I don't own anything but my student debt and an unused degree.

I'm not lazy, and I'm not a fuck up. But my bed and my TBR pile call to me a lot more strongly than career ambition. Stu says it's normal to flail around after university, because the schedule and stress are gone. The dumpster fire has to burn down to ash before you can move the thing, right?

But it's been a year.

Gem had jumped right into her Master's of Library Science after undergrad. She was back with Mom and working with the local branch on diversity programming within weeks of graduating.

And Stuart had followed Dad's footsteps and joined the family construction company as soon as he'd gotten his Bachelors in History. It was only meant to be a summer job, but Stu hadliked the work. Considering our hometown is full of Heritage Buildings that need constant attention, he'd married his love of old shit and making things, taken some online courses, and turned himself into Muskoka County's foremost expert on heritage restoration.

That's not 'flailing.'

And me?Nothing. No spark, no calling. No interview has been successful. No job posted in our alumni group has sung its siren song.

I like solving people's first-world problems with a smile, a coffee, and a chat. My own personal Coffee Shop AU. But I don’t want Beanevolence to be my forever home. This is Hadi's dream, not mine.

My dream had been the one I'd been co-planning with Rebekah.

And that was over.

So now what?

I hate to be told what to do, which Dr. Chen says comes from being the youngest sibling. And, unfortunately at most jobs, is the standard. Then there’s my issues withchange,with being forced to makedecisionsthat fucks me up so bad I can't make a choice at all. Dr. Chen would saythat’sfrom my dad dying suddenly, and everything being yanked out from under me. But those sound like reasonable and logical reasons, so of course my brain weasels do their best to convince me it can't possibly be true.

Clearly,I'mthe issue, not my trauma.

Right?

Right.