Page 49 of Change

Maria stepped back, dropping her clipboard back to her side as she stared, open-mouthed, at the dragon.

Yes, it was obvious she wanted nothing to do with me.

What was he doing? My skin burned in embarrassment, and I sank further down into my seat. I was too ashamed to speak or to show any sort of indignation at the insinuation that he needed to arrange playdates for me.

I didn’t want playdates. I wantedfriends.

An image of the boys crossed my thoughts, and I pressed my hands to my cheeks as I shook my head, willing the reminder away.

They didn’t count as friends—not platonic ones. It was easy to admit, at least sometimes, that whatever this weird relationship thing we had going on between the five of us, it wasn’t the same as good old-fashioned girl-on-girl friendship.The boysdidn’t want to get manicures with me—although Titus did like to do my hair.

And there was also my lingering fear that I might have to admit that Bryce was right, about one thing at least. It was becoming dangerous to wear my usual nightclothes around them. Damen, especially, stared in the most unnerving ways.

So soon, slumber parties between us might have to be taken off the table too.

This was just the worst.

“O-okay!” The stunned look finally dropped from Maria’s open-mouthed expression. She pulled the clipboard to her chest, glancing at me only once, before she fidgeted nervously. “Let me just get my stuff.”

I decided to wait until Maria finished settling into the seat across from me, Jack and Coke in hand, before daring to test the waters.

We’d been waited on, of course, because what security-based office building didn’t come complete with a fully staffed restaurant and café? And my cappuccino appeared on the table almost instantly. But to order alcohol, Maria was still required to pick up her beverage from the bar.

Because an open bar, too, was apparently a completely normal perk of an everyday nine-to-five security position.

Then again, I wasn’t stupid. Most of Titus’s employees were probably shifters. I was still unfamiliar with the biology involved, but my werewolf comics had theorized that the metabolism of alcohol and drugs was much different in shifters than humans.

These peoplecoulddrink on the job—they’d probably never gotten drunk in their lives.

These people were also incredibly nosy.

Sure, they’d averted their eyes when Maria was with me, but the second she slipped away, I could feel their attention on me. I was nervous, embarrassed, and still a tiny bit upset about yesterday. The last thing I wanted was to be stared at.

Maria was unhappy too. She didn’t even wait until returning to the table before she’d begun tossing back her drink.

Still, my impatience got the better of me, and Maria had barely sat down before I broke the suffocating silence. “I’m sorry.”

She then decided to put my working theory about shifters and their alcohol tolerance to the test by losing her balance and dropping her cup to the floor. She proceeded to fall into her seat as her elbow banged loudly against the table.

I was too stunned to even speak again. How was it that I managed to injure her in this manner every time the two of us went out? Granted, we’d only ever gone out twice, but still…

Two out of two was a rather concerning record.

“What?” She cradled her elbow and waved the concerned wait-staff away. “Why are you sorry?”

“Well…” I glanced at the broken glass on the floor, everything in me itching to make it better. “I hurt you again.”

“How?” she asked. “I fell on my own.”

“But it was my fault,” I pointed out.

She let out a loud groan, pressing her face into the table as she wrapped her hands over the back of her head. “I can’t do this.”

I knew it.

I clutched my fingers in my lap.

She really didn’t want to be friends. I was nothing more than a presumptuous loser.