Page 6 of Five to Love Him

Ezra snorted laughter. “That what they teach you at St. Auguste? That lerneans are like air fryers?”

I shrugged. “No, but I thought it was an apt comparison.”

The black-haired server came back with three menus and handed me mine last with a bright smile.

“If nothing on there is to your liking, our boss can be persuaded to make you something special.”

“Uh, I must daiquiri,” Tate said.

“Then it falls to me to margarita,” Ezra replied.

So they had developed couples’ speech already. If I spent too much time with them, my ears would start to bleed. I skimmed the menu. It was several pages of drinks, ordered by type of booze, followed by a small selection of food. I liked a cocktail, didn’t like an overabundance of choices.

I looked at the server. He was handsome, the fringes of his black hair falling into his blue eyes.

“I’ll have something special, please.”

His eyes widened. “But what?”

I shrugged. “Just surprise me.”

“Strawberry daiquiri for him and strawberry margarita for me,” Ezra said.

The server wrote that down but barely glanced at them.

“What do you like? We’d want to surprise you with something you like. If you tell us a favorite liquor, we’ll tell Coral, the bartender, and they—he will do the rest.”

Was he not a native speaker? He had no accent that I could hear, but his syntax was off.

“I guess I like rum. Everyone likes rum. Not too sweet but fruity.”

He nodded eagerly. He had a cute boyish smile, and the hair gave him the illusion of a boyish look too. He was lean and tall with long fingers and tidy nails.

“We can do that. Fruit and rum, not sweet.”

And he was off.

“That was weird,” Tate said before leaning over to Ezra, who had moved his chair closer to Tate while the guy had been taking our order. “What is he? Do you know?”

“Well, going by the carbon copy over there behind the bar, that’s a hive.”

“A hive!” Tate blurted before slapping a hand over his mouth, eyes going wide. “I always wanted to see a hive,” he added when he’d calmed down.

“Always? Until a few months ago, you didn’t know they existed.” Ezra smiled at Tate in the most indulgent way. It made me wonder all over again what was taking them so long. The chemistry was clearly there. They lived together. They ordered drinks for each other and had a silly story involving organic produce. By rights, they should be married.

Tate made a moue. “And whose fault is that? You could have told me sooner. Way sooner.”

Ezra shrugged. “Didn’t want to freak you out.” He glanced at me. “How about you? Have a strange roommate too?”

“Nah, I live alone. I just…I almost drowned when I was seventeen. I would have, but someone saved me and called an ambulance for me, only everyone kept telling me there was no one there, that I’d made it out of the frozen water by myself. I still remember how my clothes dragged me down. How my limbs locked. I didn’t make it out of that lake by myself.”

Ezra’s eyes narrowed. “Humans don’t do well in cold water. Or in any water. It does seem unlikely.”

Tate elbowed him. “Hey, pool boy. You told me my butterfly stroke had improved.”

“It has. But in case you hadn’t noticed, you have legs, and those aren’t made for water.”

“He’s right,” I said. “I should have drowned but I didn’t. I’ve been trying to understand that ever since, and a normal explanation wasn’t to be had, so I started looking. I ended up going to the Moonlight Diner one night.”