Page 95 of Always Say Yes to a Dragon

I was pretty sure his parents hated me, but I was also pretty sure I didn’t give a shit. “It’s fine. How’s the apartment?”

“Good.” A pause. “You want some shrimp and grits when you get home tomorrow?”

“You know that’s my favorite.” And no restaurant I’d ever worked at made it quite like my mom did. “But you don’t have to cook me anything. If you’re hungry, there’s some leftovers in the fridge.”

“Oh no. No, no, no. You need a home-cooked meal.”

Yeah, that sounded pretty fucking good, even if I wouldn’t get to eat it until tomorrow. Hell, I’d probably need it more tomorrow. I doubted things with Az would be all peachy keen by then.

But I didn’t want to treat Mama the same way Dwayne did. Like a vending machine for all my favorite meals, just because I’d put a roof over her head. “Don’t go through all that trouble for me, Mama. Relax a bit.”

“Don’t be silly. Nothing beats a nice, homemade bowl of shrimp and grits. Maybe I’ll throw in some banana pudding, too.”

I started salivating.

“Dwayne never liked my nanner pudding. That fool didn’t like bananas at all.”

I snorted. “Maybe anyone who doesn’t like banana pudding should be considered undateable.” I didn’t even hesitate to shit-talk Dwayne now that they were through. Mama was the most decisive woman I knew. Loyal to the bone while in a relationship, but once she was done, she wasdone. No on-again, off-again with her.

She chuckled. “It’d be nice to eat my own recipe for a change instead of eating someone else’s version.”

“You do make the best nanner pudding.”

“I’ll make some,” she said. I could hear her opening and closing my cabinets. “You really don’t have much in your pantry, do you? I’ll pick up some basics while I’m getting all the ingredients.”

“I’ll send you something for the groceries.”

“No, no. I’ve made decent money selling my sewing online. Let me take care of it. It’s the least I can do. I’ve got to transfer my portion out of our joint account anyway, now that I’m thinking about it.” Her voice got farther away as she spoke, like she was moving the phone away from her face.

A sharp inhale came down the line. “Fuck. Shit. Fuck.”

Adrenaline surged through me. “Mama?”

“That motherfucker drained our account!” Mama cursed loud and long after that pronouncement.

My back teeth ground together. Fuck Dwayneandthe horse he rode in on. Of course he cleaned out their account the second she kicked him to the curb.Couldn’t do the right thing once in his entire pathetic life.I pulled my phone away from my ear and transferred her a couple hundred bucks. “What happened to the money I sent you a few days ago?”

“I put it all in our joint account because, you know, we’re a team. Or we weresupposedto be a team.” She huffed into the phone. “I should have listened to you, baby.”

“For what it’s worth, I wish I’d been wrong.” I wanted my mom’s boyfriends to treat her right. They just never did. Her man-picker was broken, and given my own dating history, I figured she’d passed the broken man-picker down to me.

Four years with Dwayne, and Mama didn’t even have enough money for groceries.

“At least you found you a good man,” Mama muttered.

I hummed noncommittally. Az had acted like I was a few shakes of some glittery jewels away from leaving him for his obnoxious brother.

“Generous. Dependable. Didn’t bat an eye when you wanted to move me into your apartment—even though I assume he’s paying for it.”

My cheeks burned at the reminder. “Yeah.”

The money I’d just sent her was part of that initial twenty-five grand he’d given me. If this was the end of mine and Az’s relationship, I had a lot more than grocery money. Enough to do something with my life, if I could figure out what the hell that was.

“Dwayne would have bitched endlessly about that kind of favor. Bet your dragon wouldn’t leave you high and dry like this.”

I blinked. “I think if another dragon found out he’d taken back a gift, they’d ostracize him.” Dragons were weird as shit about gifts, showing off and dick-swinging about how rich they were. If I had to guess, I’d bet that taking back a gift would be one of the most offensive things he could do.

I was so used to men who thought money gave them control. Az didn’t do quite the same thing, but he still treated it like an exchange. His money, my time. Even when I tried to take the gifts out of it, he still gave me things.

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