Page 44 of The Alpha and the Baker
The response was so quick and so terse. Felicia was just as taken aback as I was. I got over it, though. Maybe the hostess had repeatedly dropped the ball, and our server was a bit frustrated on a busy Friday night. Completely understandable.
“Right, well, we would like that, and I’d like a water as well.”
“Water for me, too,” Felicia added on.
“’Kay.”
And then she was gone.
Felicia and I exchanged looks, and I could tell we were thinking the same thing. I knew she probably also had some choice words since she dealt with all sorts of customers, but neither of us said anything.
Or at least we didn’t until the server came back, her face screwed up in a sour expression.
“We’re out of two of the wines,” she said, her tone making it sound likeourfault.
“Ah, I see,” I murmured, and although I was starting to get a little flustered at how the date was tanking, I was also a little amused by the absurdity of it all. “Are there other varieties that could?—”
“No substitutions.”
Now, I liked to think that I was a patient, understanding guy, but I had a limit. And apparently, the waitress had just hit it. I could empathize that her job wasn’t easy, and she probably got blamed for a lot of things that weren’t anywhere near her fault, but she had no reason to snip atme.
“You know what,” Felicia replied quickly, her own tone having grown thorny. “I think we should go.” My stomach sank. Had my date really torpedoed so fast? “I think I saw a couple of food trucks down the block. Wanna go get some street meat?”
She wasn’t abandoning ship! And now that she’d mentioned it, street meat soundedawesome.If there was ever a time that I didn’t want agyro,I was either dead or replaced by some sort of body-snatcher.
“Actually, that sounds great.”
The two of us stood up, and in less than twenty minutes of entering the restaurant, we were back outside.
“I can’t imagine they’ll last long if that’s how they treat their customers,” Felicia remarked with a laugh as the cool night air hit us. “I get accidentally running out of something, but not offering any substitutions?Whack!”
She said it with such dramatic emphasis on that last word that I couldn’t stop the sharp laugh that punched its way out of me.
“Maybe she was just having a bad night.”
“I hope that was just it, becausejeez.She made me feel like an inconvenience for being there.”
I nodded. “Yeah, like we were relatives who showed up at her place without asking.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what it was like.” She tipped her head back and laughed, and my gaze locked onto the elegant column of her neck. How was literally every single inch of her so utterly gorgeous? So enrapturing? “Oh, BTW, we gotta get a lot ofnapkins. I donotwant to get anything on this dress, and I always manage to drip something on me.”
“You could always get something without sauce,” I teased. “You know, for safety’s sake.”
The look she gave me was comedic gold. “I would rather die.”
“Fair enough.”
We both shared a laugh and, much to my delight, the first cart we came across was full of my favorites. I ordered a falafel plate, a gyro, and some kebabs before looking at Felicia. “What would you like?”
“Wait, that’s all for you?” she asked, eyes wide, and I belatedly remembered that most humans didn’t have the insane caloric needs that we wolves did. Granted, we had nothing on bears, who could eat pretty much every other shifter under the table. Bonus for their insane grocery bill was that they could in turn gowithoutfood for about three times longer than any other shifter.
“Hard day on the farm,” I said quickly. “Do you know what you’d like?”
Thankfully, that was enough to distract her, and she ordered a gyro for herself with a side of hummus and warm pita bread. I was half-tempted to order myself some, but I figured that I didn’t need to draw any more attention to my appetite. Although I was sure she had absolutely no idea I was a shifter, I didn’t want to give her any reason to go digging.
After all, who in the modern age would see a guy eat three people’s worth of street meat and think “Hmm, that guy transforms into a giant wolf”?
Our food didn’t take long, and I took the plastic bag from the cart worker. It was absolutely stuffed to the brim.
