Page 3 of Blind Date with a Werewolf
“Sorry, sorry,” the boy said, looking away, a flush rising onhis cheeks. “That wasn’t fair. I mean, even if youhadlied about not being from Missoula, the lie perpetrated on you is worse. I was rude. I’m sorry that you got caught up in all of this. My friend”—he almost choked on the word, as well he should—“he thought he was being funny. He was trying to put me in an awkward position and didn’t think about what he was doing to you.”
“Didn’t think,” Asil murmured, touching the vase lightly with one finger. “Those are the correct words.”
“He was pretty sure that you’d end up being a fake, too,” Kelly said. “Trace showed me your profile photo—and no one who really looks like that needs a dating service. He said you’d probably be three hundred pounds and deserve the joke he’d played on you.”
“And if I had been?” Asil asked.
“If I hadn’t shown up,you’dhave gotten angry, but you’d have shrugged it off. It would be your date’s loss for not realizing what ‘she’ missed, right?” Kelly’s gesture took in all of Asil’s magnificence. “But someone who lies about themselves? Who posts fake photos because they think no one would like them if they knew who they really were? Those people don’t have confidence to fall back on when things go wrong.” He met Asil’s eyes. “Someone like that would have been hurt. I had to come and let him know that it was my fail, not his.”
Asil decided that he liked this young man, in spite of the fact that he’d been late to their date. Asil’s judgment of people was usually swift—and always accurate. Tonight would not be a waste of time at all. He decided that it would be positively enjoyable.
Kelly’s body tightened in preparation for getting up. “Soyou know everything. I’m sorry about the date thing—but at least you’ll have a good dinner. And”—an assessment so quick that a less perceptive man would have missed it and the approval Kelly felt of Asil’s good looks—“you really won’t have trouble finding a date if you want one. I’ll leave you to your dinner.”
“Sit down,” said Asil quietly, pleased when the boy did so with automatic instant obedience. It was not only wolves who knew who was in charge when Asil was in a room.
“You don’t need me,” Kelly said. “Someone who looks like you doesn’t have trouble finding dates.”
“Apparently I do,” murmured Asil. “I am sorry that this cannot be a real date for you—my tastes are only for women. But I think that we shall eat this very good food that will come out shortly. And I think we should go to this masquerade ball and enjoy ourselves.”
Kelly looked at him. Pushed his glasses up his nose again, sneered, and said, “Right. And you have some riverfront property in Death Valley to sell me. How about I pay for this dinner and you can go find a date next door?”
Next door to the Thai restaurant was a cowboy bar.
“You have heard,” Asil murmured, the bitterness in the young man’s voice having (mostly) calmed the wolf’s reaction to the defiance and disrespect, “that the best revenge is living well, no? I think that we should go, dance, and have a good time.” He smiled at Kelly with charm. “You and I, we know that it is a pretend date—but that doesn’t mean we cannot enjoy ourselves and twit your…acquaintance as well. I brought a costume with me and it would be a shame not to wear it.”
A rental costume had arrived in the mail, evidently sent byhis benefactors. But Asil maintained an extensive wardrobe. There had been no need for a rental.
“Just like that, huh?” asked Kelly, still plainly distrustful.
“I don’t like bullies,” Asil said. “It is a particular pet peeve of mine. I especially don’t like bullies who put their victims in a position where they could be hurt.”
Kelly looked at him again, and Asil allowed him to hold his gaze. His wolf wasn’t happy, but Kelly was no threat, so Asil’s wolf let it pass.
The boy dropped his eyes—most people did when meeting the stare of a dominant wolf—and looked away. “It would be awesome to get some of my own back,” he said, somewhat wistfully.
Asil nodded his head graciously. “Yes.”
The boy settled as if he might stay for more than a few seconds and said, “Hey. I’m Kelly and I’m your date tonight. Most of the stuff in the profile you have is wrong. So let me tell you about myself. I’m twenty-two and in my first year of grad school here—studying toxicology.”
Twenty-two. Asil was grateful that the food came right at that moment.What had they been thinking?Asil grumbled to himself. A grandmother of ninety would have been a baby to him, true, but twenty-two was still wet behind the ears.
Asil ate very good food and found himself rather charmed by the lengthy and self-deprecating autobiography that failed to hide the intelligence and humor that were evidently Kelly Lieberman’s (yes, he did have a last name) more usual self.
While he spoke, and without varying from good manners, Kelly dug into the food with a will and ate almost as much as Asil did—and werewolves need a lot of food. They finished the meal with a decent Lambrusco that this restaurant kept onhand. Asil preferred merlots and big reds himself, but Thai food required a little less impact. He didn’t like sweet wines, so the Lambrusco, dry and bubbly, was a fine compromise.
“I need to head out if we’re going to go to the ball together,” Kelly said. “It’ll take me twenty minutes to get home and maybe twice that to get ready. I’ll get an Uber and meet you—”
“You do not have a car?” Asil asked.
Kelly gave him an assessing look. “No.”
“I will drop you off and pick you up, then.”
Kelly shook his head. “Look, you’ve been awesome about this whole deal, but I do have to followEvery Boy’s Guide to Internet Dating, which tells me not to get in a car driven by a stranger or give them my address in case they are a crazy stalking murderer or something.”
Asil thought about taking offense but instead found that he might qualify as a crazy stalking murderer. Especially if you looked at the last few centuries of his life. Or the first few. Or the last few years.
This past summer he had killed Sage, a pack mate and a woman he’d thought of as his friend. An almost-lover. She’d betrayed his pack—or rather, they discovered she’d been betraying them for a very long time. When she had run from the consequences of her act, he’d hunted her down. Killed her.
