Chapter 11
Toby
Oh, boy. I’d hoped to tell her as we got in the car and I showed her I was parked in assigned parking. “Yes, I do.”
Liza started to look a little outraged, so I held up my hands. “Now, wait. Let me explain before you jump to the wrong conclusions.”
She stopped and narrowed her eyes. “Okay. Explain.”
“I only figured it out when you said you got those cookies from Bert. And…” I hurried forward. “Here, look.” Opening the back seat, I pulled out a bag of the same cookies. “I was going to tell you the crazy coincidence on the way to our date and show you the cookies that my mother made.”
Her face went slack in shock. “Your mother?”
I nodded and laughed. “Imagine my shock when I saw them on your desk at work!” I couldn’t stop myself from the laughter.
“Her snickerdoodles are my favorite, so it was easy to spot them. And then you said Bert. I figured it out but was so surprised and didn’t want to freak you out.
My plan was to make it a big funny thing. ”
She relaxed and took the bag of cookies. “Okay. I forgive you for not telling me right away. I believe you.”
My laughter spilled over again when she tucked the bag of cookies under her arm and jutted out her chin as she walked past me toward the passenger side of my car. “I’m keeping the cookies as punishment.”
Chortling, I hurried ahead of her and opened the door. “Thank you,” she murmured.
My dragon nearly lost his damn mind, thrilled to be this close to Liza finally, on a real date.
The first few minutes of the drive were a bit awkward. I couldn’t figure out what to say. But Liza saved the day by breaking out the cookies. “Are we eating?” she asked.
I nodded with my eyes on the road. “Yes, but we have an… activity first.” I shot her a glance to find her beaming at me.
“Good,” she said. “I wanted cookies.”
“What is your favorite cookie?” I asked.
She grunted because I’d asked her right as she took a huge bite of one. “These,” she mumbled.
Coughing and laughing, when she cleared her throat, she continued, “I’ve always loved snickerdoodles the best, but these are a step above pretty much everything else ever made.”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” I said. “My mother won’t even teach me how to make them. She says she’s leaving me the recipe in her will.”
“Oh, that’s cold,” Liza said. “What’d you do to make your mother hate you so much?”
We laughed and talked all the way to the art studio downtown. “How do you feel about a couples pottery class?” I asked. “I’ve always wanted to take one but never had someone to take with me.”
Her eyes lit up as I parked the car. “Really? I always wanted to go to one. I love art, but I’ve never been any good at it.”
I smirked, but only internally. I’d overheard her talking about loving art and had been able to plan the perfect date.
Sure, it might’ve been cheating. But I wasn’t missing any opportunities.
We were just in time for the class. The instructor sat us around a pottery wheel and gave us explicit instructions about how to make our bowl.
The whole situation was far more intimate than I expected it to be.
My hands on hers sparked a gigantic amount of arousal that I had a really difficult time squashing.
At one point, my lips were so close to her ear, I was afraid she’d hear the growling low in my chest. Luckily, the other members of the class, and the instructor, and the pottery wheels themselves were all loud enough to cover the low rumble in my chest.
My tattoo was another problem. Being so close to Liza without touching her intimately was making my tattoo scald me.
She felt it too. Her hands trembled under mine, and more than once, I caught her catching her breath or sending me surreptitious gazes of longing.
And they didn’t help matters one bit.
The art class included dinner, a nice perk, so when we put the bowl on a board to dry, we washed our hands with a nice distance between us which helped relieve the tension some.
The dinner was a picnic around the big studio on beanbags and other small chairs easily brought out. We grabbed a bag with a sticker on the side from Miss Olivia’s Kitchen.
“Oh,” Liza said. “This was Livvie’s idea.”
I raised my eyebrows as we claimed a couple of beanbags. Not the sexiest first date but it wasn’t too bad.
“She’s thinking of ways to expand and think outside the box with her grandmother’s catering business.” She pulled out a sandwich from her bag and took a bite, then moaned. “They’re delicious. I never knew sandwiches could be this good.”
I opened my bag, but it was hard to take my eyes off of Liza. I ate without looking, or tasting it, really. “So, what about your dating history? I don’t have much of one to speak of. I’ve been…” How to say it? “Waiting for the right person to come along.”
She looked at me wide-eyed and swallowed. Crap. Had that been too obvious? Hopefully not.
“I’ve only dated one person,” she said as she looked down at her food. “And I now realize what a joke my relationship with Dax was.”
“What do you mean?” I ate to keep my hands from grabbing her and kissing her senseless.
“Um, well, we never dated. I’ve realized since meeting you that I think we might have already gone on more dates than Dax and I did.
” She chuckled. “And we dated for ten years.” With a shrug, she picked at the homemade chips in the bag.
“We did a lot in high school, but it was almost always with our friends. Football games and bowling together and stuff like that. But when it was just me and him, we were just hanging out at home.”
She met my gaze. “I feel foolish for only noticing now.”
“Well, you know what they say about retrospect.” I’d like to punch this guy for putting that look of pain in her eyes. “It’s unfortunate he was such an idiot. You deserve many nice dates. And…” I sucked in a deep breath. “If you’ll let me, I’d like to take you on lots of them.” All of them.
The rest of the dinner went better. We moved on to possible date locations, and I kept suggesting more and more outlandish dates. “Parasailing?”
She laughed and nodded. “That sounds fun.”
“Okay.” I made a big show of thinking about it. “Mountain biking?”
Her eager nod warmed my entire self. “I love to bike! One day, when I’m not nuts about school, I want to do all those things.”
“How about deep-sea fishing?”
More nods and laughter.
“Okay, I’ll rent wings and we’ll fly over the water, the warm spray hitting us in the face.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “If only. Like on that movie?”
I shook my head, not sure what she meant. “You know the one. The cartoon where the Viking boy finds an injured dragon and makes him a machine to help him fly. Then when they fly together.” She blushed. “I know it’s silly, but they looked so free. So happy.”
Oh, boy. Did I have a surprise in store for her… when the time was right.
When the food was all gone, we headed back to our apartment building. “It’s so odd to think you’re just…” She looked up at me as we walked toward the front door. “Where is your apartment?”
“I’m on the top floor,” I said. “The two-bedroom.” The building was oddly built, with some of the apartments having two stories and some having one. I’d taken a one-story.
“Oh.” She didn’t volunteer where her apartment was, and I sensed nervousness coming off of her in droves.
“I won’t ask to walk you to your door,” I murmured as we nodded at Bert and neared the elevators. “But would it be okay to kiss you goodnight?”
Her eyes widened, but she nodded her head with her full, pink lips slightly parted. I put my hands on her arms, resisting the desire to pull her firmly into me, and pressed my lips to hers.
Of course, I wanted to devour her, nibble her lower lip, swirl my tongue around hers, but I didn’t. I let my top lip slip between hers and sucked so slightly on her lower lip, she might not have even felt it.
Then, I made myself back away and hit the elevator button. As she stepped onto it, I was a gentleman and didn’t watch to see which floor the lift stopped at. Instead, I turned to the stairs, about to jog up them to let out some of the pent-up energy inside me.
A surge of anger from somewhere in the lobby made me stop and turn.
There was nobody around but Bert, and he had his nose in a book.
But the front of the lobby was all glass.
The anger had to have come from someone out there.
I walked back over and looked out at the parking lot, dark except for the streetlights.
“Anything wrong?” Bert asked.
“I just thought…” I shook my head and turned back to the elevators and stairs.
As I passed the elevator door, it opened and a man stepped off, glaring daggers at me. “Problem?” I asked. The anger I’d been feeling came from this man, though how he was in the lobby before and then came off the elevator, I didn’t know.
“Yeah, I have a problem.” He got right in my face. “My father owns this building.”
Okay, I failed to see what the problem was, but I was sure this dick was going to tell me. “And you are?”
“Dax,” he spat.
I recognized the name immediately. It wasn’t such a common name that it was likely to belong to anyone other than Liza’s ex. I wondered if she knew.
And if that meant he could get into her apartment.
I’d tell her the next time I saw her, but I didn’t want to freak her out by asking Bert for her apartment number and bothering her now. We’d just had a great date. I wouldn’t spoil it.
I continued to stare at him until he brushed past me. He tried to shoulder-bump me as he went by, but I was far too fast for him and sidestepped his attempted aggression.
What a loser.
The next day, I went to lunch at Porter and Kaylee’s house.
“How was the date?” Kaylee asked, her voice a bit of a squeal.
“It was great,” I admitted. “Better than I expected it to be.”
“Well, did she invite you up?” Kaylee asked. “Did you get you some?”
Porter scoffed. “Not everyone moves fast. Maybe Liza does better taking things slow.”
It was Kaylee’s turn to roll her eyes. “If he ever wants to get laid, he needs to get a move on.”
I didn’t have a chance to put my two cents in, because I nearly fell out of my chair when Sammy, their clan’s witch, appeared out of nowhere.
“I wondered when you’d put in an appearance,” Porter said dryly. “Where have you been? It’s been, what, a month since we’ve seen you? I was starting to worry.”
Sammy waved him off. “I’m here for the pixie.” The small woman turned and winked at me. “No offense, handsome boy. But you’re not my clan and not my responsibility.”
I clutched my chest and sighed. “You wound me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I think I like you.”
I stiffened as she came closer and looked me over. “Yes,” she drawled. “You’ll do nicely.” Sitting beside me at the table, she nodded once. “If you’d like a glimpse of the future, I’ll help you out.”
I exchanged a glance with Porter, who nodded encouragingly. “She needs a bell, but she’s damn helpful.”
Sammy preened. “Of course I am. But…” Her gaze sharpened as she looked me in the eye. “My magic is tied to the clan. It might not work for you, or not as clearly.”
I shrugged. “I guess I’ll take what I can get. Beggars can’t be choosers, right?”
“Quite so.”
“I don’t need to know the future, per se. But I would like to know what I can do to show Liza that she can trust me. Something that will put her at ease.”
Sammy sighed and took my hand. She closed her eyes, then opened them and looked in my eyes, leaning really close; uncomfortably close.
She shook her head. “There is no magic formula with Liza like there have been with some of my stubborn boys in the clan. You’re doing all you need to do and doing a good job.
Be careful, and make sure she knows you’ve no plans to exit her life.
She’s seen a lot of that, I think. Men leaving. ”
“She said she hasn’t dated much.” She hadn’t lied. I was pretty sure I would’ve felt if she was being dishonest with me.
Sammy hummed. “I believe that, yet I am correct. In time, I’m sure you will know.” She grunted and mumbled something about irresponsible parenting and giving someone a tail.
Okay, then.
Her gaze snapped to me again. “Tell me about her ex?”
I didn’t stop to ask how she knew. Everyone had heard about Sammy and her incredible power. “He cheated on her, left her, and pretty much destroyed her. And when we got back to her apartment last night, he was there, though he made sure she didn’t see him. He told me his father owns the building.”
Porter furrowed his brow. “She rents the apartment Bee gave up, doesn’t she?”
I nodded.
Porter’s eyebrows went up. “I didn’t put it together before. That means the two of you are in the same apartment complex?”
“The same building,” I muttered.
Porter and Kaylee chortled. “You’re so screwed,” Kaylee said. “Your dragon is going to drive you crazy.”
I sighed and sat back as Sammy gave me a sympathetic look.
“He already is,” I muttered.
“Well, Dax legally shouldn’t have access to the building unless he’s got ownership himself. We’ll look into it.” Porter sat up straight. “I’ll get on it first thing in the morning. You just worry about Liza. I’ll take care of the legal shit.”
“Thanks, man,” I said sincerely. “I really appreciate you having my back.”
Sammy grunted.
“And thank you, Sammy,” I said. “Really. You’re amazing.”
She and Kaylee left the room, and Porter and I changed the subject, but my mind never left Liza.
And I took Sammy’s advice. I paced myself, telling myself I’d text her once a day until she took the initiative.
On my way home from Porter’s, she texted me back and invited me over for dinner.
I jumped at the chance to spend more time with her. Rushing inside, I showered and shaved, even though I’d done that this morning. I took care with my clothes to make sure they looked nice. And when the clock struck seven, I headed downstairs to the apartment number she’d messaged me.
My stomach was in a knot, though I didn’t know why. This was a great sign, her inviting me over the day after our date.
“Come in,” she called when I knocked on the door.
This was it. The beginning of the rest of our lives. I just knew it.