Chapter 5
Toby
My tattoo burned like a mother as Liza walked away. Neither me nor my dragon was happy at all about her refusing to go to lunch with us.
I clenched my teeth in pain against the burning in my arm. Why didn’t she want to go to lunch? I was nice, polite. My invitation was genuine.
Where’d I go wrong? I didn’t think I’d come off as a jerk.
Trying not to walk with my shoulders slumped, I headed for the elevators, only to find Dr. Abby standing in front of them, looking at her phone.
Whoops. She spotted me and her face brightened.
Her pheromones were starting to bug me. Her interest in me was too obvious.
I refused to be rude, though, so I smiled at her.
“See you at lunch,” I said as I opened the door to the stairs.
Hurrying down in case she followed me, I skipped a few at a time and burst out into the hallway on the ground floor, heading for my office and privacy.
As soon as I closed the door behind me, I sank into my chair and pulled out my cell, firing off a text to Anthony.
I got myself wrangled into a lunch with Dr. Abby. Please join us.
He didn’t reply for a couple of hours, getting damn near lunchtime. I’d buried myself in the renal failure menu, so the time had passed quickly, but still, I was getting nervous that I’d have to eat alone with the poor woman.
Anthony finally came back to me. What’s wrong? You scared of her?
I snorted before replying. I’ll explain later, just please meet me at my office at 1.
This time he replied quickly. Fine, but you’re buying me pie.
I’d buy him a whole case of pies if he took the heat off of me with Abby. I’d eventually have to tell her I wasn’t in the least interested.
I didn’t look forward to that day.
Anthony walked into my office right on time, so we headed to lunch. “Why don’t you want to eat alone with Abby?” he asked.
“It’s a long story and I don’t have time to tell it now, but just be a buffer, okay?” The cafeteria was just a couple of doors down from my office, so we entered the fray of hospital employees and patients’ families and got in line for the hot bar.
Five minutes and an extra slice of pie later, Abby waved at me from the corner of the room. She sat in an intimate booth. Great.
“Sit beside me,” I hissed.
Anthony snorted but followed.
“I picked up a stray on the way,” I said with a big smile as I slid into the booth opposite Abby, scrunching myself against the wall to give Anthony plenty of room. Neither of us were exactly small men.
“Oh, hello.” Abby smiled, but the rest of her face didn’t reflect happiness that Anthony was sitting beside me. Even her voice sounded disappointed.
“So, where’d you go to school?” Anthony asked as he stirred his soup.
Abby replied, and I smiled as if listening, but she could’ve said the University of Moon Pie for all I listened. I was too busy looking around the cafeteria for even one glance of bright red hair.
“Toby?” Anthony asked. “How about you?”
I hoped they were still talking about college. “Oh, uh, Washington State.” I barely even looked at them, because I’d spotted a swath of red hair across the crowd. Craning my neck, I had to make myself not sigh in disappointment. On closer look, it was the wrong shade of red.
“Toby?” Abby stared at me with one eyebrow arched. “Did you even hear me?”
I blinked and looked from Abby, who looked pissed, to Anthony, who looked like he was going to burst out laughing. “Sorry. I’m just a little distracted today.”
Abby wiped her mouth on her napkin, then set it delicately on her mostly uneaten food.
“I’m so sorry, I’ve just seen someone I need to speak with about an urgent matter.
Forgive me.” She nodded at me coolly, then gave Anthony a small smile, definitely much less frosty than the one she gave me, before standing and taking her tray across the cafeteria to sit at a table with a bunch of women in white coats.
After a few moments, they all looked over at me with disgusted facial expressions.
“Ouch,” Anthony said as he slid out of the booth and moved over to the other side, sliding his tray with him. “What the hell, man?”
I sighed and took a big bite of my sandwich, starving now that I wasn’t so uptight about sitting here with Abby.
“She was obviously into you,” he continued before sipping his soup. “What’s the deal?”
Squinting at my new friend, I decided to come clean. “I found my fated mate.” It felt good to say it out loud.
Unbuttoning the wrist button of my shirt, I rolled up the sleeve to show him the tattoo, which was stinging at the moment.
“Oh, man, that’s wonderful. Who’s the lucky girl?” He slapped the table and absolutely beamed at me.
“Liza. You introduced us when you gave me the tour.” I looked around for her again, but I couldn’t sense her at all. No tug. Where’d she gone for lunch? Who was she with? I really hoped it wasn’t a date.
“Ah,” he said knowingly. “That’s why you said that about magic being in Bluewater.”
I chuckled and ducked my head. “Yeah. I’d just realized who she was.”
“Well, Liza is great,” Anthony exclaimed. “She’s young, but a damn hard worker. We can’t wait to hire her, between you and me.” He stared at me as we both ate a little. “Well?” he asked a few minutes later. “What’s the plan? How are you going to win her over?”
I moaned and leaned against the back of the booth. “Don’t ask me that. My dating history sucks.”
“Why?”
“When I was a kid, we were told these fantastical stories about fated mates. And I was starting to feel like those stories were just fairy tales. Then, I met Liza. She’s human, so she doesn’t feel the same pull. If she’d been a dragon, we’d probably already be mated.”
Anthony snorted. “You’re preaching to the choir, man. I was the first in our clan to realize I had a human mate. And it was freaking hard to get it all worked out.”
We chatted and Anthony told me his story. He’d known Skye was his mate in high school, but back then, humans as fated mates were impossible. His parents had sent him away instead of working it out.
In the end it was all okay, but it had been a hard time for both Anthony and Skye.
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” I said after he told me his whole story. “But I have to do it soon.”
He nodded as we picked up our trash. “That’s the damn truth.”
After lunch, I got back to work, trying hard not to feel defeated, but it wasn’t easy. How could I get close to Liza if she didn’t seem to be interested in me at all?
I wished I’d dated more. Even when I did date, women always approached me. It was a hard pill to swallow to realize I wasn’t off my game.
I didn’t have a game.
Making it through the day was like trudging through molasses, and all I wanted to do was go home and whine to Wes about my predicament. As I exited through the employee doors toward the garage, the tug returned. Liza was nearby.
I looked around, and it didn’t take me long to find her. She stood a few feet from the entrance with a woman who looked like an older version of Liza, except… like she hadn’t lived well. The older woman had all the signs of a life not lived healthily.
And she was yelling at Liza, who had a stony, emotionless expression on her face. I walked over, not wanting to intrude, but at the same time, unable to let my mate be yelled at without at least trying to help. “Everything okay?”
The older woman turned her glare to me. “Mind your own business.”
She dismissed me with a flip of her hair and returned to Liza. “Elizabeth Castro, you’re being stubborn. Forgive Dax, Liza, I’m telling you. You won’t find anyone else who will want to be with you the way you are.”
Liza flinched at her words and my dragon boiled under my skin, just as pissed as I was that someone had dared speak to our mate that way.
“Hey. You’re standing in front of a hospital.
All this yelling is going to disturb the patients.
” It was the most diplomatic thing I could think of.
They both turned to look at me then, Liza looking worried and, presumably her mother, even more pissed.
“Leave,” I continued. “Or I’ll call security to escort you off of the property. ”
“I told you, boy, mind your own business,” the older woman said in a sharper tone.
I had to bite my tongue as sweat trickled down my back from the early July heat.
Liza finally spoke in a low, even voice.
“He’s right, Mother. Do not show up at my job again.
If Toby had been Dr. Abby or Dr. Anthony, you would be jeopardizing my chances of getting a permanent position here.
” She sucked in a deep breath and held up her hand when her mother opened her mouth again. “No. I will call you later.”
The angry woman glared at me, then Liza. “You better call me, little girl. This conversation isn’t over.”
Liza didn’t reply as the woman walked to the curb. An old, beat-up blue sedan pulled up and the man in the driver’s seat leered at Liza in a way that made my teeth elongate in my mouth. Everything in me wanted to rip his throat out.
I focused and made them retract, then looked at Liza when the car was farther away. “Are you okay?”
“I am, thank you. And I’ll thank you to not interfere in the future. I had it perfectly under control.”
I stared at her with my eyebrows up. “I just wanted to help.” I couldn’t help but be a bit pissed at her reaction. “It looked like you were being bullied.”
“As much as I appreciate that, please don’t interfere all the same.” Well, that didn’t sound sincere in the least, and she looked emotionally drained by the encounter. “Goodnight, Mr. Miller.” She turned on her heel and walked back into the hospital.
Pissed and a little hurt, I pulled out my phone and called Wes as I walked to my car. “So, my mate, the one I’m supposed to woo and fall in love with?”
“Yeah,” he said guardedly, sensing in my tone something was coming. “What, is she married?”
I blew out a puff of air and threw my bag in the backseat of my car. “No. She is completely uninterested. Acts like she doesn’t care for me at all.”
“Walk me through it, man.”
“I invited her to lunch. She refused. Then, when I left the hospital, her mother was screaming at her in the middle of the employee entrance, for anyone to hear. I told the woman to leave before I called security, and Liza got mad at me!”
“Dude. Slow down. First of all, she was probably embarrassed about her mother. Wouldn’t you, if you, as a grown-ass man, were being berated by your mommy in public?”
“I guess,” I said sullenly. “That’s true.”
“Slow down. Let it happen more naturally.” He sighed. “Just be friendly toward her.”
“Wes, you’re the one who told me I had to be the one to make it work. I can’t leave it to fate.” I started the car, but only for the air conditioner. I wasn’t going to drive until I’d calmed down.
“I know I did, and I meant it. But if she’s giving you some friction, back off a little and let things happen more naturally. Maybe fate will intervene a little bit and cut you some slack.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “Probably. I bet you’re right.”
Putting the phone on speaker, I set it in the seat beside me and put the car in reverse. “How are things back home?” I asked.
Wes and I talked all the way home, and by the time I parked my car and headed into my apartment building, I felt a lot better about my day and Liza’s reaction to me.
It would work out. And I was going to take a few days to work at home, let her calm down… and myself. I wasn’t required to work from the hospital, though I did find it easier. It wouldn’t kill me to work on my menus from home.