He calmly walked into the kitchen, dropped the shirt into the trash can, and returned to his seat across the table. Then he casually drank his beer as if nothing weird had just transpired with him going Hulk and shredding my former lover’s favorite “I’m an idiot” shirt.

The bubbles in my empty stomach were already working their alcoholic magic. “So tell me what happened to Wes. Don’t dance around the truth, Austin. I’ve invited you here and I want you to be straight with me.”

Austin sipped his beer and grimaced, setting the bottle in the middle of the table.

“I’m a Shifter,” he said.

“Shifter,” I repeated blandly. “You move around? What does that mean?”

“Shapeshifter.”

My shoulders sagged. “I don’t have time for jokes.”

He didn’t break eye contact and those pale blue eyes polished me off like a dog licking his bowl clean. “There’s another world that exists that would surprise the hell out of you. Wes knew what I was.”

I sighed angrily. “Don’t drag Wes into your pathological—”

“Lexi,” he said in a hard voice, “I’m a Shifter.”

My eyes narrowed. “Then turn yourself into a zebra.”

He slowly shook his head and rubbed his jaw. “My animal hasn’t met you; I don’t trust him alone in your presence just yet.”

I threw my head back and slapped the palms of my hands on the table. “Oh my God. You’re kidding me! All these years I’ve wondered what happened to you and if you were even alive. I’m such a fucking idiot. Now you show up out of nowhere and the only thing you have to tell me is you’re a werewolf?”

“Shifter,” he corrected with a suppressed grin.

* * *

Austin didn’t back down. He was convinced he was some kind of a paranormal but assured me he wasn’t a werewolf because they didn’t exist and the moon had no effect on him. His revelation also came with a warning label: those who knew about their secret were entrusted not to reveal it to the human world. There were consequences, and I really didn’t want to ask what those were. He made me promise I wouldn’t tell a soul. I didn’t have a problem with that.

I was never a fan of padded walls.

There were breaks in our conversation when I’d walk off to do the dishes, leaving him alone so I could allow the facts to settle in my brain. It was a lot to digest in one day, particularly after spending an hour in a tree. He went out on the balcony a few times to make phone calls, and I finally collapsed on the sofa and flipped through the TV channels. A tapestry of light blanketed the room, fading to nothingness as darkness dominated the sky.

Then my idiot neighbors cranked on their stereo. Austin flew in through the back door and sat in the chair beside me, rubbing his hand across his bare chest. “You should move into a house and get away from this lifestyle—too many drifters coming in and out of this place. It’s not safe.”

There he went again, talking about safe. Although I couldn’t deny it was nice to hear someone showing concern about my safety. As much as I wanted to roll my eyes, feeling protected by a man was an undeniable soft spot with me.

A knock—or more precisely, a shoe—tapped on the door. “Lexi, darling, open up. Dinner is served!”

“I’ll get it,” Austin said with a hint of curiosity in his tone.

From my lying-down position, I couldn’t see over the back of the couch when Naya came in and started her kitten purr. It was a cute little growl she put at the end of her laugh that was just as provocative as her figure.

“It’s nice and hot, so if you two want to eat now, it’s ready. Lexi, would you mind opening a bottle of wine?”

I peered over the edge of the sofa. Naya was dressed in a black skirt with a slit all the way up to her thigh, although it looked more like it went to her appendix. Her blouse was fashioned the same way, with a slit that stretched all the way down to her navel, probably held together by a single thread made from the cheapest material in Taiwan. One snap and boobage would kick this dinner from low to medium-high. She offered him a full-lipped smile, staring at his bare chest and looking as if she had plans to feast on something other than what she brought over for dinner.

Go, Naya.

I sat up, patting down my tangled hair. Austin was open game and I had no interest in exploring those old feelings all over again. People say time machines don’t exist, but they do. They’re your friends, and being around them takes you right back to that place in time you had long since put away.

“I’ll set the table. Mmm, smells good. What is it?”

Naya proudly held up the foil-covered dish. “Chicken spaghetti.”

I almost snorted. For some reason, I had expected her to pull a fiesta out of her hat, but chicken spaghetti required very little preparation and involved a couple of cans of soup. My guess was that Naya had spent the better part of her afternoon giving herself a wax and shine.

“I’m starving,” I declared.

“Let me get the candles,” she said, digging in one of my drawers.

I grabbed a few wine glasses and hesitated. Did she want me to leave them alone? Naya dimmed the lights and a flick of a lighter sounded. As I poured the wine in my narrow kitchen, Austin brushed up against my back.

Tiny little hairs stood up on my neck when he leaned against me, reaching in the cabinet overhead and pulling out the plates.

“I’ll get these,” he said in a rough, sexy voice.

And there it was. Something I was totally not expecting when he lightly pressed his body against mine.

Tingles.

“Where are your forks and knives?” he murmured.

“Drawer on the right,” I said in an embarrassingly breathy way. “But I can get them. Go sit down.”

He ignored me, taking everything into the dining room. I snatched the glasses and followed behind.

Naya was setting the table and using her spoon to dish out the food. “So tell me about yourself, Austin. Where are you from? What do you do for a living?”

I bit my lip and set the glasses on the table. Austin stood behind his chair and Naya sat down across from me, placing one of the candles in the middle. She did the infamous stretch that usually gave men a good whiff of her heavenly perfume and sometimes a peek through the opening of her blouse.

“I’m an investigator. I’m originally from around here, but I’ve been traveling for the past few years as part of my job. Decided I missed home and it was time for a change.” His eyes dragged over to mine and I continued arranging the silverware beside the plates.

“Have a seat, Austin,” I said. “Shit—I mean shoot. I forgot the napkins. Be right back.”

“I work as a dancer, but it’s just a temporary thing until I find something better,” Naya went on. “I know exactly where you’re coming from. We all want something better for ourselves. Is your family here with you?”

“My brothers are here.”

“Not married?”

I almost cringed as I grabbed a stack of paper napkins from the kitchen and returned. Austin was still standing beside the table. When I sat down and took a sip of wine, he pulled back his chair and relaxed in his seat. The legs creaked as he settled.

Austin stared at my finger as it tapped repeatedly against the wood table. If he remembered anything about me, he knew I was a finger-tapper whenever something was irritating me. On a table, on a wall, on my leg, on a keyboard—didn’t matter.

It was just my thing.

Naya and I had grown used to the music blaring from the neighbor’s apartment, but with company over, it was embarrassing. Apparently, the cop hadn’t put enough of a scare into them, so we sat there listening to the Who singing about a teenage wasteland.

“Naya, you left your phone over here last night,” I said conversationally.

Relief washed over her lovely face. “Oh, thank God. I was looking everywhere for it this morning. I get so many important calls and half of them don’t leave messages. That’s my biggest peeve.”

“Naya doesn’t have a home phone,” I pointed out.

She shook her head and savored a small sip of Merlot. “Who needs a home phone? You don’t even have a cell phone. Get with the times, girl. Where did you put it?”

“On the bar next to the deck of cards,” I said, pointing over my shoulder. “Hope you don’t mind that I used it.”

Lucky for me it didn’t break when I threw it earlier, thanks to the lawnmower man who hadn’t cut the grass in over a month.

“Damn, Naya, this is really good.” I took a second bite of creamy noodles and made an approving moan. Only Naya could whip up something decadent from a can of soup. “Naya’s a great cook,” I said to Austin, giving her a few brownie points with him. “If you ever taste her lobster, you’ll probably want to make babies with her.”

“Lexi,” Naya said with a giggle.

Austin twirled his pasta but didn’t take a single bite of it. That was his pissed-off look. I’d seen it plenty of times. He’d given it to a guy who called me a hot piece of ass when I was seventeen and walking out of a convenience store. Austin had left me in the car with my Popsicle while he and Wes got out, locked the doors, and yanked that redneck out of his green Ford pickup truck. They dragged him around the side of the building and when they returned, Wes had a bloody lip and Austin’s knuckles were bruised.

“Don’t you like it?” Naya asked.

The fork clicked against the plate and Austin stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

He lowered his chin. “Stay here.”

When he left the apartment, Naya finished her wine. “He’s a beast of a man, Lexi. This is your old friend? Hot tamale, girly. You’ve been holding out on me. Any feelings still there?”