Hollie

She watched as he finished yet another pancake, mopping up as much of the golden-brown syrup as he possibly could before popping the piece into his mouth. The glee radiating off of him was contagious, to the point that she’d been smiling for the last twenty minutes, even as she made pancake after pancake for him.

“I think I might like these more than pizza,” he’d admitted after the fifth—or was it sixth?—one.

“Another?” she asked now. Pancake mix was cheap; she didn’t mind.

“No, this time I’m good,” he announced, rising and bringing his plate to the sink where he started to scrub it.

Hollie laughed. “Oh, you poor thing. Let me introduce you to a wonderful piece of technology called a dishwasher.”

After breakfast was cleaned up, Sid walked to the front door and pulled it open, glancing outside. Fresh warm air wafted into her house, and she caught herself enjoying the early fall scents.

“What do we do today?” Sid asked.

He was like an eager child, except six foot four and delicious. When she’d emerged from her bedroom that morning he’d been shirtless, and the sight had stopped her in her tracks. Although he’d made no attempt to put on clothing since, she knew she was going to have to tell him to do so soon. In fact…

“Sid, you need to put this on.” She tossed him one of the new shirts they’d bought the day before. “Here.”

He snagged it midair, and pulled it over his head with a flourish.

Not any better she groaned to herself as the T-shirt stretched across his taut stomach and muscular chest, making it more tantalizing if anything. Dammit, she needed to stop looking at how hunky he was before she lost her composure.

He pushed a hand through his new haircut, parting it all off to the side. Her mouth grew dry as he looked up at her now, his golden-brown eyes full of zest and a desire for life. There was a layer of short stubble the same dirty-blond as his hair covering his jaw now, and that along with his modern-cut and tight shirt was enough to make her wish she was wearing a second shirt.

Shit, he’s a specimen. Keep yourself under control, Hol, he’s probably not even interested in you. Looking like that, he could have everyone. You’re just going to embarrass yourself if you make a move.

She thought back to the way he’d kissed her cheek the night before, the tender and softness of the move. It wasn’t the quick peck between friends that she might have expected, but to read anything more into it than a friendly gesture was silly. For all she knew, that’s how friends kissed one another five hundred years ago.

“What are we going to do today?” he asked, adjusting the shirt slightly.

Her eyes were drawn to the flash of golden-toned skin that was briefly visible before he pulled it back into place. “Umm,” she said distractedly, then looked away. There was something she wanted to do today. Asking him for it was more than just awkward; it was probably inappropriate too. But Hollie wanted it so badly.

“You don’t know?” he teased.

She flipped him the finger. “I dunno,” she said awkwardly at last.

“So there is something.” He pointed a finger at her. “Just spit it out, come on. Tell me!”

Hollie sighed, biting her lip and taking a preparatory breath.

“Oh come on, it can’t be that bad,” Sid said, leaning against the doorframe.

“It’s not,” she said, shifting her weight back and forth from one foot to the other. “But, I dunno. It feels weird just to up and ask for it, you know? Like, it should happen naturally.”

Sid was focused on her now. “I take it it has something to do with me?”

She nodded. “Entirely to do with you, actually. I…I really want to, but I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to ask, either.”

He gently closed the door behind him before walking over to her. “Whatever you want, Hollie, it’s fine with me. You just have to tell me.”

Biting her lip, she nodded, still working up the courage to speak the words.

“It’s okay,” he said at last, giving her another one of his brilliant smiles. “We don’t have to. Not until you’re okay with it.”

She sighed. “No. I’m good. It’s just… I’ve never asked anyone this. Ever.”

He shrugged. “First time for everything. I never had pancakes until this morning. But I’m glad I did. So you might be glad if you ask for this.”

“Right.” She wasn’t sure the two were quite the same, but still, he had a point. “Okay, I was wondering, if you would be willing, to s—” She paused, losing her courage for a second.

“Of course.”

“—show me your dragon,” she finished.

“Ah,” Sid replied, looking away for a second. “Of course. Show you my dragon. Right.”

She frowned. What the heck had he thought she meant? “Is that okay?” she asked with a grimace. “I don’t know if it’s rude to ask a shifter that or not.”

“Well, I mean, I told you I was a dragon. And you were there in the cave. Is that not enough?”

“I know it should be, Sid.” She reached out to touch him on the shoulder. “But I mean, everyone was running away, and it was dark, and I still can’t quite decide if I was dreaming or not.”

“And what about where I’ve told you what am I?”

She snorted. “Men have told me they were being faithful too. Sorry Sid, but on that one I’m old enough to be wary of everything. Especially when it comes to something that, according to everything most of the world knows, shouldn’t actually exist.”

He opened his mouth to speak.

“Plus I kinda want to see you where my insides aren’t shaking with terror, you know?”

Sid grinned wide, making her knees a little weak in the process. “Okay, that I can get on board with. But not here. You’ll have to get us out into the wilderness, somewhere that nobody will see us.”

“Not a problem. My car is here. I had carpooled with Mike to work on Friday, since it was his turn. So I can drive us out there. That’s a fair trade, right? A car ride to show me your dragon?”

He grinned. “Can I put the ummm, what do you call that glass again?”

“The window?” she supplied.

“Right! Can I put the window down?”

Hollie laughed. “Sure, I don’t see why not.”

Sid pumped his fist in excitement and quickly slipped his—new—hiking boots on. She’d tried to convince him to get some normal shoes, but he’d spied the pair of orange and brown boots and couldn’t be shaken. Now though, in those, a pair of dark-wash blue jeans, and his black T-shirt, he cut quite the figure.

Biting her lip, she followed him outside, excited to spend yet another day with him. She loved his enthusiasm for the little things, and how, despite being a thousand years old or so, he could still live in the moment of each individual day. His energy was magnetic, and she was feeding off it.

The sound of a car running in the driveway reached her ears as she finished locking the door.

“Huh?” She had the keys in her hand. So unless Sid had learned how to hotwire a car overnight, that meant someone else was there. Her single-car garage jutted forward from the house, effectively blocking her line of sight until she got closer.

“Hollie, we have guests.” Sid’s voice came wafting up to her and she finished twisting the key before pulling it out of the lock and hurrying down. The last thing she wanted was to leave him alone with an unknown. He didn’t seem ready to kill everyone he met anymore, but it seemed silly to take any chances.

The blue car waiting in the driveway was instantly recognizable as her coworker’s. “Eduardo?” What was he doing here?

“Hello, Hollie,” he said as she came up to the driver’s side.

“Mikey,” she said, noting him in the passenger seat. “What are you two doing? Where have you been?”

The two of them looked at each other, then away, obviously too ashamed to admit that they had run away in fear, and only just now worked up the courage to contact her. It was written plainly on their faces. She wanted to criticize them, but the truth was, she was starting to like the way things had worked out, for her at least. Let them just pretend like Friday never happened then.

“We just came by to make sure you were okay,” Mikey said, coughing into his fist at the end. “And to let you know that we’re looking at overtime this week to make up for lost time last week.”

“You mustn’t drill any deeper.”

She glanced up at the opposite side window where Obsidian had appeared, looming down, his hands resting on the roof of the car.

“Oh, this is Sid,” she said casually. “Believe it or not, he actually owns the mountains, though he’s been gone for a long time. He doesn’t want us working on them.”

“Just the one,” Obsidian replied in his deep and powerful “I shall smite everyone” voice that he dropped into when things got serious. “And you must not resume your drilling.”

She saw Eduardo flinch when he looked over at Obsidian, as if he might attack him then and there. Did they recognize that he was the one from the mountain? If they thought about it, they might wonder where else she would have found the “long-lost” owner of the mountain, but for now neither one was willing to question it.

Mikey responded for the both of them, glancing back and forth between her and Obsidian, as if trying to figure out just what was going on. “We don’t make that decision,” he said, stretching out the first several words. “You know that, Hollie. We’re not the bosses. If they say go, we go. I like my job. If they tell me to stop, well, then we’ll stop.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay, Mikey, not your problem. I’m the only operator they have for Betty, so unless I’m there, nothing will happen.”

“Okay,” he said uncertainly. “Anyway, we just wanted to let you know.”

“Thanks,” she said, tapping the roof and standing up. “See you guys later then.”

“Yeah,” Mikey responded, giving her a long look before glancing back over at Obsidian. “Sure.”

The blue car pulled out of the driveway and sped off.

“They must not mine,” Sid told her.

“Why not? What’s so important about them not mining anymore? Although really, drilling or boring is the better term.” She fixed Sid with a look that told him he either needed to elaborate, or shut up.

“Uhhh, it’ll ruin the feng shui of my den?” he suggested.

Her eyes narrowed. He was using terms learned on the internet, because she had certainly never used that one.

“I like it warm. If they put that big of a hole through the side, it’s going to get drafty. I’ll get sick. You don’t want to see a sick dragon. You think men are bad when they come down ill?”

She snorted, unable to maintain a stern face as she pictured a dragon using a comforter for a tissue. “Come on then, Rudolph the snot-nosed dragon, let’s go. You owe me a viewing of the rest of you!” She waved him over to her car, eager to get to the mountains so she could see him turn into an actual dragon.

“Well, if you wanted to see it, all you had to do was ask,” he muttered under his breath.

Hollie’s face went bright at the sexual undertones in his voice, but she didn’t respond. Instead, she just locked the windows. Sometimes modern technology was useful.