“So, Damian doesn’t know any eligible guys, like at all?” Sammy was sitting across from her best friend and old roommate, Andi, at Jones and Shah Coffee. They were hanging out before their separate evening plans: Sammy, hostessing at a high-end restaurant downtown, and Andi, going in early to the hospital to work into a nightshift.

The small café was lightly crowded, full of the scent of strong coffee and the iced lemon scone Sammy’d bought to wolf down before work tonight. Other people’s conversations wrapped around them, as spinning spoons clanked against glasses and the espresso machine hissed. One woman laughed loudly in a corner as she flirted too hard on a first date—Sammy recognized both the woman’s tone and her date’s slight expression of horror.

First dates always suck, Sammy thought.

“Sammy,” Andi said flatly, giving her a maternal headshake, calling her attention back to the table. “No. You do not want this kind of hassle, trust me.” Her best friend waved a hand over herself. Andi was dressed in purple scrubs and wearing Dansko shoes with a cute checkered print on them, and the blue streak in her black hair was barely visible in her ‘I’m going to work’ bun. Tearing off a bite of the scone to push into her mouth, Sammy had absolutely no idea what Andi was even talking about.

“The hassle of someone giving me a three-carat diamond ring?” Sammy licked icing off her finger and then mimed difficulty raising her coffee with her left hand, even though Andi wasn’t wearing jewelry right now. “Oh yeah, I can see how that must be a really heavy arm workout,” Sammy teased.

Andi laughed. “A ring that I can’t wear to work because, while gorgeous, it’s ridiculous. But no, really Sammy, you know what I mean.” And Andi gave her that look that was all: We’ve talked about this before. You know I’m engaged to a dragon-shifter, right?

Which meant it was Sammy’s turn to give her a meaningful, But why can’t I ever see him as a dragon? stink-eye, back, until both of them grinned.

“Honestly, Sammy,” Andi said, getting real, looking around the room they were in and leaning forward. “There are at least three security cameras in this coffee shop, ever since that attempted robbery. And I guarantee you that right now all of them are pointed at me.”

Sammy pushed a wave of red hair out of her face as she glanced up to see the little plastic bulbs set in the coffee shop’s ceiling, which were new. Andi was right. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to have a bodyguard. This is our compromise.”

Sammy pretended to think. “So…you’re kind of like Beyoncé, is what you’re saying?” 

Andi laughed again. “No. Although I do sing better than you do.” She stuck out her tongue at Sammy. “Damian’s people have better things to do than to watch over me personally—but there’s a trade-off. If I get to pretend to have a normal life, then someone’s going to be low level watching over me all the time. Or listening in,” she said, tapping at her phone on the table between them. “So don’t say anything lewd.”

“Who? Me? I would fucking never.”