Colby burst into laughter then explained to me, the idiot in the room. “The pilot mind link is called Drifting.”
“I knew that.”
I totally did not know that.
“Mmm-hmm.” She shared a glance with Clay. “Rue prefers books to movies.” She cut her eyes toward me. “Romance novels.” Her antennae quivered. “The last one was about a snake shifter and an eagle shifter.”
“That explains so much about you and Ace,” he said thoughtfully. “So much.”
“Very funny.” I rolled my eyes. “Both of you. Seriously. You should take your act on the road.”
At her mental age, Colby still viewed boys as cootie farms whose main export was, well, cooties.
For that, I was grateful. I would never have to give my little moth the talk about the birds and the bees.
“I’m making quick and dirty bananas Foster pancakes.” I thumped Clay’s nose. “People who mock my taste in reading, or men, get none.”
“From the heart of my bottom, I apologize for any rudeness on my part.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “I shouldn’t have said what I said about you and Ace. It’s not your fault romance novels have led you to believe the reformed bad boy is where it’s at.”
“Romance novels, which you got me hooked on, have taught me valuable life lessons.”
Clay rubbed his nape and avoided Colby’s smug grin as she filed away that tidbit.
The sword cut both ways, and he better remember it. She had an excellent memory when it suited her.
“Name one.” Colby squinted at me. “What have you learned except kissy stuff?”
Put on the spot, I now had to articulate a truth I hadn’t realized until Clay teased me.
“How relationships work.” I chose a few bananas to slice. “Not the kissy ones, but the rest.”
Expression pinched, Colby thought it over. “You read them to figure out how to make friends?”
That made me sound all kinds of sad, didn’t it? That I had to turn to fiction to grasp the friendship ideal.
But I was pretty sure that was the reason why Clay hooked me in the first place. He wanted me to read normal relationships, to glimpse normal lives, to experience normal problems. It was a secondhand life, not much different than Colby’s virtual one, if less interactive, but it did help me see there was more to living than blood and death. There was also improbable shifter romance, which was my latest addiction.
“I wasn’t raised like a normal kid.” I pulled down the other ingredients and started measuring and mixing my batter. “I wasn’t taught how to socialize or how to interact with others in a casual setting or…how to make friends.”
Until Clay took an interest in me, I had no one and nothing.
Except the director.
So, like I said, I had nothing.
“And.”I flicked my fingers at her, dusting her in flour. “I like the kissy stuff.”
While Colby digested that, Clay went back to his phone, and I started heating a pan on the stove.
A long howl raised the hairs down my nape, and I drifted outside to pinpoint the source in the distance.
The scents of sweet tobacco and juicy green apple filled my head as Asa joined me. “He’s up late.”
Asa might have leaned against me until our shoulders brushed, and I might have leaned right back.
The innocent contact shouldn’t have spread chills down that arm, but even my fingers were tingling.
“Based on the direction,” he murmured, “I would guess he’s aware we’ve located his food cache.”