Delilah sat back in her chair and sipped casually on the beer Jake had brought her. Mack’ Brewery was a happening place for dinner even in off-season. Inside, the bar and tables were filled with locals all gathering at the watering hole after a day’s work. Outside on the patio, she was the lone human with a pack of shifters. She felt the tension and the invisible line drawn between the two groups even if Xavier and his crew didn’t.
Jake was too busy avoiding eye contact with her from the other end of the table. After the tense goodbye they’d shared that morning at her hotel when she’d had to draw the professional line, he’d been a stone wall all day when he’d picked her up again. Only speaking when she asked him a question, polite but curt as he’d shown her around town. She’d appreciated the professional distance for about ten minutes. Now it was pissing her off.
He was attracted to her. She was flattered by it and if she was honest, she was more than attracted to him. She wanted to take him out to the truck and tell him she’d changed her mind. That she could do the job and do him. Multi-tasking at its finest. But his cool demeanor stopped her. She was afraid she’d been too harsh, that he might reject her now.
Her fear made her wonder if she’d been right all along. She just wasn’t built for keeping people around. No one ever stuck. Maybe her dad if he hadn’t been killed in the line of duty. But otherwise, not a single person had stuck around in her life. Maybe Jake was just another in a long line of revolving acquaintances. And that fear of loss made her too scared to get attached.
She’d already been introduced to everyone. Nash, the hippy with the blond hair. Lucas, the brooding, serious one off to the side. Harley, the mouth. And while they’d all made her feel welcome—except for maybe Harley who had legitimately snarled at her when she’d tried to shake his hand—she wasn’t sure they trusted her yet. Judging from the awkward silence and attempts at small talk, they hadn’t decided to let her in. Fine, they didn’t want to talk about anything important? She’d do it herself.
“You’re Nash,” she said and the guys all looked up, silence falling over the table. Okay, maybe that had come out a tad strong.
“Yeah,” said the guy with the shell choker two seats down and across.
“You have anything against humans?” she demanded.
Nash narrowed his eyes but it wasn’t anger that had his blond brows furrowing, it was confusion. He shot a look at Jake then Xavier. “No?” he answered.
“Well, is it a definite no or a question?” she asked and Jake gave her a scathing look.
“No,” Nash said more firmly now. “Why?”
Jake was up and out of his chair before she could accuse Nash of anything.