Page 70 of Wishes and Research

“You guys need to worry about hurt feelings less and more about reviews and being outed.” Again, that seemed obvious but he frowned and looked sheepish.

“Yeah, I guess it’s habit?” He seemed to understand that was a bad thing, but he clearly hadn’t realized it before. “We probably put up with a ridiculous number of things because we’re just used to it.”

As he thought about what I’d said, he gave me another peck on the head. “Okay, more logic and less acceptance of stupid is going to be the goal.”

“Just don’t tell anyone it was my idea.” No. We weren’t going to do that. “I want them to like me.”

Especially his family…and the crazy old men who seemed to rule society…and the people who owned the bakery.

Everyone.

I wanted everyone to like me.

Well, everyone except the lady who ran the dollar store. She was cranky and followed everyone around like she thought they were going to steal. I didn’t care if she liked me or not. I did not look like the type of person who was going to steal cheap pens.

“Is that why this hasn’t been as difficult on you as I thought it would be?” Fraser was looking very Daddy as he glanced over at me. He was attempting a casual expression, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. “I was a little worried you’d be overwhelmed by all the changes at the very least.”

Hmm.

“Okay, well, I think I got over a lot of my initial panic when the first beetle disappeared when I was trying to catch it. Insects just don’t do that.” No matter how many times I’d said camouflage or the internet had said weird, they just didn’t do that. “I was kind of dumbfounded at that point and I think that would’ve been the initial reaction you would’ve been expecting.”

Chuckling, he nodded as he turned us toward the left at a fork in the trail. “You’ve got a point there.”

“And I’d been in town for several days before you approached me in the diner. I’d already seen a lot of strange things. There was even a man walking along poking at the street posts making sure they were real? I’m pretty sure at this point he was checking to see if they were a mage or something, but at the time, I thought he was…in need of psychiatric help.”

I still thought he needed help, but knowing there were mages had some of it making more sense.

“I heard rumors that some mage was transforming things into random stuff like that to get good gossip?” Fraser shrugged. “Even for around here it didn’t make any sense.”

Nothing ever did.

“So it was actually kind of nice knowing everyone wasn’t a lunatic.” They were still weird but we were at a mostly safe level. “You’re cute. That helped too.”

Laughing, Fraser released my hand long enough to swat my bottom. “Naughty boy.”

Oh.

Nope. I wasn’t going to react to that.

“You were flirting.” He still was. “It wasn’t my fault the sexy man said he wanted to do naughty things to me before he said he was a dragon.”

“So not enough blood to the brain helped temper your reaction?” Daddy looked very pleased with that idea. “I can understand that.”

I managed not to scoff but it was difficult.

“Yes, it’s very understandable.” It was also arousing because he was nearly steaming as he looked at me.

Daddy liked knowing he was so sexy I couldn’t worry.

I wasn’t sure if it was a silly Daddy thing or a dragon thing, but I had a feeling it was a mix of both. The magical mates thing was probably part of it. I had a feeling that was going a long way toward making everything seem more reasonable.

“I can also be honest and say that it was nice finding a guy who was really into me and didn’t think I was someone he needed to fix before he could show me off.” The way Daddy squeezed my hand as we kept walking made it easier to share what I knew he needed to hear.

“The science community and the academics wanted to make me less casual and they cringe anytime I say words like bug to describe something that is obviously not a bug.” Rolling my eyes made me feel much better. “No one cares what the scientific name of the spider they’re going to squish is.”

Daddy coughed, doing his best to cover up a laugh. “No, outside of their very small community, I can promise you no one cares about that.”

“I know.” People were ridiculous. “But when I tried to date more regular guys who did things like owning their own business or being a personal trainer, they wanted to fix me to make me better to take out in public.”

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