Page 38 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

“Absolutely not. This is a strictly…”

I trailed off, floundering. Because what, exactly, were we? We sure as hell weren’t just friends. And we weren’t dating, either. And we definitely weren’t shacked up. I mean, okay, currently we actually were shacked up, but that was extremely temporary. And I didn’t think ‘mate in waiting’ worked either.

After a long pause, I went with, “Platonic? Yeah. Yes. This is all strictly platonic.”

“A platonic date?”

“You keep forcing that ‘date’ word in there, don’t you?”

“Guilty as charged.” Tobias flashed me a totally unapologetic grin. “And hell yeah, let’s go out on a platonic date. But Bryan?”

“Yes?”

“This doesn’t mean I’m going to put out,” he informed me gravely. “You’ll need to buy me dinner first.”

“Noted,” I laughed. It was a stupid, corny joke. But I couldn’t help myself. “Let’s get you acquainted with a bacon maple bar.”

CHAPTER TWELVE || TOBIAS

We ended up standing in line at Voodoo Donut for an obscenely long time. Belatedly, I realized that the donut shop was some sort of tourist trap.

Thankfully, even with it being the middle of summer, the sky overhead remained overcast, with steel-colored clouds overhead threatening buckets of rain that didn’t actually come. I still checked the weather forecast on my phone more than once while we were in line, for Bryan’s sake. He wouldn’t have burst into flames or anything silly like that, but he certainly wouldn’t do well if he stood in direct sunlight for any length of time. Bryan seemed oblivious to the danger. He had his phone out, researching all the things we could do in the city, keeping every single moment of potential silence filled.

The list of possible activities he told me about went on for a very long time.

I wasn’t fooled in the slightest.

Bryan was now very afraid. Not just for his safety, but for mine.

However, the bacon maple bar and the captain crunch donuts he instructed me to buy for him were totally worth every moment spent crammed into the line, because of the way his face lit up with unselfconscious delight when the frantic-looking cashier, clearly overwhelmed from the constant influx of people, handed them to us. I bought us each a cup of coffee from the local shop a block down, then we found a nearby park to sit and eat in.

“I still think you’re a towering weirdo,” I said, grinning at Bryan. I gestured to the half-eaten donut in his hand. “Bacon doesn’t belong on donuts. You cannot convince me otherwise. There’s no way.”

“It does so.”

“Does not.”

“Seriously, just try it first, before you tell me how weird I am. One bite.” Bryan held the donut out for me. “It’ll change your life, I promise.”

In truth, I was dying to try it.

But I liked this playful, innocent side of Bryan and I got the sense that what he wanted from me—or possibly even needed—was for me to be normal and playful right back. He needed a distraction from what waited for us back at Poplar Creek.

I understood that.

Bryan had left town, deciding that he would put himself back together as someone who protected innocent people from twisted and dark supernatural forces, much like his maker. And before he had hardly even really begun, that was being threatened by Danny and Michael. Now, he was faced with losing his best chance at happiness, at sanity, at solace. And part of the reason why he was so ready to give that chance up was clearly because he was worried about me.

My safety. My well-being.

How could he have ever doubted his own goodness?

There was no way in hell I was going to let him walk away. Not when his entire well-being was at stake. But a distraction… well, that I could do.

So, I heaved a theatrical sigh, taking the donut from him. And then I chomped a big bite from the end of it—so completely without hesitation that I was pretty sure he’d know I’d been dying to try it all along.

As I chewed, my eyes went round, and they met Bryan’s. I swallowed the bite. Then I laughed, feeling a mixture of surprise and delight.

It was delicious. Totally worth the wait. And not weird at all.

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