Page 19 of Silent Jay

He called you his soul mate.

He wanted to get laid.

So do you.

Shut up.

After sitting in indecision like a fucking teenage girl, I finally walked out of the bedroom.

Tyson turned from his cooking and smiled at me like I’d made his day just by existing. Blood rushed to my cheeks, and my lips twitched up despite the situation.

“Have a seat. Food’s almost done. I, ah, made you breakfast, but you didn’t wake. So, I ate it.” He rubbed the back of his neck, a slight blush staining his cheeks.

It looked adorable and out of place on his chiseled features. My heart squeezed, urging me to wrap him in my arms, and I batted the feeling down. I needed to fix this. Now. I couldn’t be a dragon’s mate.

“Do you drink coffee?” he asked, gesturing to a coffee pot at the end of his little kitchen.

I nodded and helped myself.

With a coffee in my hand and Tyson still busy, I wandered the open-plan apartment. Like his closet, his living space was well organized. Unlike his closet, high-contrast pictures of fire decorated the walls, which coordinated scarily well with greyleather furniture. It felt like I was in a high-end hotel instead of someone's home.

The only exception was a cluttered corner filled with video games. I didn’t know gaming at all, but a black and wood square that looked out of the seventies sat at the bottom of a massive tower. The word ‘Atari’ was etched above some toggle switches. As my gaze moved up, each console got more sophisticated and modern. A VR headset sat at the top. Next to all of it, a massive TV hung on the wall.

It’s not a pile of gold, but that’s still a hoard of wealth.

I snorted.Dragons.

My little wander brought me back to the kitchen. I slid onto a chair. A picture on the shiny metal refrigerator drew my attention. An adorable strawberry-blonde woman with a dusting of rose gold scales accenting her eyes kissed Tyson’s cheek while he took a selfie.

Who the fuck is this bitch?

No. No. No. You don’t care. Be happy he’s got a girlfriend; it will make this so much easier.

A plate thunked in front of me, and I pulled my gaze away from the image. The smell of grilled cheese wafted. My stomach growled.I didn’t even look at the food delivery dragon before devouring every last bite. It tasted a little different than I remembered grilled cheese tasting, but I was so hungry I didn’t care. Tyson put a salad next to me. I managed a thankful nod this time before devouring that as well. With a cheeky smile, I looked at his half-eaten sandwich.

He gestured to his food. “I’d give it to you, but I didn’t use vegan cheese in it.”

I blinked at him.

“It says on your preference sheet that you’re a vegan.” He cocked his head to the side. “Are you okay, Betty?”

I narrowed my eyes.Betty? Did I look like a fucking Betty?

Instead of trying to talk, I held out my hand, and he quickly picked up a tablet and handed it to me.

I froze. A tablet. That’s it. I might not be able to talk, but I could still write. And even better, if I wrote in Draconic, he would know I was magical, even if I couldn’t prove it.

I skipped the black and white sheet he’d left open for me and found a drawing app. Draconic didn’t have any English phonetics, but the characters were unique. Using harsh lines and slanted angles, I drew out, ‘Give me your sandwich, bitch.’

Aww, you rhymed it for him.

I forced myself not to grin.

When I turned the tablet around, he studied the writing before raising an eyebrow. “That’s very avant-garde.”

I sucked in a breath. Fuck. Now, I knew nine dead languages.

Saving my work out of habit, I closed the program and opened up a note-taking app. I started to write out my enchantress status and stopped. He wouldn’t believe it. I literally had no way to prove it. In fact, at the moment, I wasn’t an enchantress. I was just a random woman named Betty who didn’t eat meat.

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