Page 40 of Soar

“Uh…duh? Because you were.”

“I wasn’t! It was only banter!”

Alexis kept staring, like a woman waiting for him to start making sense.

“No, seriously. I mean, I could tell he was attracted, but I wasn’t trying to flirt back. I’m not going to hook up with him. What would be the point? Um.” Looking back on it now, with hindsight doing the bulk of the work, it was obvious to see where he misstepped. “I guess I should have just shut him down.”

“Ya think?”

“Can you not hit me with sarcasm while I’m still processing the fact I was an idiot?”

“Let me think about it…no. No, I cannot. Sarcasm is how I’m currently coping.”

Yeah, okay, fair. He’d likely be doing the same in her shoes.

But if it had looked like he was flirting even though he really wasn’t, then…shit. Gregori had justifiably flown off the handle. Dragons were possessive even on the best of days, but with their current relationship limbo, naturally he was more sensitive than usual.

Salem flopped back in his chair, groaning. Okay, he’d fucked up.

“You need to fix this, Salem,” Alexis insisted. “I refuse to stand here and watch while you blow a good thing up.”

“How?” Salem didn’t lift his head, he just felt exhausted all of a sudden. Like he’d been carrying around a weight and it had finally gotten around to crushing him.

“What do you mean how?”

“I mean just that. How? How do you propose I fix this? He only wants to hear one thing, Lexy.”

Her outrage dwindled, concern coming more to the fore. “Are you guys not properly talking?”

“Heh. That’s a mild way of putting it.”

Salem felt a migraine coming on and felt the distinct need to put himself on a drip. This whole situation was giving him quite the headache.

Seeing she wasn’t budging or satisfied with his answer, Salem put more effort into framing this insanity into words.

“Look, Gregori is absolutely positive I’m his mate. He might be right. He’s explained to me how he’s so sure, how mates work, and I’m…inclined to think he might be right. But I don’t know if I want him to be.”

Alexis promptly drew out his visitor chair and plonked herself into it. “Why not?”

“Because it means throwing my world topsy-turvy. You know that thing Redditors will tell you to never, ever do? That’s what he wants from me. He wants me to quit my job here and move to Brazil. You know how hard I’ve worked for the past fifteen years to get my degree, my own place. Now I have it, and I’m supposed to just give it up? Everyone ends up leaving me eventually, you know how hard I am to live with, so upending my entire life for a relationship that probably won’t survive three months doesn’t even make sense.”

Alexis didn’t have an immediate answer for him. She stared at the floor for a long moment.

“You see?”

“I do, but I don’t. Salem, you are perfectly capable of sustaining a committed relationship.”

He snorted in disbelief.

“No, seriously, I know the ex-boyfriends you had convinced you otherwise. But they were also asshats.”

A startled laugh escaped his mouth before he realized it. “I mean, they were, I can’t argue that point.”

“Look, I’ve lived with you for a month. Remember? When the pipes in my apartment burst and I stayed with you?”

“Oh yeah…yeah, I do.”

“I didn’t feel the urge to kill you even once.”

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