Page 34 of Ditching the Dragon (Fated Dates)

She cackles on the other end of the phone.

“I’m tempted to push you on that just to see how irate you’d get, but I miss you too much and need the details.”

We spend several minutes catching up. Parsens is mostly the same. Milton bought the family loss lie and then no longer cared whether I came and went, thanks to Wick’s insistence on claiming me publicly.

My “mate” has apparently renovated my office in my absence. I’m hesitant to think what he’s done to my car and apartment.

I try to ask about my open projects, but it’s not my bestie’s thing. She finally promises to check in on the two open revisions I have before we see each other.

We end the conversation with a plan for Vi to meet up with me for more cash in a few days. I’m running egregiously low. If I don’t get a refresh soon, I’ll run out of resources and have to go to Wick with my tail between my legs anyway.

We’ll meet after work, once she’s searched for a cafe neither of us have ever been to so Wick can’t find me.

Come Thursday, just before the post-work rush, she texts me the location of a cafe in the East Gardener District.

That gives me a measly thirty minutes to get across the city with my duffel. My feet hurt already.

Chapter Ten

The bell over the door tinkles in the cute little coffee shop on Stemple Street.

It’s been nearly two weeks since I left my apartment and never looked back.

Two weeks of constantly changing hotels night after night.

Two weeks of huddling in my room, afraid to leave.

I started delaying my room check-ins until late at night. It’s partly because it means less time for Wick to find me but also because being cooped up in my room is driving me up the wall.

I miss my routines. I miss Marni’s coffee. I miss the relief of predictability.

One thing that has become predictable, I guess, is my daily morning call with Wick. It started as him checking on me when I first wake up—how he knows my wake up time is a question I don’t want the answer to—and has escalated into perfectly harmless daily adult time between us.

He’s where he is. I’m where I am. There’s no danger in it. None at all.

Cafe Fleur’s two-top tables dot the interior, and a bar with stools runs along the front windows. I order a latte and pain au chocolate and head to a table at the back of the cafe.

If Wick follows Violet here, I’ll have exits both out the front and out the back to escape with.

A mere three minutes after me, Violet flings the door open and rushes into the cafe.

“Annie!” she shouts.

“Shhhh, Violet!”

“No one here knows you,” she says with a laugh.

“They will if you announce my name. What happens if Wick followed you or figures out you’ve come here? They’ll ask at the register, and everyone will talk about the unhinged woman who screamed my name.”

“Babes, I hate to break it to you, but it’s a miracle you’ve survived as long as you have. He’s going to find you eventually, and then you’ll get that hot dragon lovin.’ ”

She accentuates the statement with a few hip thrusts.

“Do me a favor and pretend we’ve never met.”

“I’ve already called out your name. People know we know each other.”

“No, I mean that was horrible, and I’m embarrassed to stand next to you.”

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