Page 86 of Destiny of the Dragons

Mia smiled. “Yes. You want to give me some tips?”

“Make it how you want.” Damn, now he was acting like he was an expert in Japanese cuisine when he couldn’t make rice to save his life. “I’m sure it will be delicious.”

Mia pulled soy sauce, mirin, garlic, and ginger out of the cupboard. “Okay, dice up that onion and pepper.”

He obeyed. Mia hummed softly, bouncing around and happier than he’d ever seen her.

He smiled. They were making her happy.

“So when Jace gets back, we’ll do the tracking spell.” Mia waggled her eyebrows at him. “Hopefully it won’t be far away.”

“Will you have to follow it right away?”

Mia shook her head. “It will act like a compass, hopefully.”

Smoke nodded. He should ask her something, anything, but he wasn’t sure what to say.

He was awful at small talk.

“So, how are things at the shop?”

“Fine? Busy.” She glanced over at him, biting her lip. “So you basically have a dragon army.”

“They’re not an army.” He focused on the green pepper. He knew how to cut pepper. Conversations were much harder. “They just needed a place to stay.”

“Did you start collecting them right away?” Mia glance at him.

“No.” He started the other pepper. Maybe she would like it if he asked about…her clothing? Her magic?

Mia raised an eyebrow. “Is this sensitive?”

“What?”

“I was curious about the dragons.”

Oh. She was trying to talk to him. He was an idiot. “No. I just thought it was boring.”

“You’re not boring.”

He sort of was, but she didn’t need to know that.

“It was an accident. Jesse was struggling.” Smoke shrugged. He’d been miserable, going from job to job blindly. Taking risks.

“So you helped him like you helped Jace,” she said, her voice oddly flat.

“No? Yes?” Smoke grabbed the other pepper. “I don’t know how much I actually helped Jace.”

“You got him through a molting.”

“We got him through it,” he corrected. “Jesse has part of his Treasure, but he was unstable. I gave him a place to crash where he didn’t have to watch his back.”

“So you weren’t together?” Her voice was weird again. There were probably a hundred signals he missed telling him what was wrong.

“No.”

Mia was quiet for a moment. “I just wanted to know what you were up to.”

After he left her, was the unspoken sentence. Even he knew that.

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