Page 24 of Christopher

“Then let’s go eat something and charm each other.” Chris offered Drake his hand. For a second, Drake stared at it as if it might bite him.

Chris wasn’t into biting, but he wouldn’t be against pinching if they were closer.

Drake finally took Chris’s hand, and Chris linked their fingers together. He pulled Drake toward his car.

“Dennis recommended this place,” he explained as he drove them to the restaurant. “He said it’s nice but not too nice, if you know what I mean.”

“You mean the kind of place where I’ll try hard not to laugh because everyone would stare at me if I did?”

“Yes. I don’t like that kind of place, either.”

Drake bounced a bit in his seat. “Once I went to a place like that with my parents, and there was this lady with red lipstick and black sunglasses. I mean, she had on the sunglasses inside, like an asshole. Anyway, she was kind of weird, but she wasn’t the problem. The problem was her Chihuahua.”

Chris smiled as he listened to Drake babble about the Chihuahua and how it had attacked him, which had made him turn into his aardwolf just before they were taken to their table.

“No one saw me shifting, and my father quickly bundled up my clothes and hid them under his jacket. He looked pregnant, but it was kind of a lumpy pregnant belly. Anyway, when the waitress saw him, she did a double take.”

Chris grinned. The way Drake had of telling the story was so vivid that it felt like he was there. “She didn’t realize that he hadn’t looked pregnant before?” And that he was a guy?

“I think she probably did but didn’t want to say anything about it. Besides, she got immediately distracted by me. I don’t know if you looked up what kind of shifter I am, but we don’t exactly look like dogs.”

They didn’t. In fact, aardwolves looked like tiny hyenas. “So she didn’t think you were a dog.”

“It was clear she didn’t know what to make of me, and she kept looking between me and my father as if trying to understand what to do first. Eventually, she ignored my father and told my mother that animals weren’t allowed in the restaurant.”

“What about the Chihuahua?”

“Apparently, he was a service animal, and the waitress couldn’t do anything about him, even though he was eating straight from a plate.” Drake shuddered dramatically. “I know they wash all those dishes and everything, but can you imagine eating on that plate once the Chihuahua was done with it?”

“I don’t think I would’ve eaten in that restaurant, to be honest.”

“We didn’t, either, but that’s because my mother made a scene. She pointed out the Chihuahua couldn’t be a service animal, and she wasn’t wrong, but then I started crying, and let me tell you, when I’m in that form, it’s an odd sound. The waitress freaked out and thought I was attacking her, so she ran away. My parents and I left the place without saying anything else.”

“At least you didn’t have to eat off the Chihuahua’s plate.”

Drake laughed. “I suppose that’s a relief.” His expression did something complicated, and from one second to the next, it was as if he shut down. His smile vanished, and his body tensed as he straightened his back. “Sorry about that.”

Chris frowned. “Sorry about what?”

“You probably don’t want to hear about my parents and a bad experience we had when I was a kid. We didn’t even eat there.”

Chris reached for Drake’s hand and squeezed quickly before returning his to the steering wheel. “I want to hear your childhood stories. I want to know everything about you, including the time you were a kid and shifted in the middle of a restaurant. You don’t have to hide things from me, Drake. You certainly don’t have to hide yourself.”

Drake shrugged. “I’m not.”

But Chris could see that he very much was. It was as if every time he relaxed and allowed himself to laugh and chat, he realized what he was doing and shut it down all over again. It was disconcerting, especially because Chris really liked the man he’d gotten to know during their past conversations.

They’d started calling each other every day after Drake had visited Chris. Drake had been there for him when he tried to force himself to finally leave his bedroom, and it was in part thanks to him that they were here tonight.

Drake had helped Chris in ways he probably didn’t realize, and Chris wanted to return the favor. No matter how many times he told Drake to be himself, Drake couldn’t seem to bring himself to do so, at least not permanently. He was still trying to show Chris an image he didn’t fit in, which meant there had to be something deeper behind that.

And Chris was going to find out what that something was. He doubted Drake would tell him, so it was a good thing that he knew Drake’s friends. Hell, one of them was his brother-in-law, and Kyle and Dennis would do anything they could to help Drake.

If the end of the date went the way the start of it had, Chris would try to dig deeper. In the meantime, maybe giving Drake some space to find his footing would help.

* * * *

Drake was making a mess. He’d promised himself he’d be careful during the date, but he was a disaster, and he didn’t know how to stop. Every time he tried to be serious and calm, he failed. His real self ended up leaking out, and he was too scared to look at Chris and find out what he thought of it.

---