Page 12 of Dryad, Try Again
I huff. The tough love is sweet, but still annoying. “Pushy lagoon monster,” I mutter.
He chuckles, then shuts the bathroom door. “You know it!” he says in a muffled voice.
Thirty minutes later,the two of us manage to snag a corner booth. Sunday mornings are busy for dining hall brunch. The humans look adorably lost and confused as they attempt to navigate our cafeteria.None of them are as adorable as one human in particular…
I sigh and look down at my plate. I toy with the haunted hashbrowns and scare-rambled eggs, not in the mood for much food.
“You gonna finish that?” Blake asks with a mouth full of phantom cakes.
“Maybe,” I mutter, sipping my coffee. When I look at him, Blake swallows, then studies me.
“Okay, enough sulking.” He wipes his mouth on a napkin. “Tell this lagoon monster what’s up.”
“Didn’t Seth already tell you?” I deadpan.
“Yes, but I want to hear it from you. I’m worried. You disappeared and stayed in the West Woods all night.”
I huff and sit back. “The summary? One of the humans who just started going here is the guy I knew as a kid. The boy I accidentally shifted in front of.”
“Yeah? So?” Blake shrugs, and it bewilders me.
“So?!” I yelp. Leaning forward, I whisper, “I almost killed Tanner when we were little boys.”
“You were kids,” he states. “Who among us hasn’t involuntarily shifted in an embarrassing situation in our youth?”
“But I don’t think you stabbed anyone,” I hiss.
“Maybe not.” Blake goes back to his food. “But like…apologize and move on?”
I sigh and eat two more bites. Blake raises a valid point. I spent years wondering if I could apologize to Tan, and now that I have my chance, I’m freaking out?
“Seth told me this Tanner guy was cool.” Blake shrugs and chomps on another phantom cake drenched in syrup.
“Yeah, but that was before he knew I was a dryad?thatdryad. What if he doesn’t want to talk to me?”
“It’s his loss then. He’s missing out on a cool monster friend.” Blake’s words make my heart sink down in my gut. If Tanner doesn’t want to see me again, I’d feel…devastated? The fact that I have his number in my phone only makes me more anxious.
“You know, as your wise bestie, I have to say this…” Blake points at me and I munch on my meal. “I think you like him.”
He smirks, and I frown. I lunge forward to swipe at his head and miss, causing him to giggle. “No seriously,” he says between laughs.
“Shut up,” I grumble.
“You haven’t gotten laid in forever, man. And now you’re freaking out over your first kiss with some human stranger? I’m connecting the obvious dots.”
I scoff. “He wasn’t justsomehuman stranger. He was…” I sigh and think back to the way his lips tasted. I was little, and so much has happened since then. But that first kiss felt like a fairy tale come true. All my memories of afternoons playing with Tan?before I shifted?are golden, locked away in my heart.
I shake my head from my daydreams to notice Blake, once again, smirking at me. I frown. “Just…shut up.”
He giggles and looks away. “From what I saw, Tanner is pretty hot. It’s understandable that he’d make you…sprout some wood.”
This time when I swipe at his head, I make contact with a satisfiedthwack. It doesn’t stop either of us from laughing.
6
TANNER
I clockinto my morning shift at Mummy Mocha, bracing myself for the awkwardness. While Seth is chill, I’m acutely aware that his suitemate and best friend is a dryad. No, not a dryad,thedryad. Seth is friends with Kovi, who I knew as a kid as Cody. I go to school with the monster who stabbed me as a kid, the same monster who instilled in me an irrational fear of trees.
