Page 27 of Color Chameleon
“And what?”
He swore he could hear her rolling her eyes at him.“And what else?A name tells me nothing.What’s he like?Is he treating you well?He’d better be treating you well or he’ll have the whole family to answer to.”
“He’s treating me great, Mom.He’s cute.He’s funny.He has the most beautiful smile.”
“He knows you’re a shifter, right?Some people have a problem with shifters.”
“He knows I’m a shifter.In fact, we met because he saved my shifted ass.”
“Oh, there’s a story there.I can tell.”
“Yep.You see, I was sunning on the beach,” he started.
“And your chameleon came out!”she interrupted.
“Yep.And some assholes grabbed me and we’re threatening to pull off my tail to see if I would grow it back.”
“Oh, son, you know it’s not safe to shift out in the open and all alone like that.There are too many ways to get hurt.”
“Well, I didn’t do it on purpose.Anyway, Darcy intervened and wound up putting me in his pocket and carrying me home.”
“In his pocket!”She chuckled.“He didn’t know you were a shifter then, eh?”
“Nope.He was just getting me as far from the jerks as he could and to somewhere safe, which just happened to be his apartment.He was shocked as hell when I shifted back to human.”
“Well, that proves he has a good heart, that he would care enough about a little reptile to rescue it.”
“He has a great heart, mom.”
“That’s such a cute story.I can’t wait to meet him.Bring him to the festival this weekend.”
He wasn’t entirely sure about that.His mom was a lot, his entire family and all their friends at the summer street festival in the compound was a whole lot more.
“I insist,” she told him in her best no-nonsense voice.“We don’t get many outsiders and everyone will want to meet him.”
“Interrogate him, you mean.”
“Well, of course.We have to make sure he’s good enough for our Charma.Especially as he’s not a shifter himself.”She paused.“He’s not, is he?”
It was a fair question.Just because Darcy hadn’t known Charma was a shifter when rescued, didn’t mean that Darcy wasn’t one himself.“No, Mom.He’s not a shifter.”
“So you’ll come on Saturday?”
“If we don’t have plans I don’t know about yet, we’ll come.”That gave him an out if Darcy didn’t want to go.
“You’ll come early?”
He rolled his eyes.“We’ll come after breakfast.”
She snorted.“You’ll come have breakfast here at home and we’ll go to the festival together.”
“We’re gonna want to sleep in, Mom.”He was not setting an alarm to get up on a Saturday before the sun even made an appearance.
“Of course, breakfast will be ready whenever you get here.”
“Even if it’s noon?”He hadn’t slept in that late without being hungover from the night before in forever, but you never knew how long they were going to want to linger…
“If you want to waste half the day sleeping, that’s up to you.Come to the house first and I will feed you, then we can all go to the festival together.”
