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“Come on. We’re going. We need to get out of here, right now.”

I knew the instant their gaze landed on my scars. If I’d been human, I’d have been wary too.

And they weren’t wrong. They’d watched a stranger cross the room and fling a man on the floor. But they should have stepped in when the wolf shifter started making a nuisance of himself. To them, I was the dangerous guy in the bar, and I couldn’t argue with them. Dragon shifters were feared even in the shifter community.

I stepped back to make it easy for Sheridan. His friends could take him home. He was shaken but he’d be safe, away from me. Tomorrow when he’d thought about it, he’d be glad that I didn’t attend the dinner and there was an empty chair beside him.

But Sheridan shrugged off his friend’s hand. It was a gentle movement, but he wanted it gone, and he looked past them at me.

“Do you want to get out of here?” He said it to me. “Not with them.” He jerked his head at his friends whose expressions had changed from withering to what the heck is happening. “There’s a place around the corner that serves food late.” He pushed hair back from his face. “I could really use… ummm, I don’t know… something to eat to drown out...” He waved his hand toward the bar and the wolf shifter. “Do you want to come?”

I had a whole speech about why we couldn’t socialize or be together, something I’d say to my dragon every night.

Instead, I said, “Sure, I’ll come.”

His friends were horrified, and they tugged at his sleeve, repeated his name, and asked what he was thinking. He told them he’d text them when he got home.

“I’m fine, guys, and I know what I’m doing.”

That made one of us.

We walked out together, and I followed a step behind him to the place around the corner. It was small and almost empty, with a few booths and the cook who didn’t look up when we came in.

Sheridan did the ordering and must have forgotten it was just the two of us. He asked for two plates of fries, grilled cheese, and something drowning in gravy that my dragon turned his nose up at. And when it came, he pushed half of it toward me and told me to have some. Though my beast wasn’t keen on human food, he urged me to eat because Sheridan had touched my plate.

Neither of us said much at first. Sheridan ate as if he’d skipped dinner—maybe he had—and I watched the door out of habit and tried to make myself smaller in the booth.

“You know what I keep waiting for,” he said eventually as he dunked a fry in the gravy. “To freak out and ask what happened back there. And whether you’re always like that and if I should be scared of you.” He popped a fry in his mouth. “But I’m not.”

I didn’t have an answer and couldn’t fathom why I hadn’t asked him why he wasn’t freaking out.

He glanced up at me with gravy in the corner of his mouth. I tapped my lips, but he didn’t understand, so I grabbed a paper napkin and handed it to him.

He laughed. “I’ve always been a messy eater. Indigo told me the same thing last Sunday at a dinner you were supposed to be at.”

“Prior engagement.”

He gave me a look, one that said he knew my excuse was BS.

He dabbed his lips. “Gone?”

“Mmmm.” I wanted to kiss those lips, even if they were smeared in gravy, but I’d revealed too much of myself when I broke the wolf’s arm.

Sheridan pushed his plate away.

“Do you know why I ended up in Moonridge Place?” He didn’t wait for me to answer and explained he’d shared a place with roommates who were noisy, they ate his food in the fridge, and they’d charge into his room without knocking. “I wanted somewhere quiet where I could afford a place on my own.”

He’d signed the lease sight unseen because the rent was fair, and Jon was so kind. He only checked out the place after he’d signed which was why I scented him in that corner. Jon, being the guy he was, had left the key under the mat which was why he hadn’t met Sheridan, though it was odd he hadn’t scented that he was human.

“And now I’ve got an apartment for myself, neighbors who bring me banana bread and are eager to meet my bunny and some who help me out when I need it.” He looked up at me through his long dark lashes when he said that last part. “Plus, there’s one guy who breaks people’s arms without asking.”

The last part wasn’t really a recommendation, more like someone to be wary of.

“Jon has his heart in the right place, and everyone seems to like you.” I ignored the bit about me.

“Miles said they’d been trying to get you to come for dinner for ages.”

I shrugged. “I mostly keep to myself.”