“No worries.”
The wait was more like ten minutes, but I wasn’t worried about it.
The place was fancy, all right, but not over the top. There was definitely a lot of mood lighting that made me wonder how well the humans around me could see. I couldn’t exactly turn to Felicia and ask how her species fared with dimmed lighting. Yeah, that would definitely blow the lid on the whole shifter thing.
“Your seats are ready,” the hostess said, gesturing for us to follow her. It was better than her shouting my name or having one of those annoying buzzer things in our hands, that was for sure. So far, not so bad.
But things started to go downhill once we sat and our server approached us.
“Can I start you off with something to drink?” she said with no introduction, but that wasn’t a big deal. Maybe she didn’t like to give her name because too many creepy old men tried to use it to hit on her. I was under no illusions about just how difficult it was being a service worker, let alone a tipped service worker. I just hoped that the gratuities she was getting were hefty.
“Ah yes, I mentioned to the hostess that we’d like to do your wine tasting flight.”
“She didn’t tell me that.”
The response was so quick and so terse. Felicia was just as taken aback as I was. I got over it, though. Maybe the hostess had repeatedly dropped the ball, and our server was a bit frustrated on a busy Friday night. Completely understandable.
“Right, well, we would like that, and I’d like a water as well.”
“Water for me, too,” Felicia added on.
“‘Kay.”
And then she was gone.
Felicia and I exchanged looks, and I could tell we were thinking the same thing. I knew she probably also had some choice words since she dealt with all sorts of customers, but neither of us said anything.
Or at least we didn’t until the server came back, her face screwed up in a sour expression.
“We’re out of two of the wines,” she said, her tone making it sound like our fault.
“Ah, I see,” I murmured, and although I was starting to get a little flustered at how the date was tanking, I was also a little amused by the absurdity of it all. “Are there other varieties that could?-“
“No substitutions.”
Now, I liked to think that I was a patient, understanding guy, but I had a limit. And apparently, the waitress had just hit it. I could empathize that her job wasn’t easy, and she probably got blamed for a lot of things that weren’t anywhere near her fault, but she had no reason to snip at me.
“You know what,” Felicia replied quickly, her own tone having grown thorny. “I think we should go.” My stomach sank. Had my date really torpedoed so fast? “I think I saw a couple of food trucks down the block. Wanna go get some street meat?”
She wasn’t abandoning ship! And now that she’d mentioned it, street meat sounded awesome.
If there was ever a time that I didn’t want a gyro,
I was either dead or replaced by some sort of body-snatcher.
“Actually, that sounds great.”
The two of us stood up, and in less than twenty minutes of entering the restaurant, we were back outside.
“I can’t imagine they’ll last long if that’s how they treat their customers,” Felicia remarked with a laugh as the cool night air hit us. “I get accidentally running out of something, but not offering any substitutions?
Whack!”
She said it with such dramatic emphasis on that last word that I couldn’t stop the sharp laugh that punched its way out of me.
“Maybe she was just having a bad night.”
“I hope that was just it, because jeez.
She made me feel like an inconvenience for being there.”
I nodded. “Yeah, like we were relatives who showed up at her place without asking.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what it was like.” She tipped her head back and laughed, and my gaze locked onto the elegant column of her neck. How was literally every single inch of her so utterly gorgeous? So enrapturing? “Oh, BTW, we gotta get a lot of napkins. I do not want to get anything on this dress, and I always manage to drip something on me.”
“You could always get something without sauce,” I teased. “You know, for safety’s sake.”
The look she gave me was comedic gold. “I would rather die.”
“Fair enough.”
We both shared a laugh and, much to my delight, the first cart we came across was full of my favorites. I ordered a falafel plate, a gyro, and some kebabs before looking at Felicia. “What would you like?”
“Wait, that’s all for you?” she asked, eyes wide, and I belatedly remembered that most humans didn’t have the insane caloric needs that we wolves did. Granted, we had nothing on bears, who could eat pretty much every other shifter under the table. Bonus for their insane grocery bill was that they could in turn go without food for about three times longer than any other shifter.
“Hard day on the farm,” I said quickly. “Do you know what you’d like?”
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