Page 102 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

Just thinking about entertaining the idea of feelings was ridiculous.

I grabbed Max’s travel bag from the chair and slung it over my shoulder. “Come on, Maximus. Time to go to Auntie Avery’s and pretend Mommy didn’t almost make a series of utterly stupid choices last night.”

Max rose slowly, shook himself, and followed me to the door.

The hallway smelled like someone’s toast and someone else’s weed. Beneath that, I caught a hint of the lemon cleaner Mrs. Nguyen used because management’s idea of hallway maintenance involved waiting for tenants to give up and do it themselves. I locked my apartment, checked the knob twice, then guided Max down the stairs at his pace. He was moving a little slower than usual, but that was to be expected after all the compliments he’d received at the gala.

At the bottom, I shifted my tote higher on my shoulder, tightened my grip on his leash, and lifted my foot to push the lobby door open the way I did every morning.

It didn’t move.

I pushed again, harder. Still nothing happened.

For one horrifying second, my brain assumed the building had finally given up and trapped us inside out of spite. Then I looked properly.

The door was latched.

Latched.

Not hovering near the frame like a suggestion or pretending to close while remaining open to every package thief and drunk stranger. The lock sat aligned. The plate had been adjusted. The whole door rested in the frame like a respectable member of society.

I stared at it.

Max sniffed the seam, then looked at me.

“No,” I said.

He kept looking.

“No.”

Everything else in the lobby looked the same. The radiator was still clanking in the corner, the mailboxes were still dented. But a new screw gleamed in the strike plate. Fresh metal, clean edges. Someone had fixed it.

I pressed one hand to my mouth.

“Oh my god.”

Max’s ears shifted.

“Oh my god,” I said again, and then I started laughing, slightly hysterical because the front door latched and I knew exactly which severe, emotionally repressed dragon had stared at that broken lock like it had personally insulted public safety and then failed, apparently, to leave it alone.

“Rafe,” I wheezed.

Max wagged once.

“Do not wag at this. We are upset.”

Max wagged again.

“Furious, actually.”

The laughter made my eyes water, screwing up my mascara. I leaned against the mailboxes and tried to pull myself together, but the door was still fixed, still sitting there like a very small act of care wearing plausible deniability.

Which was absolutely not helping the butterflies.

My laugh softened into something quieter. I hated that my chest felt warm. I hated that the warmth had nowhere professional to go.

“Okay,” I told Max, wiping carefully beneath one eye. “New theory. He’s not interested in me. He’s just romantically attracted to functioning infrastructure.”