Page 103 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

Max sneezed.

“Exactly. A very normal billionaire hobby.”

I pulled the door open. It opened smoothly, then eased shut behind us with a firm, beautiful click. The click should not have felt intimate. Locks were not intimate. Locks were hardware. Hardware wasn’t flirting.

Except, it seemed my standards had collapsed somewhere between the slow dance and the almost-kiss in the hallway, because that click zipped straight through me.

The world outside was bustling already, even this early in the morning. Delivery trucks barreled down the road, and a cyclist swore at a cab as it nearly turned into him. I took a breath, squared my shoulders, and started toward Avery’s.

“Free coffee,” I reminded myself.

Max walked beside me, elegant and mildly smug.

“Work,” I added. “Career. Professionalism. Friday meeting. No emotional disasters before nine.”

He glanced up at me.

“I mean it.”

Another block passed before I looked back toward my building. I laughed helplessly, then continued walking.

By the time Max and I reached the corner, I’d lost the fight with myself.

I should not text Rafe.

He was my client. Sort of. Not my client personally, obviously, because I was an intern and interns didn’t have clients. Still, he was part of my professional world, and my professional world didn’t need a morning message that said, Hello, I saw that you fixed my broken lobby door after rejecting my mouth last night. Thoughts?

Max stopped beside a light pole and looked up at me.

“What?” I asked. “You’re not on the ethics committee.”

He gave a slow blink.

The walk to Avery’s was only long enough to make a bad decision feel earned. I unlocked my phone, opened Rafe’s contact, and stared at the empty text box while a delivery truck groaned past and a woman in running clothes carried an iced coffee the size of a small aquarium.

I typed: A door latch fairy appears to have visited my building last night. Weird. Very seasonally inappropriate.

I looked at it.

Too much.

I deleted seasonally inappropriate because even my flirting had apparently started dressing for a theme party.

New version: A door latch fairy appears to have visited my building last night. Weird.

I stared at that, too.

Then, because self-control was a finite resource and I’d used most of mine not buying coffee, I hit send.

“There,” I told Max. “Casual and legally defensible.”

Max sneezed.

“You’re very unsupportive this morning.”

I knew he was just tired and possibly judging me, which was completely fair, so I wouldn’t hold it against him. I spent the next two blocks pretending I’d not texted Rafe Virelli before eight in the morning about a lock he was absolutely going to deny fixing. My phone didn’t ping. Good. Professional men with fortunes and dragon forms probably didn’t answer texts quickly. They had staff for that. Maybe a correspondence secretary. Maybe a raven. I didn’t know his system.

Avery’s front windows were already streaked with nose prints. A tasteful brass plaque beside the door read TEDDINGTON WORKING DOG REHAB, but Avery had taped a handwritten sign beneath it because tastefulness made her itchy: NO, YOU CANNOT “BORROW” A MALINOIS FOR SECURITY. GET THERAPY.