“So, I have questions,” said Jillian.

The men at the table chorused, “Of course, you do.”

Jillian ignored them. “Don’t bears tend to have a lot of partners? Bael said you dated around plenty before I got here.”

“When we find the right woman, we give her the mating bite—after proposing—and that prepares her body to carry our young. Werewolves do something similar.”

“But you don’t mate for life?” Jillian asked.

Zed grinned. “Yes, unlike real bears, we mate for life. And we reach sexual maturity very early.”

She lifted a brow. “Great, when will you reach emotional maturity?”

Zed waggled his hand back and forth. “Meh.”

“So, here’s my advice,” Bael cut in. “Man-bear up and tell her that you’d like to date her and take her out for pie and spend a Sunday with your mama. But if she doesn’t want that right now, that’s fine. If she’s who you want, you’ll accept what she’s willing to give, until she’s willing to give more.”

Zed shook his head. “And that doesn’t make me sound like the saddest little sad-sack that ever sacked?”

“Do you want to be proud or do you want to be happy?” Bael asked.

Zed harrumphed. Just then, the woman herself walked in, wearing a blue t-shirt that read, “Save the Drama for Your Llama!”

“What’s with all the llamas?” Bael asked.

“I have no clue. She even has them on her underwear,” Zed said. “It’s just the cutest thing you ever saw. When she walks around in them, it looks like they’re jumping across her ass cheeks and—”

Jillian pursed her lips together and shook her head.

Zed paused. “Too much?”

Jillian nodded.

Behind Bael and Jillian’s backs, Dani sat at the end of the counter and placed her order with an unsmiling Siobhan.

“Well, I like her,” said Bael. “But because you tend to pick crazy women, I just need to know how far on the scale she is, so I know what sort of contingency plans to come up with—air, water or ground rescue? Will a drone be required? Does she have the means to shoot down my drone? I need to take all of these things into account and in order to do that, I need more information.”

“You’re an asshole,” Zed told him.

Bael countered, “I’m prepared.”

“To be an asshole,” Zed shot back.

“Zed, the last time you went on a date, I had to interrupt a perfectly nice evening with Jillian to bring a box-cutter to your house, because Nina Pinion duct-taped you to your kitchen wall and left you like something out of a Stephen King book.”