On the Prowl by Kate Rudolph

28

It was the perfect morning.As long as Em could ignore thoughts of the shadow beast and witchcraft and all of the bad things that were happening. She had Andre in her bed and a clear schedule until well after noon.

She wanted to take advantage of it, both in the sheets and out of them. Her body was sated, but her heart wanted more.

When she suggested that she and Andre go out on a breakfast date, she wasn't actually worried he would say no. But his yes untightened something she hadn't realized was tight in her chest.

There weren't any paparazzi waiting as they left the hotel and grabbed a cab to take them downtown to one of the restaurants that had been recommended to her. On the ride she could pretend that she was just a normal woman sitting next to a normal man going out for a bite to eat after a spectacular night together.

She wasn't a rock star. Andre wasn't a werewolf. And there wasn't a magical beast after her.

But she was a rock star, and Andre was a werewolf, and the beast could attack her at any minute.

Her shoulders sagged as reality threatened to intrude.

Andre reached out and laced their fingers together. "You okay?" he asked.

"Did your fancy werewolf powers tell you something?" And then she could have cursed herself for saying werewolf. They were speaking quietly and the taxi driver’s music was loud, but that didn't mean that he couldn't hear them. Hopefully he would assume he'd misheard. It was just the kind of story she didn't need showing up in the tabloids.

"You just looked nervous," Andre assured her, giving her hand a squeeze, his eyes bright and caring.

"A lot is going on." It was barely a summation, but it wasn't like he didn't know. They both needed this little break. Vi would no doubt come and try and find them soon enough. But they could just have a few hours together to be normal.

The restaurant didn't have a back room or any particularly secluded tables, but Em decided it was worth the risk. It was a little American bistro that specialized in fancy brunch and was beloved by half of Instagram.

She would commit a lot of sin for waffles that looked as good as the pictures she had seen online.

Conversation between the two of them was easy, easier than she had ever expected. Andre broke the ice by telling her a funny story of some of the shenanigans that Owen and Stasia had gotten up to in the last month, one of which inexplicably involved a water slide and a lot of bubbles.

She couldn't shoot back with any information about their mutual friends, but a laugh burst out of him when she detailed a prank that some of the road crew had played on her at the first tour stop.

Their food had not been served by the time a few patrons started taking surreptitious cell phone photos of the two of them. Em wanted to grimace. The paparazzi didn't need to know where she was when there were plenty of regular people eager to invade her privacy.

But she couldn't show her frustration. That only made the pictures worth more. And then there would be a story about how she was impolite to a fan or how she was a diva or how she was doing this all to herself.

"Can I hold your hand?" Andre asked quietly, shooting a glance over her shoulder and probably looking at one of the many cameras that was not subtle. "How do you want to play this?"

He wasn't trying to suck up the attention, which was good, and even better, he didn't seem weirded out by it. Em had run into both of those problems before. Either people dated her because they wanted their picture on blogs and social media and in the tabloids, or they couldn't stand the attention and ran away before anything could get serious.

Andre wasn't running.

Of course, this kind of crap wasn't nearly as weird as the shit he had been dealt.

She reached out and clasped his hand. Rumors were already starting, and if he stuck around, she might need to make a statement. What would the world think of her werewolf boyfriend?

Was that what he was? She wanted to ask. She also never wanted to say the words. A month ago, she didn't know that werewolves existed, and now she was sleeping with one. Now she had a witch and a werewolf protecting her from some sort of shadowy ghost werewolf that was trying to attack her on tour.

Her life was way too weird to start freaking out about something as simple as liking a guy, but she feared that if they went much further in their nascent relationship, everything she was feeling would be much more than like very soon.

She didn't fall hard and fast. That never happened.

But maybe it never happened because none of the people she had been with before were Andre.

"You're looking serious," Andre said, running his thumb over her hand and sending shivers up her arm.

"Just thinking," she said with a safe smile; she didn't know what she was ready to reveal just yet.

"Want to share?"

She might have if the server hadn't come with plates laden with food. She wasn't sure how Andre could eat so much, but apparently werewolves had magic metabolism and she would just look on in horrified wonder as he ate two full breakfasts.

Her stack of waffles was just as delicious as it looked on Instagram, and maybe she wouldn't be spending so much time watching Andre eat while she could take her time scarfing down her food.

She put the people and their cell phone cameras out of her mind. She was eating breakfast with a friend. Maybe a boyfriend. So what?

It wasn't really that interesting, and she wasn't about to give them a story.

Instead she was determined to enjoy her morning with Andre.

After their food was done, they waited around and had an extra cup of coffee. And after that, they took a walk. The city they were in had a beautiful park downtown with a walking path heavily shaded by trees that muffled the city sounds and let them imagine they were in a place free of all the annoyances of modern life.

She and Andre held hands as they walked and it was nice.

So nice that she feared getting used to it. If she got used to it, her heart could be broken. Once the shadow beast was gone, Andre wouldn't have an excuse to stick around. Not unless she took a chance and asked him to stay, as scary as that thought was.

She had a feeling Andre might be worth the risk.

But eventually their morning had to come to an end. She was expected back for an interview in less than an hour and needed to get ready. And Andre probably needed to talk to Vi so they could come up with a plan to defend Em while she walked on stage and sang her heart out.

They hailed a taxi to head back to the hotel, and before she and Andre could start talking, her phone rang, the ID indicating it was from her manager.

"Hey, what's up?" She didn't get many managerial calls, especially when they weren't in contract negotiations, planning a tour, or planning an album.

"Do I need to get PR people on this?" her manager demanded.

"On what?" For a horrifying second, she wondered if the shadow beast had shown up in fan photos.

But her manager didn't say anything about that. "This guy you're with. What's that all about? You know I need to know if you're about to start dating someone."

Em burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" her manager demanded.

But Em couldn't come up with a coherent response. She managed to gasp out a promise to call her manager back and then shut the ringer off of her phone and stuck it back in her pocket. It was such a mundane problem that Em couldn't wrap her mind around it.

She wished the biggest issue was that the world was going to find out about her boyfriend sooner than she was ready to tell them.

She would take that over a ghost werewolf any day.