Excitement sparked deep within me, coursing through my blood. That was a challenge if ever I’d heard one. He didn’t want to be ruled, I didn’t want to be ruled, but trying to rule each other?

“You’re on,” I said with a grin to match his. “Say goodbye to your king-of-the-mountain status. It’s time for a queen around these parts.”

He huffed out a laugh. “We’ll see. Anyway, we can talk about how I’ll dominate you later…”

A flash of unfettered heat stole my breath. I looked away, not ready for it.

Most of the time, I liked being in the friend zone with Austin. He had his hang-ups, and I had mine. He wanted to live a solitary life, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself with the hot local bar owner that I would see all the time. Both of us needed a good friend—a close friend that we could be open with—and we’d each found that person in each other.

Sometimes, though, his hotness blasted through all my defenses and seared me alive. He would be a wild ride. A wild, scorching-hot, sweaty-sheeted, delicious-bodied ride…

“You okay?” he asked.

I fanned my face. “Yep. Just nervous about my date. Is he here, do you know?”

His glance down the bar said it all. He pushed away, grinning, and moved to help someone.

“Crap,” I muttered, checking my watch again. Now five minutes late. Time to officially show up.

I tapped the bar with my nails and thought about pulling a runner. Mr. Tom was right. Me and this guy would never work—I was now magical and he was not. Our worlds were different, and that would never change.

I had to start somewhere, though. He was level one in my dating life. If I chickened out this time, I’d have to start at the same level—I couldn’t jump to level two.

Leaving wouldn’t accomplish anything. But that didn’t mean I had to go in totally blind.

“Austin,” I whisper-shouted across two middle-aged guys with their hands wrapped around their brown bottles. They halted their stilted conversation and leaned back uncomfortably. I leaned with them so as not to be seen by anyone at the other end of the bar. “Austin!”

Austin took a twenty from someone down the way and glanced at me. I gestured him closer.

His saunter looked loose and confident, like he had a line on a horse that was going to make him a millionaire. That, or he knew of a joke that he couldn’t wait to see play out.

I was the joke. I hoped to hell my date wasn’t the punch line.

“What’s he like?” I asked as he came closer, still mostly whispering.

Austin leaned against the bar with one hand, his muscles popping out through his plain shirt. “He’s exactly what you’d expect from online dating.”

I grimaced. I didn’t know what that meant, but I assumed it wasn’t good. “What sort of guy is he?”

“And ruin the surprise?” He winked, that action always upping his level of hotness. I was certain he knew it, just like he understood the impact of his muscle shows. The plain shirt made his very opposite of plainness more noticeable.

I met that wink with a scowl. “He’s not dangerous, right? Nice guy?”

“Not dangerous, no. You would’ve been fine without the magic.” He turned toward the cash register. “Middle of the bar. Blue dress shirt.”

“Good luck,” the guy next to me said, and lifted his beer in a salute. His buddy followed.

“Right, sure, yeah. Thanks.” I stepped back from the bar and cautiously headed to the middle, looking at the backs as I did so. Since this bar was mostly full of magical people, most were in good shape. They might not do much fighting these days—Austin had ensured O’Briens was a safe haven for magical misfits—but they apparently lived in a state of readiness in case their pasts came back to haunt them.

…wide back in black…thin but muscular back in red…toned female back in purple…a little padding covering a powerful body in a very bright orange sweater that would fade after the first wash…

I stopped as I reached the blue dress shirt loosely draped over a much softer body than I remembered from his profile pictures. Gray-white hair created a horseshoe around a balding, shiny head that also did not match the pictures I’d seen, his hair different in both color and plenitude. Large love handles worked to escape the straining brown belt on the gray slacks.

This person did not scream “middle-aged and in great shape” like he’d very clearly identified himself on his dating profile and showed in his—obviously quite dated—profile pictures. I wasn’t expecting a bodybuilder, but “athletic” seemed to mean something different to him than it did to me.

Two seats beyond him, Niamh glanced back at me. Without a word, she shifted back toward the bar. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. Maybe she was just giving me my privacy…for the first time ever.

“Um…” I inched closer, scanning to make sure my date couldn’t be anyone else. No one else wore a blue dress shirt, but maybe Austin had been confused. I could only hope. I inched closer still. “Gary?”

The man straightened up and half turned, revealing loose jowls and a collection of wrinkles. His dull, watery eyes brightened when he saw me, and his gaze did a sweep, similar to Austin’s.

“Oh, wow.” His yellowed smile revealed crooked teeth, yet another discrepancy from his profile. What else hadn’t he mentioned? Knowing how to work a little magic with Photoshop?

He struggled off the stool, his movements stiff. “Hel-lo!” He laughed and moved in for a hug.

“Oh…” I tried not to grimace as his arms encircled me. I patted his back, stiffening.

“You look even better than your picture! You don’t see that very often,” he said with a toothy grin, gesturing to the open stool next to him. “I’m so used to women lying about their weight, you know? They say fit, but…” He gave me a long look as he struggled back into his seat, indicating these women clearly didn’t live up to his expectations. Once seated, he sighed and looked around. “Boy, am I relieved. I figured, since you wanted to meet at a bar—sit at the bar, no less—that you must be one of those women.” He widened his eyes, his brown peepers swimming in white for a moment. He must’ve seen my “confused, bordering on annoyed” expression. “Bar bunnies, you know? The kind at the end of their rope, grasping at straws, desperate for a man…” He laughed. “But that’s not you at all, is it?” His grin said we were sharing a joke of some kind.

I couldn’t even form a response. This madness was coming at me so fast that I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Surely there were a few sarcastic remarks I could’ve fit in there somewhere, but first I had to come to terms with the fact that he’d chosen to talk like this to anyone, let alone to a perfect stranger on a first date.

“But no, look at you,” he said, more seriously, his gaze appreciative. The needle on my creep-o-meter started waggling toward the red zone. “You’re nice and trim. You keep yourself up.” He turned to flag a bartender, waving at Paul, a guy in his mid-twenties who seemed timid for a shifter. “That’s important. So many women your age let themselves go. It’s tragic.”

Still trying to unpack all of this, I stared at him in disbelief. This guy was worried about finding a woman who kept herself up, but he clearly didn’t hold himself to the same standard. What, he expected to find a girlfriend with no tummy and probably great tits while he sported a big tummy and matching tits? Like…who was he trying to kid? Talk about throwing rocks in a glass house. I hoped the shards struck his jugular.

Was it too late to pull that runner?

“She’s just gotten here and already this date has gone tits up,” Niamh said.

So much for respecting my privacy.

“Say the word, and he ends up in an unmarked grave,” the man between Niamh and me, a guy I had never met, said softly, facing straight ahead. Very sly. “I’m good to help, if you want. Say the word. That guy is a joke. You should invite him outside and then ring his bell. Dicks just don’t get it.”

My date’s elevated voice rang out across the bar, authoritative and demanding. He was clearly annoyed he hadn’t already been seen to regardless of the fact that both Paul and Austin were helping other people. Either that, or he was trying to show off for me.

If it was the latter, boy was he in the wrong bar. I didn’t dare warn him, though. I kind of wanted to see how it would all play out, while also wanting to knife myself to escape this horrible foray into dating life.

“Hey,” he barked, “can I have another gin and tonic here, and a…” He turned to me as Paul finished up and hurried over.

“Glass of Pinot Noir,” I murmured.

“Which one?” Paul asked. “We have two now, since you like that kind so much.”

“Oh…” I pulled the wine list to me, looking for the options.

After a silent beat, Gary moved his hand in a circle to hurry me up. “Come on now, don’t take all day. Women!” I glanced up in time to see him rolling his eyes at Paul exaggeratedly. “They can never make up their minds.”

His condescending chuckle drop-kicked something deep inside of me. How many times had I been minimized because of my sex? How many times had a man reduced me to some clichéd version of an indecisive female, or a bad driver, or a hysterical woman, because I didn’t have a penis to swing around and constantly fiddle with? They had always done it as if to say, “Aren’t they all the same? As men, we just have to humor them. It’s our lot in life, sadly. Can’t live with them, can’t kill them, am I right?”

I hated the grating laughter that always seemed to follow. Laughter like this clown was currently exhibiting. It seemed to establish a them versus us mentality, with me on the outside. Me as the lesser.

Fire kindled in my belly.

Grab life by the balls. Raise your voice until you are heard.

Only, I had no idea what to say. I had no idea how to combat something like this, aside from knifing him. I’d always been taught to react to such “jokes” with a silent smile, to act like boys would be boys even though the belittling made me quail inside.