After Dante left, I padded to my room and flopped on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Well that had been less than satisfying. I couldn’t talk to Dante about my troubles, it seemed. He was my brother, but he was also a dragon. These feelings were as alien to him as they were to me. Strange as it sounded, I needed someone who really understood what I was going through. I needed a human.

I needed…a friend.

Rolling over, I dug out my phone, and scrolled to a familiar name on my contacts list.

“Hey, Lex,” I sighed when she picked up. “Are you busy?”

“Ohmygod, Ember!” came the voice on the other end. “No, of course not. Meet me at the Smoothie Hut in fifteen. You still have to tell me everything that happened with hottie Garret!”

“Yeah,” I muttered, as my stomach twirled again with the memory. “I’ll be right there.”

Twenty minutes later, I sat at one of the outdoor picnic tables, two smoothies melting on the table, as Lexi slid into the seat across from me with an eager look.

“Well?” she said by way of greeting, snatching one of the Styrofoam cups, clamping down on the straw like she wanted to bite it in half. “I’m mad at you, Em,” she announced without waiting for a reply. “You have me pick you up and drive you to the cove to meet Garret, and then you don’t even call to tell me how it went. I’ve been sitting on pins and needles for hours. So come on, Em. Spill…” she knocked on the table. “You and Garret were in the cove by yourselves, all afternoon. What happened? Anything fun?” She leaned in, smiling like a conspirator. “Did you show him how to skinny dip?”

“What? No!” I made a face at her, feeling my cheeks redden. “Get your brain out of the sewer, gutter snipe. Nothing like that happened.”

“But something happened, right?” Lexi watched me carefully, searching my face for the truth. Suddenly self conscious, I shrugged, and she frowned. “Ember, please. I saw you two at the mall yesterday.

I know there’s something there. As my best friend, you are obligated to tell me everything in your life that deals with or around gorgeous boys. That’s part of the deal.”

“I don’t remember signing that contract,” I mumbled.

“Read the fine print, darling. Did he kiss you?”

My pulse jumped, but I shook my head. “No.”

“Did you kiss him?”

“…um.”

Lexi shrieked. I shushed her, frowning, and she lowered her voice, grinning like a loon. “I knew it! I knew there was something between you two.” She regarded me triumphantly. “Say it! Say I was right.”

“All right, yes! Fine, I kissed him. You were right.”

“Thank you. See, that wasn’t hard.” Lexi smiled sagely, and settled back to hear the rest of it. “So, what happened after you kissed him?”

“Nothing.” Now that I’d confessed, I couldn’t keep the sadness from my voice, the regret of what had followed. “I guess I freaked out a little. I had him take me home after that. We didn’t even talk.”

Sighing, I picked moodily at the table. “I called you just a few minutes after he dropped me off. He probably hates me now, or at least thinks I’m an absolute freak.”

“I seriously doubt that.” When I didn’t answer, she drummed her fingers on the wood, impatient. “You are going to see him again, right? Tell me you’re going to see him again.”

“I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know? You like him, don’t you?”

“I…” I hesitated, thinking. I was a dragon; we weren’t supposed to have these kinds of feelings. But, whenever I thought of Garret, something was definitely there. What did attraction feel like, anyway?

Was it grinning every time you heard his voice, or feeling breathless whenever he turned his gaze on you? Was it wanting to see his smile, to hear his laughter because you knew something you said made him happy? I’d never felt anything like this before, that sense of just wanting to be near someone, to be close. And if that was the case…”I guess…I do.”

I liked Garret. A human.

Lexi nodded. “And he likes you, too. Don’t give me that doubting look, Em. Trust me, I’ve seen it before, and the boy has it bad.

Why do you think he keeps showing up and hanging around?” she leaned back and grinned, confident in her analysis. “He’s completely smitten with you.”

Strangely, that thought made my stomach flutter. That someone like Garret could return my feelings…But this was so new. I never expected I could feel like this. I wasn’t supposed to feel like this, not according to Talon.

Glancing at Lexi, I gave her a pleading look, my voice coming out kind of desperate. “So, what am I supposed to do now?”

“Oh, Ember.” Lexi patted my arm with a confident smile, sixteen years of human experience shining through. “That’s easy. when you see him again, you pick up where you left off. And you don’t run away this time.”

“It might be too late for that,” I sighed, putting my chin in my hands, suddenly morose. “I have no idea where he is. I didn’t even get a phone number or an email.” Ironic, really, that my first real step as a human was also the thing that had driven him away. And now, I was dejected. Over a boy. Was this why dragons weren’t supposed to have human emotions? They made everything so complicated.