**Avery**
After my non-date with Clint, I slept fairly well. I dreamed, but I don't remember it, which is a welcomed change. I start my morning routine of showering and getting dressed. I opt for a casual knit dress and my comfortable sneakers. I make my way to the kitchen and the Trio is standing there waiting.
"We waited for you," Clint says.
I am not surprised, after yesterday. These guys might be gods on the football field, but they are rabble in the kitchen. I decided to teach them how to make omelets. They are fairly simple and the guys can stuff them with whatever ingredients they want. While I am doing the eggs, I have them chopping their fillings. I grab spinach for mine, and hand it to Clint to wash and chop. I have them crowd around me, so that I can show them how to add the egg, when it is ready for the ingredients, and when it needs to be flipped. They watch me as if I were an expert surgeon.
Their positive attention was nice, even if I felt a bit uncomfortable under their gazes. Cooking is one of my escapes, and I am very good at it. Maybe I will study culinary science when I go to college. After breakfast, we left for school. I started walking until a black Jaguar pulled up beside me.
"Get in," Cassius ordered, as he pushed open the passenger door.
I roll my eyes because I doubt that the Hags will try something again. They showed me their claws and I lived. What are they going to do now, call me names? It is not like I have not been called vile things before. I just hope that none of them are the Trio's mates, because I would demand that I be relieved of my services. I would die before I served them!
"If you do not get in, I will come and put you in," Cassius says, as I catch the red flakes in his tepid blue eyes.
"Asher, is that how you ask a lady to ride with you?"
Cassius shakes his head, as his eyes twinkle a mix of red and blue. They almost turn purple. I have never noticed that before. Maybe it was because I always tried to keep my head down, but facing death changes a person. "Avery, will you please get in?" He asks.
I giggle inside at my small victory. Once I was inside, he fastened my seatbelt and started to drive. I look over at him, "Friendship 101, never command your friends. Offer suggestions instead. Trust me on this."
He chuckles, which makes my stomach flutter, before he asks, "Friendship 101, huh? Just how many are in this class?"
I blush, "It was just Trisha, and now I guess, you and your brothers."
He looks over at me, "I have never seen her with you. Why?"
"The Hoity Hags targeted her, back when I was mentoring her, so we have kept our friendship a secret ever since. She's the one that lent me a change of clothes last week."
"Then invite her to the palace next week for dinner. You do eat with your friends, don't you?" he joked.
I slapped his arm, only to jerk my hand back, and place it in my lap, "You are almost as much of an ass as Asher."
Cassius chuckles, "It is why he chose me, I guess. But he's not that bad, Avery. The death of our parents changed us all, plus he is very irritable without his mate. It is hard to explain."
I sigh. "Okay, but you said he chose you. Aren't you born with your dragon like other shifters are?"
He pulls over. "Some of us are born with our dragon and must share a singular body. Think of it like a molecule. Some bonds are easily broken, whereas others cannot be. For royal dragons it is different. A human is born and a dragon hatches from an egg. They must choose and bond with each other and then they are like my brothers and me where we can exist separate from our dragon for a decent length of time, but eventually, we must come back together. That is why you rarely see a lone dragon; they usually die without a suitable human vessel."
I never knew this, but now it does make some sense. He started driving again after I nodded to his explanation. But then I noticed that we weren't driving towards school. "This isn't the way to school."
He grins, "You are right. It is not."
"Take me to school."
"No. I got us excused for the day. I asked if you wanted to hang out and that's what we are going to do," he says.
"I can't miss class."
"Nerd alert," he teases.
"Takes one to know one, considering you just used a biochemistry reference."
We both laughed as he continued to drive. I fiddled with his radio until I found a pop music station. I got lost in the happy beats.
**Cassius**
This might have been the best idea that I have ever had. Clint was right. This Avery is different, and I like it. As long as she doesn't undermine me in public, I can let her get her digs in, in private. As we near the beach, I watch her face light up. She looks like an angel. I can't believe I once tried to strip her of her wings.
"The beach? I don't have a swimsuit, and I barely know how to swim," she says in a mix of awe and panic.
"Relax, I have it covered." I parked in front of a beach supply store. In the human world, they have a store for everything. I once discovered a store that only sold items suitable for left-handed people which I found weirdly crazy. Once we were inside the store, I told her to go find a swimsuit, coverup, change of clothes, and anything else that she thought she might need for the beach. She stared at me for a few moments, before she did as instructed.
Wearing my new swim trunks, I waited for her outside of the women's dressing rooms. She emerged wearing a blue tankini with boy shorts. Part of me hoped that she would choose a bikini, but she isn't like other girls. Avery has scars, lots of them, that even Enya's magic couldn't entirely heal; she faded most of them, except those claw marks on her back. I walked up to her and yanked the price tags off. "Good, let me go pay, and then we can have our beach day." I picked up the other items she had stacked outside of the dressing room, and went to pay for it all. It didn't cost as much as I expected, then I looked at a beach towel and knew why. She only selected items from the clearance rack. I inwardly chuckled, because when she finds her person, they will have fun breaking her of that habit.