Drake went into the garage and smiled at the guy working out front. “Hey, Drake. Your old man’s inside.”
“Thanks.”
Drake went through the door to the inside of the garage. He paused, watching where he was stepping to make sure he didn’t fall into a pit. He heard his father’s voice, “Okay, cut it.” The sound of a car running stopped abruptly.
He found his father with his head under the hood of a Camero, tinkering inside there. The tech came out of the car, coming around to the front. “How did you do that?”
“This,” he pulled out a rotten cable from his hand. “You forgot to look underneath the battery.”
The tech ran his hand through his hair, a nervous and disgusted gesture. Drake looked away, kicking at some non-existent stuff on the concrete floor.
“Replace that and you should be all set – Drake!”
Drake looked up as his father came over to him, and gave him a manly hug. To Drake, he smelled of cedar, but to the men he would smell of motor oil and harsh soap. “How the hell are ya?”
“Okay.”
“Break from school?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. We’ve got some things to talk about. Want to go to lunch?”
It was 11:30, close enough for lunch. But then, his father owned the garage, so he could take a lunch whenever he wanted.
“Sure, I’ll do lunch if you’re buying.”
Drake’s father put an arm around Drake’s shoulders and hugged him from the side. “Good. Pattie will be happy to see you.” He turned to the mechanics. “Going to lunch.”
“Right, Don,” said one of the guys.
His father washed up. He was a big, broad man, all shoulders and barrel chest, with brown almost red hair and green fiery eyes. He hadn’t aged since he opened the garage in 1932, but he was considered the son of the original owner. It just so happened that they looked so much alike.
The only person who noticed was Pattie, and she kept it quiet for years. As a reward, he would frequent her sandwich shop three doors down. It was here that Don first exposed Drake, who had the brightest, bluest eyes she had ever seen. Drake was trying to perfect his magical ability, but kept the blue eyes and long black eyelashes that made Pattie almost swoon with delight. “If I was twenty years younger,” she’d always say, and Drake would blush.
They walked to her sandwich shop, chattering about school. Drake told him that he had switched his major from Sociology to Liberal Arts. “Most people taking Soch classes are going into psychology,” he said to his father as he opened the door for Drake to go into the shop.
Pattie was busy behind the counter but leapt up when she saw Drake come in. “Oh, Drake, honey, how’ve you been?” She kissed him, Continental style, and he blushed.
“He was just telling me how he’s been,” said Don, sliding into a booth. Drake blinked. Usually they sat at the counter. But then, he had said he needed to talk to him. He slid across from his father.
Pattie gave him a chocolate milk. Although he had outgrown it years ago, it was still pleasant to know that she remembered what he used to like. The chocolate milk here was full-fat milk from local cows, and the freshest and thickest he’d ever had. He sipped while his father got a soda for himself.
“A few minutes?” Pattie asked, giving a menu to Drake.
“Hamburger,” said Drake. “Rare, with mustard and grilled onions.” When he said rare, he meant half-raw, and Pattie knew it. She looked to Don.
“Two.”
“Good. Ray! Two freshly killed cows on a bun!”
Don sipped his soda and slipped into Draconic, which sounded like an Eastern European language coming from him. “Now, about that talk.”
“You want me to finish school.”
He shook his head. “Go to school for the next hundred years, as far as I’m concerned. No. It’s something more important than that.”
Drake sipped his milk.
“You need to find a mate.”
“Dad, I–”
“I know you like human males. That’s not what I meant. You need to find a female dragon to mate with.”
“Dad, you said that dragons mate for life.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have your men on the side.”
“What will she think?”
“She’ll probably have her men on the side as well.”
Drake put his hands flat on the table. “Dad, can’t you wait for my brother Kin to get older?”
“You want to mate with a human for life?”
“I believe in love.”
His father chuckled. “I would say to you, ‘There’s no such thing’ but I did find it with your mother. Humans are so…fragile. You’ll be disappointed if you mate with them for the span of their lives, because they grow old and die much more quickly than we do.”
Drake said nothing. They were fragile, and fickle, and lived their lives thoroughly. The men he’d had sex with, he felt something toward them, something like love, maybe; caring at the very least. It hurt when Henrik left him. Johnny was there, but not as often as he would have liked; and there were other men he’d want to have sex with as well.
“There are two daughters of a nice, strong Italian family.”
“Italian!”
“Which means at some point, you will have to go to Italy.”
“My Italian,” he switched to it, “is corroded.”
His father grinned and also switched to it. “It’s like riding a bike, my son. You learn it and you don’t forget it. At least you won’t be calling her a car or a bannister.”
Pattie arrived with their food. “What’re you two talking in?”
“Italian,” said his father.
Pattie shook her head. “You never cease to amaze me, Don. Eat up.”
Drake went back into Draconic. “When am I supposed to do this?”
“Your senior year. That’s what…next year?”
“You want me to be an exchange student?”
“It’s what you want to be. If you want to be a student there, that’s fine. If you want to be a wandering minstrel, that’s fine too. But you have the reputation of Ire to uphold.”
Drake frowned.
“In the meantime, sow your wild oats. Then go to Italy and pick one of the two girls there to mate with. Or mate with both. It’s up to you to continue the line.”
“What about Kin?”
“Talk to me in a hundred years about Kin. Right now, it’s you.” He took a bite of his burger. “Don’t blow it,” he said in English, ending the conversation.