Free Once Upon Stilettos (Enchanted Inc #2) by Shanna Swendson Page B

don’t remember much else. It got blurry after that point. I remember being in a cab, then Ethan carried me out of the cab but woke me up before we had to climb the stairs. One of my roommates made sure he hadn’t taken advantage of my condition, and that was pretty much it.”
    After getting enough catsup out for him, I went to work putting some on my own fries. Now that I thought about it, I was surprised that I hadn’t heard from Ethan since then. He hadn’t had any meetings at MSI, but that hadn’t stopped him from dropping by before. He hadn’t even called me. I knew guys didn’t want to appear too eager by calling too soon, but Ethan hadn’t seemed the type for that. Had I put him off with my drunken belligerence?
    “It sounds better than your last date with him.”
    “And that one was no thanks to you.” My first date with Ethan had been when Rod and Owen tested him for magical immunity. It got rather weird, to put it mildly. “Why can’t I seem to have a social life without work getting in the way?”
    “Unfortunately, this isn’t the kind of job you can get away from. Once you become part of our world, it’s difficult to truly escape from it.”
    “I notice you left that part out of the company recruiting pitch, along with the part where we have to save the world.” He saved himself from having to answer by taking a conveniently timed bite of burger. I picked up a french fry and pushed it around in the pool of catsup on my plate. “That’s the part that takes getting used to, the idea that things I do now really make a difference. In my old job I was lucky if anything I did still mattered a week later.”
    “It’s taking some adjusting for me, too. I always hoped I’d make a difference, of course, but I thought my contribution would be hiding in a lab somewhere doing translations and research. I wasn’t supposed to be on the front lines.”
    So our resident superhero was a reluctant one. That was a sobering realization. “I guess we all do our parts, huh?”
    “We don’t have much choice.”
    After that, we both concentrated on eating for a while. I had a lot to think about. On one level, I hadn’t learned much new about him for my mental fact file other than where he grew up. But on another, it was like I’d gained a whole new insight into his personality.
    “It was an interesting day at work, wasn’t it?” he said after a while.
    “Oh yeah. Was there anything important on those papers?”
    “It was something I was working on directly related to the Idris situation. Now, of course, I’ll have to go a different direction with it.” He shuddered slightly. “I don’t like the idea of someone going through my desk. Not that I have much to hide in there, but still…”
    “It’s your space.”
    He looked me in the eye. “Exactly.” He held my glance for a while. This time, I was the one who had to duck and look away.
    “You know what’s really sad? When my roommates ask me what happened at work today, I’ll have to say, ‘Nothing interesting.’”
    He laughed. “Can you imagine what they’d do if you told them the truth?”
    “They’d think I was making things up so my work wouldn’t sound too boring. I’m not sure I’d believe it if someone told me these stories.”
    “I suppose I’m lucky not to have any relationships outside this world. I seldom have anything to hide.”
    The part of my heart where the crush resided took a victory lap. I hadn’t heard any rumors about him dating anyone at the company, and if he didn’t have any relationships away from work, that meant he wasn’t seeing anyone. Then my brain reminded my heart that he’d said “world,” not “work.” There were magical people who didn’t work at MSI, and he could very well be dating one of them.
    “Maybe you’ve got the right idea, though,” he added thoughtfully. “You’ve got a sense of perspective. This world is all-consuming, and a taste of something normal must help keep you