A Harvey Wallbanger was four parts orange juice, one and a half parts vodka, and half a part Galliano L’Autentico. It was all parts delicious as far as Penny was concerned, and it was the thing she’d miss most when the end of the world came. Luckily Chester, the old wolf bartender, knew how to make them just right. She took a sip wishing she could actually get drunk off this stuff, but her werecoyote metabolism was too fast for alcohol to do much more than give her an extremely short lived buzz.
It’d have to do. Anything to get her mind off the doctor’s office server upgrades. She was tired of problems with SQL code, routers and administration clients, all of which had some quirk or another that were making what should be a smooth transition out of nineties era technology nothing but a nightmare. Not that it mattered, because when zombies took over the world after a biological warfare attack, figuring out how to get to the patient charts on Dr. Williams’ computers would be the least of everyone’s concerns.
She took another drink as she watched Chester work, not caring even a tiny bit about how pathetic she looked sitting at the bar all by herself. Not… one… bit.
“Hey Chester.”
He looked her way and cocked his untamed, bushy eyebrows, shuffling closer as she leaned forward.
She lowered her voice and said, “Something big going on in wolf land? Some of you guys have been acting weird lately.”
He scowled. “Penny, you know better than to get nosy about other animals’ business.”
She frowned. Chester always was a do gooder.
“But I tell you what, I feel it too.”
That got her heart going. “Yeah? Tell me more!”
And just when she was hoping for a juicy bit of gossip, the eternally-single-even-though-he-was-gorgeous Alpha Jaguar, who was just a little too old for her, plopped his laptop down between them. She groaned at the sight of it.
“Please don’t tell me you got another virus.”
“I think I have a virus.”
“Agh! Zach, what did I tell you about those porn sites you visit? You need to stop. There are plenty of legit sites out there, though I don’t get why you watch that stuff anyway. It’s not like you don’t have women hanging all over you.”
He got a cocky smirk and barely even had to look Chester’s way for a drink to be put in his hand. He took a sip of what smelled like the bitter sweet scent of whiskey. “Just fix it please. You know you’re good at it.”
“So are other people. Why don’t you bring it up to the office for someone else to work on? Why do I always have to do it?”
“I can’t trust them with my porn!”
“But you can trust me with it?” She wanted to smack the instant condescending look off his face. “What, you think I’m celibate or something?”
He took another drink, his jerky smile still plastered to his ugly mug.
She grumbled, “Not on purpose, jackass.”
He quietly chuckled. “I know. Not on purpose. Just fix it, will you?”
“Did you disinfect it?”
“I don’t watch porn on it. I have a TV for that.”
She cringed and covered her ears. “Right. Don’t tell me any more.”
He pointed to the laptop and looked a question at her. “So, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Of course she’d fix the stupid thing because it never hurt to be friends with an alpha, let alone someone as in the know as Zach was. And she wasn’t above hunting and pecking around on his computer to see if she could find out anything exciting about this place. He either didn’t care about her nosiness or didn’t keep anything important stored on his hard drive. Probably the latter.
She pulled the laptop closer and opened it up, not believing for one minute he didn’t watch porn on it. She knew he did because she’d seen his search history the last time he got a virus. No porn sites in his most recent history, though. Just a bazillion visits to social media sites. If people gathered anywhere online, Zach was part of the group no matter how obscure the topic.
“Seriously. Why do you watch porn anyway? You can pick almost any woman here and get a little some-some anytime you want.” Not that she really cared. She was done with serious relationships. They didn’t suit her, or at least the guys she’d been dating didn’t. Either way, she was done.
He didn’t look at her as he took another sip of whiskey, and she got the distinct impression he was avoiding her question.
She curiously asked, “What’s your type anyway? Your real type? The type that gets your heart pounding?”
He mocked surprise. “My type? I thought you knew. I love all women.” His fake smile irritated her. She’d thought they were friends, but more and more she realized how good he was at cozying up and getting people to open up to him without ever actually revealing his true self in return.
He leaned conspiratorially closer. “What’s your true type? Those end of the world survivalists you like to hang out with? Or is it the tech nerds you secretly fantasize about? All numbers and codes and being quick typers.” He smirked as he pretended to type on the countertop, making a couple naughty gestures as he did.
His joking was almost funny, except that her pride still hadn’t recovered after being dumped a couple months ago by a guy from her apocalypse survival group for a prettier, nicer, and much more polished woman. Her temper blossomed bright and hot inside her at the reminder, but before she could give Zach a piece of her mind, he startled and pulled his phone out of his back pocket. A small frown crinkled his brow as he looked at it, and her curiosity at finally seeing a real emotion from him overrode her irritation as she cocked her head to peer at his screen. He turned smoothly away from her at the exact same time, then turned the phone off and slid it back in his pocket.
With movements that almost looked choreographed, he knocked back his drink, then swiveled off his stool with over exaggerated panache. The jaguars were all incredibly graceful, but Zach was the only one she knew of that actually made fun of his otherworldly sleekness. “See you later, Penny.”
“Where are you going?”
“Pack business. If I told you I’d have to bite you.”
“Har har.”
“You’ll fix my computer?”
“Yeah, sure. Might take a day or two though.”
“Great. I’ll pick it up in the morning.”
He was gone before she could tell him where to shove it, though it wasn’t like she had anything more exciting to do tonight. Chester was busy stocking and cleaning the bar, so she put her headphones on to drown out the boring conversations of the people around her and got lost in the thrilling wonders of malware and computer viruses.