Tristian: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Blackbeary Creek Book 2) by Ruby Shae

Chapter One
     
    “So, you’re a librarian?”
    Scarlett Morrison resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and instead smiled at her date and nodded. Considering the guy had asked her out in the library, after she’d helped him find a book on Dachshund puppies, her occupation had seemed obvious.
    I am such an idiot!
    And so was her date.
    You’d think she would have learned her lesson after five years on the job, but apparently not.
    Good looking men visited the library all the time for various reasons—usually to study for work or school—but every now and then, an attractive, seemingly decent man gets the crazy idea to bang a librarian, and she falls for it nearly damn every time.
    Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
    He probably doesn’t even have a puppy .
    The truth was, she knew he didn’t. She was so desperate to find someone who shared her interests, she gave almost every man a chance. Unfortunately, it always ended the same way.
    At least this one was honest.
    “Don’t you get bored looking at books all day?”
    “No, actually, I don’t,” she replied, calmly. “I find books fascinating, and I love my job.”
    “Oh,” he said, clearly shocked. “Well what do you do for fun?”
    “Usually, I read, but I also like watching movies and hanging out at home.”
    “Oh, come on,” he chided. “You can drop the boring librarian act.”
    “What do you mean?” she asked.
    “ I love books … books books books … I read all the time, blah blah blah,” he mocked. “It’s only you and me here, Scar. You can tell me the truth. You have to have a better story than that.”
    Inwardly, Scarlett cringed at the shortened version of her name. She hated nicknames, but she hated them more when people tried to create one out of her name. She wasn’t the villain in a popular animated children’s film, and that was the only time she found the name Scar even remotely acceptable.
    “I don’t,” she shrugged. “Sorry.”
    She wasn’t, but what else could she say? The guy was a fucking idiot.
    “Bummer,” he sulked.
    Oh Lord. He literally stuck out his lower lip and pouted.
    “With a name like Scarlett Morrison, I thought you’d moonlight as a stripper, or be a closet party girl or something. Kind of like a librarian-gone-wild.” 
    “Nope,” she shook her head. “This is me. What you see is what you get.”
    “Damn,” he bristled. “Any chance you want to change your persona for tonight and go wild on my dick in the bathroom?”
    “Um…no,” she said, not bothering to hide her look of disgust.
    “Well, fuck,” he said. “It figures I’d get stuck with the boring, fat, giant who actually likes her job. This obviously isn’t going to work out.”
    Well, duh!
    “Obviously,” she agreed.
    “Bye,” he said, sliding out of the booth. Scarlett didn’t reply, and as he walked away, she heard him call over his shoulder. “Thanks for wasting my time.”
    Ditto, asshole.
    Luckily, they’d opted for coffee, not dinner, and he’d paid for their drinks at the beginning of the date when he thought he’d be seeing her naked later. Another plus? She’d elected to meet him at the coffee house, so she still had a ride home.
    As much as she’d like to pretend she wasn’t an expert on dating losers—whether or not she met them at work—she couldn’t. Unfortunately, the story was always the same: at the end of the night, she was still the lonely, boring, tall, fat chick that repelled men faster than a skunk with its tail in the air.
    Why was it so hard to meet a man that shared her same interests? Or even a friend for that matter?
    The truth was simple.
    No one wanted a boring homebody as a friend, or a girlfriend.
    Honestly, her date would’ve had more success if he’d asked out one of her coworkers, and it wasn’t the first time. She liked to have fun, but she didn’t sleep around, and drinking and partying all night weren’t really her scene.
    Still, she wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet.
    Thanks to the