2. Brooklyn

Chapter 2

Brooklyn

"Why do you look like somebody just kicked your puppy?" Mark, my former roommate turned neighbor, asked.

"What?" I kept staring at the card in my hand, the one asking me to RSVP.

"You. Puppy. Kick?"

I looked up and stared at him, my mind traveling a path from yesteryear, a path I never wanted to be on.

"What's up?"

I was so not wanting to talk about it. Mark hadn't been in my life when shit hit the fan shortly after my 25th birthday. I was finishing up grad school, and he was already out in the "real world" working as a teacher. Instead of explaining, I handed him the invitation.

When I went through the mail, I was looking to see if there were any sales fliers for the local grocery story. Yeah, I had become that guy, the one who sat down and meal planned and made a grocery list. Basically I was my father. There were far worse things.

The sales paper was in there, but there was also a hand-addressed card. I recognized the writing immediately, and had I any sense at all, I'd have simply tossed it in the garbage. But no. I had to go and open—open the effing wedding invitation.

"Oh," Mark looked back at the card, mouthing the words as he read them. "It's a no, right? You're not going?"

"Of course I'm not going." At least I didn't think I was. I hadn't fully decided.

Mark, being freaking made of awesome, decided for me. He ripped it into pieces to make sure I wasn't able to RSVP, which honestly was exactly what I needed.

Perry getting married shouldn't have impacted me at all. He wasn't my mate, but still, it hurt seeing the invitation. Not that anything about that situation hadn't hurt. He might not have been the one, but he was the omega who I foolishly thought might be. I spent years with him, sure that my dragon would recognize him as mine. My first shift put a quick end to that. My dragon was all nope. Not ours.

In hindsight, it was the best thing ever. I hadn't even been able to tell Perry we should part ways when I walked in on him and I didn't even know who. In my head I called him "Hairy Ass" because that was all I saw of him before I fled.

Perry apologized, begged me to take him back, told me it was a mistake. But was it? He might not have been a shifter, but if he was willing to sleep around, that meant he felt it too—we weren't forever. It still sucked. I wasn't the kind of guy who needed to be the one to "end things," but knowing that even when we were together he was happy with another alpha's knot? Yeah, that stung.

"And done." He tossed it into the rubbish. "Why don't we go hit the bar?"

Last thing I needed to do was go get a drink. I shook my head.

"Or we could go for a shift?"

"Yeah, letting out my wings sounds amazing."

Unlike me, Mark's beast stayed on the ground. His bear was strong and fast, but he could barely jump. My dragon didn't care. Our beasts always had fun shifting together.

"We're stopping for burgers along the way, right?" That explained why he mentioned grabbing a drink. It was BOGO slider night at our favorite hangout.

"Burgers? Oh yeah, that totally works for me."

Mark and I met in an online forum looking for roommates. At the time, I thought, "Oh, I need to rent a room, save some money, and he seems fine." To my surprise, we ended up being really good friends. This wasn't the life I'd planned when I went to grad school and Perry went back to our hometown to start working, but it was a pretty good one… most days.

We went through the drive-thru and grabbed some burgers on the way to the mountains, eating them in the car. One thing both our beasts agreed on was where to shift. His bear loved the water and fishing and mine loved the privacy to fly.

I spent the entire drive there convincing Mark that I was fine and that I wasn't upset that Perry was getting married. And really, I was. Marriage had never been my goal. Finding my true mate had been. But ever since I walked in on Perry being railed by Hairy Ass, I kinda gave up on that dream.

It was fine.

Truly.

I had a good place to live, a great job, and a best friend. What more did I need?

A mate. But that ship had probably sailed. I'd spent so much time convincing myself I had the one, that I didn't bother to look around me. That was my own stupid fault.

Today hadn't hurt because he was the one that got away or because I was jealous of the person he was banging when he was with me or because he found his forever. It hurt because he was taking the next step, and I was as stagnant as I'd been since that night.

Mark parked the car at the end of a small path. If someone had been coming in the opposite direction, we'd have had to back all the way out. But so far, that had never happened. We'd alway been the only ones.

"Wanna swim before you take to the air?"

"Yeah." My dragon loved to be in the water. It wasn't the norm. None of the people in my flight were really into that. But even in human form, I enjoyed swimming and was on the swim team in college. Even if I wasn't a fan, I'd have said yes, though. I needed some time not in my head, and Mark was giving that to me. I owed him.

We walked to the lake and shucked our clothing. He took his fur first and dove into the lake. For a bear as big as he was, he was agile. I took my scales and bounded in with my wings close to my body. I was not the best swimmer in this form. Not even close. But I was tall enough to jump around and have fun.

Mark's bear loved to fish, and as I fluttered around the water, he was busy fishing. When we'd first shifted together, I stayed perfectly still in the water. I'd seen a documentary in school where the bears were like statues until they struck the water and thought I was doing him a favor. He called my school learning bologna and said me scaring the fish helped him. I wasn't sure how true that was, but he always seemed to catch them, so I wasn't going to argue.

Mark tossed me a few fish, eating some of his own as well. My dragon loved fish and thought his bear was the coolest animal ever. More than once I wished we had a romantic connection, but it wasn't there. Our beasts didn't sense it. We didn't sense it. Not even our nosy neighbor who used to constantly try to set us up didn't sense it. We were friends. Full stop.

After our snack and some splashing around, we got out of the water. Mark went for a run, and I took to the air.

I circled the area, my beast full and not in the mood to hunt, which was fine. Instead we took in the view as we wove through the trees. My dragon enjoyed his time in the air and time quickly got away from us. When we finally landed on the ground, Mark was not only shifted back to his skin, but was already in his clothes sitting on the ground with his phone, tapping away.

"Sorry, man, I just got distracted."

"Yep, and I know just the thing to un-distract you."

"Explain."

He did, by handing me his phone, across the top it said Love and Hate.

"Is this a dating app?" That was the last thing I needed.

"One for guys like us."

"Single guys? Isn't that why apps exist?" Although as soon as I said it, I heard how wrong that notion was. There were tons of apps designed for hookups.

"No, dragon breath." He waved a hand in front of his face. He always said my breath was stinky after I shifted.

"Then who, bear butt?" We always called one another names. "Lonely guys?"

"No, dragon head… shifters. It's for shifters."

"Dragon head? That's not even an insult." He had to do better.

He shrugged.

"I'm not looking to date."

"Well, what are you looking to do? Be depressed every time one of your exes gets married, which by the way, you don't want to do anyway… the get-married part."

Which was true. If I was going to be with a guy forever, I was going to be with a mate, not a husband.

"Perry is my only ex." Perry had been my only boyfriend. I put all my eggs in that basket.

Mark stared at me.

"Fine. I'll think about it," I said and tossed the phone back to him. "Happy now?"

"Nope. But I will be when you download the app."

Halfway down the road, I made him happy.