Ten

Dustin

My landlord was a nice guy. When I first moved to the city, he'd rented me this apartment for cash, even though I hadn't had a steady job back then. I still paid in cash because it was easier, and the man had never bothered me otherwise.

I had a feeling all that goodness was going to be cashed in now.

"Hey, Mr. Grant. What's up?" I asked as casually as I could, leaning against the doorframe so he wouldn't try to come inside. I had no idea where Khush had gone to hide, but I didn't want to risk him getting spotted.

"Hey, Dustin. There's something I wanted to talk to you about."

"What is it?"

"Well, my cousin is moving to town, and he needs a place to stay," Mr. Grant said, proving my intuition right.

"And you want to give him my place?" I asked, and he winced.

"Sorry, kiddo, but the others all have lease agreements, so you're my only option. You still have ten days until rent day, but I'm gonna need the apartment after that."

The worst part was that he truly looked apologetic, so I couldn't even get mad at him. Sighing, I ran my palm over my face. I guess I'd need to do some apartment hunting now. So much for things finally going my way for once.

"Okay, I'll be out of here in time. Thanks for the heads-up, I guess," I said with a wry smile, and he nodded.

Then his eyes slid past me, and his brows shot up.

"Is your cat trying to eat a snake?" he asked, and I whipped around, my eyes widening as I saw Scrappy wrestling with a snake colored a familiar shade of green. Oh right. Khush had mentioned he could shift into a snake.

"Shit! I need to go," I said, closing the door in Mr. Grant's face.

Running to Scrappy and Khush, I fell to my knees and separated the two, shaking my head.

"Khush, it's safe now. You can shift back," I said, then shot Scrappy a glare.

"Were you trying to eat my boyfriend, young lady?" I asked, and while Scrappy just gazed up at me with her black-hole eyes, Khush snorted, telling me he was back in his usual form.

"She wasn't trying to eat me. We were just playing around. She likes me," he reminded me, and I scowled.

"Yeah, I can see that."

"Sorry, I didn't realize we were in view."

"It's okay. I'll just tell him I have a pet snake if he asks," I said with a smirk, making him hiss softly. It sounded more like an amused hiss than an angry one, though.

We were silent for a moment, and then Khush turned to face me, his yellow-brown eyes boring into mine. "So, you have to move out?"

"Yeah. I'll have to look for a new apartment. Fingers crossed I find something in my budget."

"Or…" Khush started before trailing off, and I raised a brow at him.

"My human friends told me not to mention it, but since you're moving out, I thought I'd offer up the option: you could move in with me." Khush looked completely serious as he said it, and I blinked at him, stunned.

"You want me to?"

"More than anything. I know it's pretty fucking fast, but you're my mate, and I know in my heart that we're going to be together for the rest of our lives. So I don't understand why it matters if we move in together now instead of a few months later, but if that's what you need, I'm okay with that too."

I stared at Khush, this unbelievably amazing man I'd somehow ended up with. He'd turned my world upside down in the few short weeks I'd known him, and like he'd said, I had a feeling I'd be spending my life with him too.

In all my previous relationships, my partner had reprimanded me or straight-up broken up with me whenever I started rushing too much, but for the first time, I'd found someone who was just as sure of our relationship as me. Someone who was willing to rush things because he felt it was the right thing to do too.

I gazed up at Khush, at his warm yellow-brown eyes, and found myself kneeling up so I could slide my fingers into his hair, pull him close, and press our lips together.

Khush gasped softly against my lips, and I kissed him more firmly, caressing his soft lips with mine. A stray thought fluttered through my head that I should've asked him if he was venomous, but it disappeared in the next moment as our kiss deepened.

Khush wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close, and I could feel every dip and bump in his muscular form. Watching him move around a tree had shown me exactly how he'd gotten those muscles, and it somehow made him sexier.

"Okay," I gasped out, pulling back when I realized my lungs were not very happy with me.

I discovered that at some point Khush had wrapped his tail around my legs, and he pulled it back as I glanced down. I liked having him wrapped around me, though. It made me feel closer to him, and not just physically.

"Okay as in you'll move in with me?"

That wasn't what I'd meant at all, but when I looked into Khush's eyes and saw the unabashed hope in them, I couldn't bring myself to say no.

Not that I really wanted to, if I was being honest. It was just that scared part of me, the 'once bitten, twice shy' part, that warned me against going too fast again. But I knew this time would be different, and not just because Khush was my soulmate.

"Yeah, I'll move in with you," I said, and the smile on his face was brighter than ever before. For that smile, I would do just about anything.

Khush

My resolve to let Dustin set the pace didn't last very long, but I got him to agree to move in, so I didn't care. I might not have known as much about humans as Touya or Bellamy, but I thought I understood Dustin. He didn't care about following some predetermined plan of how a relationship should be, and he was happy to do things our way. As long as the two of us were happy, it shouldn't matter if we were moving in together after two weeks or two years, right?

After saying yes, Dustin kissed me again. I could spend hours just kissing him, familiarizing myself with every millimeter of his lips, his tongue, his mouth. He was warm and soft and firm against me, and I wanted to keep holding him for as long as I could.

I'd kissed people before, but it'd never felt so right, or easy. Kissing Dustin felt like that first breath of fresh air after being locked in a room for days. It tasted sweet, like a ripe apple you'd just plucked from the branches.

Dustin pulled back from the kiss, and I almost chased after his lips before remembering he needed to breathe. Since I didn't seem to be able to stay away, I turned my focus to his neck, pressing soft kisses there and using my tongue to soak in his fresh, sweet scent. He smelled like flowers and spice, and I wanted to cover myself in his scent.

"Do you want to play some more games?" Dustin asked, his voice a tad breathless, and I debated saying no and continuing my exploration, but this was something I did not want to rush. I made myself pull back and look into his eyes, almost losing myself in him and forgetting what he'd asked me.

"Uh, yeah, sure," I answered finally, and Dustin smirked as he straightened up, untangling himself from me.

Standing up, he walked over to the consoles we'd abandoned when his landlord showed up, and picked them up, and I resumed my previous position in front of the screen.

"Wait, let me grab us some snacks. Anything you don't eat?"

"Garlic," I said, my nose wrinkling at just the thought of the smelly vegetable.

Dustin chuckled softly, then gave me a playful salute. "No garlic, got it."

He headed toward the other side of the room, and I realized that was where his kitchen was. I hadn't noticed it before, too caught up with Dustin and his cat to notice just how small his place was.

It was clear that Dustin took great care of his home, but it was still too small for him. Dustin deserved to live somewhere that was as large as his personality, a place he could fill with color and the little figurines that were crowded on the shelf above his television. A place where he could build a small castle for his cat if he wanted to.

I'd make sure he could do all that and more at the Sanctuary. Dustin had a week at his apartment still. Maybe I'd get Silas and some of the others to help me expand my cabin a little. I hadn't used it much until now, but if Dustin was going to move in with me, I wanted it to be a home he felt comfortable in.

Dustin came back with a tray full of bowls of snacks, the packaged kind we rarely had at the Sanctuary. Headmaster Morrigan and Touya were both healthy food enthusiasts, and since they did most of the grocery shopping—other than the stuff we grew at the Sanctuary, that was—it wasn't easy to get unhealthy contraband through the Sanctuary doors. It'd gotten a little easier since Bellamy arrived, since he could be bribed into getting some things not on the list (he also had to feed his mate's ramen appetite, so he didn't complain too much) every once in a while.

"Is this okay?" he asked with a raised brow, and I nodded quickly, making him grin.

"Big fan of potato chips and cheese puffs?" he asked as he settled on my tail once more. I was never a touchy-feely type of person, but I liked having Dustin close. Feeling his warmth against me brought me comfort unlike anyone else's touch, and I wondered if it was our mate bond at work, strengthening our connection.

"Can't get enough of them," I agreed, and he chuckled as he held a bowl of chips up to me.

Grabbing a handful, I plopped them into my mouth as Dustin used my momentary distraction to start the game and grab a lead.

"Hey!" I protested as I punched the button on my controller, racing my car as fast as I could in an attempt to overtake him.

After playing the racing game for a while, we switched to a fantasy one with a storyline and quests. It was a game I'd seen before. A while back, I'd gotten into the habit of watching video game streams, even though I'd never played one until now, and there was one streamer in particular I enjoyed the videos of. He played this game a lot, which was why I was not complete shit at it. I told Dustin as much, at which point he paused the game to shoot me a surprised look.

"Wait, are you talking about Quest?"

I blinked, surprised he knew the streamer too. Then again, he was an actual gamer, so he had much more reason to be watching him than me.

"Yeah. His videos are pretty fun."

"Aren't they? He's actually my best friend!"

"Really?" I was surprised, to say the least. What were the chances of me finding Dustin's best friend's channel a couple of months before I found him?

"Yeah. We actually did a few videos together when he was first starting out."

My eyes widened, and I searched for my phone before remembering I'd dropped it when I'd shifted to my snake form to hide from the human. I made a mental note to scroll through QuestBoy69's old videos to find the ones with Dustin.

"That's really cool," I said, because I couldn't quite put into words the way I was feeling. It was strange to know that if we hadn't stumbled across each other at the coffee shop, we might've found each other through one of Quest's videos, or the in-person event he was doing later this year.

No matter what paths we'd taken, Fate would've found some way to make them cross.