Page 44 of Mytho Investigations: Side Stories

Jake nodded. He never let himself wonder about what life would be like if he could shift again. That was the first step to misery. “I’d only just started shifting before the collapse. I can’t even remember what I looked like.”

“What do you remember? If you want to talk about it, that is.” Adam lifted his gaze.

Jake considered the human for a couple of heartbeats. Adam was interested in his life because he was interested in him. He wasn’t the werewolf experiment anymore, but what could they be?

“Do you want to date someone you can’t be seen in public with? Someone who is never going to be more than a hospital orderly on minimum wage?” Adam could do so much better. He was tall, built, and cared about his parents. He should have guys lining up to date him.

“Do you really believe things are never going to change? There’s a cop dating a dragon shifter. Elves and humans are getting together… In another ten years⁠—”

“I don’t let myself think one year ahead.” And that was being generous. Usually, Jake was only concerned with next month’s rent. He didn’t understand how people made plans for the future when they could be derailed so easily.

“Ah. I get it,” Adam said with a nod.

“Get what?”

“I’m the same when it comes to Dad. Especially when he’s on a downhill slide. Making plans seems pointless. It’s much easier to think ahead when he’s doing well or is stable.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

Adam put his beer on the table and walked around. He took the beer out of Jake’s hand and put it aside so he could hold Jake’s paws. For a human, Adam had big hands. His fingertips brushed against the rough pads on Jake’s palms. “There’s been so much upheaval, and there’s more to come with the bill, that it seems pointless to hope and plan.”

Jack’s tail drooped, and he lowered his chin. “I want things to be better. And it’s not that I don’t want to… to date you.” He liked the idea a lot, but he didn’t know how to make it work as it wasn’t something he’d ever seen work in the long run.

“I can tell that from the way your tail perks up when I walk in the door, and the way your ears also do a thing.”

His ears did what? And now he was hyperconscious of every twitch of his tail and the micro adjustments his ears made as he listened to sounds outside the building, as well as Adam’s heartbeat and words.

Adam smiled. “Everyone has body language tells, and since I don’t have your sense of smell, I needed to learn how to read you.”

Jake hazarded a guess where Adam was learning all about werewolves. “Was that on your Internet forum?”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “There were some tips.”

Jake was impressed Adam was taking their relationship seriously and diving into all things werewolf. Another thought hit hard. “How much do you share on the forum?”

“Do you want me to show you? And before you get all kinds of weird, I’ve been hanging out in online forums for gay men since I was nineteen. There is everything from health information to where the cruising spots and glory holes are if you’re into that kind of kink.”

Jake blinked. He had not expected such a vast array of information, not that any of it helped him. Even if he stuck his cock through a glory hole, no one was going to suck it. They’d scream and run… except Adam.

Adam lifted his eyebrows. “You know what they are?”

“I do… but they are human places. We don’t have them in mytho culture because there was no need. The closest thing we have would be the satyr den.”

“Not gonna lie. I would like to go into one. Only to admire the view, though.”

Jake laughed. “Maybe one day I can take you?”

“Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough.”

“It’s just a bar… unless you go behind the curtains.”

“You’ve been there?”

“No, but I know people who have. It’s not a secret. And it’s not a brothel. Satyrs like sex, so they offer freely. It’s almost like you’re doing them a favor.”

“I understand what you’re saying, but I struggle to comprehend living in a society where no one cares about who you’re fucking, like it’s no big deal.”

That was one reason some humans hated them. “We struggle to understand why humans care so much.”