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He snorted, cracked his neck this way and that, and then leaned forward again. “When I was young, in high school, I was in Damon’s Mountains, and all the kids had grown up together. Lucas was my friend. He was a gorilla shifter, a blackback at the time, but he would be a monster someday. My grizzly was dominant and coming into his own, and as we got older, the relationship turned competitive. He dated this tiger shifter named Cadence for years, but his animal didn’t bond to her. Anyone could see it. Her animal was addicted to him, but he stayed distant. It didn’t work. Over time, I started seeing the good parts of her, and I was there when she would cry about Lucas. I got protective. Worse, my animal got protective, and I started to hate Lucas. It was a slow, poisonous thing. Cadence came to me the week after Lucas broke it off for good, and I gave in. I’d wanted her for so long, and she was there, asking for comfort, throwing herself at me, and I just…” He shook his head. “I knew I could do it better than Lucas.” Gunner shrugged. “She regretted being with me quick, and stupid me, I’d thought it was real. My grizzly bonded to her. Cadence was a wreck from bonding to Lucas, and then I did the same damn thing. That’s called karma. I had an eye for my friend’s mate. The aftermath destroyed my animal.”
“When you choose a mate, it’s only one?”
“Ask me that a couple years ago, I would’ve answered yes, but I watched Cadence move on with someone new. She bonded to Kru easy.”
“Watched it?” she asked softly.
He chewed the corner of his lip and nodded. “Lucas, Cadence, and Kru are all in the Warlanders.”
“Holy shit,” she whispered, her mind racing. “Your Crew has a love triangle in it?”
“It’s not a love triangle. None of us ended up paired together. Lucas ended up with Jenna, Cadence ended up with Kru. Even Lucia found a mate.”
“Oh my God, I am now very invested in this soap opera. Who is Lucia?”
He scrunched up his face. “She’s a grizzly shifter. And she can see the future. So anyway, I lost my damn mind and all my control over my animal. I ended up trying to kill them all, and the scuffle set the entire trailer park on fire, and now I’m the outcast of Damon’s Mountains. You fucked a winner.”
She belted a laugh that was so loud, it surprised even her.
“You have as bad a taste in relationships as me.”
“It’s a gift,” he said sarcastically.
Well, she wasn’t crying anymore. Now she was utterly distracted from her own mental constipation by thinking of the shit-show that was his former Crew.
“Okay, so I’m going to meet your ex…mate? Today?”
“If she’s home. I can’t exactly call them and give them a heads-up. Most of them blocked me.”
Hallie pursed her lips against a laugh.
“It’s not funny,” he assured her.
“Right,” she agreed, biting back a grin.
Gunner crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not something we should be laughing at.”
“You’re a shit-show.”
“Oh, an insult from another shit-show?”
She giggled and took a sip of a water the bartender had brought. “Whose story is worse?”
“I would not like to do a competition,” he said easily, and now she could see a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
At least he had a sense of humor that could lighten a heavy moment. There was value in that to a woman like her.
“Next time we fuck, wear the hard hat,” he uttered, and she nearly choked on the water.
“Gunner,” she warned as a trio of men walked by to take their seats at the table beside them. The bar was beginning to get busier.
“Maybe your work boots, too.” He gave her a hungry look. “No pants, just bent over a bed getting railed from behind by a blue-collar boy. No tips.”
“Check please,” she called.
He tossed his head back and laughed, and God, what that sound did to settle her. He had a great laugh.
“Feel better?” he asked, the smile still lingering on his lips.
