She must,his bear said.Her animal would tell her. Maybe it's sleeping?
That couldn't be it. The truth was shifters rarely needed their animal counterparts totellthem they'd found their mates. Usually they just knew. Laurie certainly had from the instant his eyes met…he didn't even know her name! He shook himself and scurried to catch up, his best winning smile in place again. "Then you've got the advantage, if you know who I am. You must be one of the smiths, right? I haven't seen you around here before!"
"Good.You weren't supposed to see me at all. Go away." His mate lengthened her stride and left him behind again, mostly because Laurie slowed, confused. This was not how meeting one's mate was supposed to go. Especially when the mate was also a shifter.
He caught up to her again, dodging faire-goers and determined to get it right this time. "It's incredible to meet you. I had no idea it would feel like this!" Because thecertaintythat they were meant to be together overwhelmed him. It was a comfort and a joy unlike anything he'd ever known. He wanted to make her smile and laugh, and to feel the happy warmth of her body next to his. He wanted quiet time with her, and loud moments, and to explore the whole world with her at his side, making everythingright.
She said, "Goaway," for the third time, and before she could outpace him again, Laurie danced in front of her, lifting his hands in a confused plea for a moment of her time.
"Don't you feel it?" he asked, genuinely bewildered, then dropped his voice. "We're fated mates. It's practically singing through me. I know you're a shifter, so…youmustfeel it? What's your name?"
His mate's nostrils flared and she took a deep, extremely annoyed breath before saying, "Bree. Briana Gilson. And yes, I feel it, and I'm not interested. Just go do your…thing, and forget we ever met. I'm sure it won't be all that difficult. There are half adozen pretty girls in my eyeshot who would be happy to console you."
"What? No? Why would I—we're mates," Laurie said again, completely baffled now. "Why would I want somebody else?"
Briana Gilson snorted dismissively. "You don't know anything about me, and I know enough about you to be absolutely sure we are not in a good place for any discussions of love at first sight. Just go away. You'll be fine."
"Wait, what? What do you mean you know enough about me? I've never seen you before. How do you know anything about me?"
"Two years," Briana said to the sky, her head tilted back and her jaw set again. Laurie blurted a curious sound and she turned her gaze back to him, eyes dark and unforgiving. "I managed to avoid meeting you for two years, and now I deeply regret that I took a nap in a public space. Now go get drunk and hit somebody with your toy sword and let some other girl tell you how great you are. That's your thing, isn't it?"
Laurie hesitated. That wasn't exactly how he would frame his equal love of the fighting arena and the ladies, but he couldn't exactly deny the general truth of her perception, either. He decided to skip that part and focus on, "Twoyears? How did you—how—what?"
Can she do that?he asked his bear, stunned.Can she have known I was her mate all this time? How did she know, if I didn't? How?—
Briana herself was answering, her voice low but crisp. "I saw you fighting two years ago and knew you were my mate. You obviously didn't see me, which iscompletely fine, because I'm not interested. So I've just been making sure to stay out of your way ever since."
"That's not how this works!" Laurie burst out. "You don't just—you can't just—Fate doesn't tell us until we're ready," headded, dropping his voice to a hiss. "If you saw me, I was ready! You were ready!"
"Bro," Briana said in a weary tone. "I don't care what fate thinks. I was and am not ready to commit to a good-looking player whose priorities in life are…whatever it is you do in the off-season. Beer bongs, I assume."
"I work at my family's pub!"
"Doyou?" His mate's eyebrows lifted and lowered again, a world of surprise and disbelief in the little motion. "Great, so look, just go back to doing that, okay? I'll keep to my life, you keep to yours."
"But that's not how this works!"
"It's how it works with me!" On that note, Briana Gilson turned and walked away, leaving Laurie to gape after her, utterly befuddled. After a minute she was swallowed by the crowd, her tangled topknot of hair no longer visible, though he kept looking in the direction she'd gone.
She can't do that,he said to his bear, although he wasn't sure if he meant that, or if he meantI don't understand.
His bear, which was as chill about things as Laurie felt himself to be, gave a lazy shrug.Looks like she can.
But she can't! That's not how it works!
The bear gave him a slow blink, and somebody on the path bumped into Laurie, startling him out of his stupor. They apologized to each other, and now that he was moving again, Laurie headed toward the tavern, though he felt a bit like he was floating. Not in a good way, either. Like a river had come along and swept his feet out from under him, and now was dragging him wherever it felt like. That river deposited him behind the counter, and he went through the motions of serving drinks and bantering with customers. There were a lot of them at five in the afternoon, and if they served more root beer and lemonade than alcohol, that was good: people would need to be driving homein an hour or two. If he focused on things like that, he could get through the hours until closing time.
As soon as the tavern closed down, though, his slightly older, slightly bigger brother Jon scruffed him and dragged him behind the beer tent. "What is goingonwith you, dude?"
Jon had met his own mate last year, and plenty of confusion had occurred there, too. Their other two older brothers had met theirs in the past few years, too, and so had their cousin Ashley. Laurie hadn't exactly been feeling left out, though he might have, if pressed, admitted to a little bit of envy.
He was no longer envious. Everybody else's mates had at leastlikedthem. Laurie started to explain twice and found himself just flapping his jaw, unable to find the words. Jon's expression, at first irritated, started to grow concerned, and he finally maneuvered Laurie to one of the chopped logs that served as seats behind the tent, and sat him down. "Dude. Speak. What's going on? Did you get hit on the head in the fights today? Do you need to shift and heal up?"
"I met my fated mate," Laurie said in a rush.
Jon's mouth fell open and he sat across from Laurie. "Holy shit, dude, congrats! That's great! That's the whole family! Oh my God, you’ll be able to bring your mate to my wedding! That’s fantastic!"
"She doesn't like me."
