He had to admit, if it was anybody else, he would think this was funny. Jon's mouth fell open even farther, and Laurie could basically see the wheels turning in his brother's head. If the words 'does not compute' appeared scrolling in Jon's eyes, Laurie wouldn't be surprised. And since they looked enough alike that people often thought they were twins, Laurie now had a pretty good idea of whathehad probably looked like when Briana had utterly dismissed him.
Jon finally said, "She, uh, what?"
"She doesn't like me," Laurie said again around a sudden sick embarrassed feeling in his belly. "She's a shifter and she knew from the first time she saw me,two years ago,that we were mates. She's beenavoidingme ever since."
"She—what—wha—w…wow. Whoa. Wow. That's…wow. I didn't even know that was possible."
"Me either!"
"How'd she know if you didn't see her? I mean…" His brother frowned. "I guess I never really thought about it. I guess I always figured fated mates saw each other at the same time, or at least, that the shifter of the pair would understand what was going on, so they'd want to introduce themselves as fast as possible…"
"Yeah. Except no. She's a shifter, she knew what it meant, and she's been going out of her way tonotmeet me."
"Why?"
"She thinks I'm…" Laurie sifted through the words she'd used, all of which felt branded in his memory, and gritted his teeth. "She thinks I'm a player. That's what she said."
Jon inhaled and held the breath long enough that Laurie seriously considered killing him, though in the end his brother's voice was as cautious and careful as it could be. "She's…not wrong, Laur."
"I know that! I just didn't think…" He hadn't thought his fated mate would care, or know, or judge him for it. Though even as he thought that, it didn't feel quite right. He had the impression Briana didn't care if he was a player. She just didn't want to getinvolvedwith a player, which was slightly different. "She's my fated mate. Why would I want to mess around on that?"
"I assume you wouldn't, but…" Jon made a face. "You know how Ashley tore into us about being kind of flaky about everything except the faire itself."
Laurie rolled his eyes. "Ashley's turned into a stick in the mud."
"Except she hasn't, Laur. She was right. I know I worked my ass off during faire, but I coasted through helping out with the pub the rest of the year. If all Alis had ever seen of me was the big lunky hail-and-good-cheer minstrel-tavern-owner at the faire, she might not have thought much of me either."
"Thatisall Alis saw of you," Laurie snapped. "You twometat the faire last year."
Jon pressed his lips together, and though he didn't say anything, a sense of dismay sank through Laurie's stomach.
It waspossiblytrue that Jon had started taking the off-season job more seriously ever since their cousin Ashley had taken over running the family's main pub and yelled at them for not pulling their weight. It was definitely true that after Laurie had blown his knee out the previous summer, Jon had insisted he step up and really work the tavern instead of focusing on the faire's fight circuit. Granted, Laurie thought Jon had done that becausehewanted to get all the glory of being a blademaster himself, but an uncomfortable sense of perhaps-underdeveloped self-awareness suggested thatmaybehe, Laurie, had been kind of…hogging the limelight andmaybenot doing as much as he could at the faire's tavern for a while now. Maybe even for a few years.
Maybefor longer than a few years, even. SomaybeBriana seeing him as a party boy who was there for the sword fights and the pretty girls wasn't exactly…wrong.
"But she's my mate," he protested out loud. "She's supposed to…see through all of that, isn't she? Overlook it? Accept me for who I am?"
"I don't know, Laur," his brother said. "Whoareyou, on the other side of all of that?"
"I'm—well, I'm—I'm me! I'm a Torben, I'm a shifter, I'm a…"
Scoundrel,his bear offered.Ne'er-do-well. Charming scamp. Minstrel. Tavern swain. Romeo. Heartbreaker. La?—
Okay, that'senough!Christ, Laurie thought, if that was what even hisbearthought of him…
…then maybe it wasn't such a surprise that his fated mate had been avoiding him.
The problem was, Laurie wasn't sure he had the slightest idea how to become a better man.
Chapter 3
Briana didn't have anywhere in particular she was heading, except 'away from Laurie Torben,' so once she'd lost him, she circled back around to the smithy, where Dahlia was wandering around with a couple of huge mugs of lemonade and a confused expression. The latter cleared as she finally saw Briana, and she handed one of the drinks off to her. "Where've you been? I've been back for ten minutes!"
"I met him," Bree said grimly. "And then I had to shake him."
"Met…oh my god. Laurie Torben? And shake him?" Doll curled her hands around her mug and gave it a little rattle, as if asking whether Briana had throttled her fated mate.
"No, shake him like, losing a tail."
