Page 13 of Shifter Omegaverse AU

“It is Rowan! He said sorry that he missed you yesterday, but—”

“Yesterday?” Milo said, snatching his phone back as his churning stomach and whinnying pony won out.

“Yeah, it seems like he tried to catch us at the cafe yesterday, but we weren’t there.”

“Ughhhh,” Milo said, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. “Because of that all-hands meeting from 10-2, we grabbed coffee before work. Curses!”

“And you didn’t let me read the rest, but I think he was saying something about today as well.”

Milo snapped his head down to look at his phone, and his neck made a concerning-sounding pop. Since his head remained firmly attached to his body, he figured it must not be that bad.

He skimmed the beginning of the message Ray had just summarized until he came to the third line down.

Rowan: Hi, Milo, this is Rowan. I feel I should apologize for how long it’s taken me to text you, but Ray was quite adamant that I only text if I was certain that I wanted to get to know you better, and it took me a few days to reach that certainty. I went to the cafe yesterday, hoping to see you, but I seem to have missed you. Then today I was held up in a lengthy stakeholder meeting past 2. I wanted to ask you in person—

“Ask me what?” Milo murmured, and Ray scurried over, pressing up against Milo so he could read the screen as well.

Rowan: But since I can’t be sure I’ll catch you tomorrow, I decided to send this probably inappropriately long text instead. So, here goes. Would you be interested in grabbing a non-poisonous muffin or pastry of your choosing this Friday after work? We could meet at the same coffee shop or try somewhere else. I defer to you.

“Oh my gosh, he’s adorable,” Ray said.

Milo huffed a breath through his nose. “He’s so formal. Also, there are more words in this text than I’ve ever heard him speak out loud.”

“That’s better than being short and rude!” Ray said, his voice pitching up as he pressed even tighter to Milo’s side. “Do you remember how Andrew would—”

“Make plans by sending a text with only the date, time, and location? Yes.”

Ray sagged against Milo, as if all his energy had left him in a single breath. Milo pocketed his phone to wrap his arms around Ray’s back.

“Aren’t you going to respond?” Ray protested.

Milo shrugged one shoulder. “He made me wait around the coffee shop instead of just texting me sometime in the past six days. He can wait a few minutes while I reassure you that nothing and no one is going to take me away from you.”

Ray butted his head up against the underside of Milo’s chin. “I know that.”

“Even if something does happen with Rowan and me, you and Ethel will forever be my number ones.”

“I know,” he said, but much quieter this time. “I promise, I’m not worried about that. I’m just…”

Something nudged against Milo’s cheek, and he pulled back to see that Ray’s kitty ears had popped out of his hair.

“I guess I’m not used to worrying about you and other men,” Ray continued. “Usually, I’m just worried about you in general—”

Milo scoffed, but Ray shook his head, the tips of his ears tickling across Milo’s nose.

“I do!” Ray insisted. “I worry that you’re lonely, and that you deserve to have more family and friends than you have, and that Ethel and I aren’t enough—”

“Ray!” Milo said, trying to pull away, but Ray’s arms locked around him like a vice.

“Let me finish! I worry that we’re not enough to keep up with you and your boundless energy and huge heart. You have so much love to give, and I want you to give it to the whole wide world. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Milo’s pony stood still as a statue, not even a single hair in his tail moving.

“You and Ethel are more than enough,” Milo said, rubbing his cheek against one of Ray’s ears. “But you’re right that I think I have the capacity to have more people in my life, even if I don’t necessarily need them. But because I don’t need them—don’t need Rowan—I think that means I won’t get hurt if this doesn’t end up working out.”

Milo had no way of actually knowing that. Unlike Ray, who had a brutal track record of getting his heart broken, Milo hadn’t given his heart the chance to break again after losing Anabelle and Andrew.

“You told him about being genderqueer,” Milo said quietly.