Page 30 of Shifter Omegaverse AU

“Turning it over to sports, the big game is tonight, and several roads on the south side of the city will be closed to traffic. Make sure to check before you go, folks.”

Milo groaned and tried to pull the covers up over their head, but it was a lost cause. They were well and truly awake at the ungodsly hour of 6am. They had, of course, been the one to set Anabelle’s old radio to go off this early, but that was Past Milo, and Present Milo hated Past Milo.

At least it hadn’t been a nightmare waking them up, like the past two nights in a row. Milo was working with a pretty severe sleep deficit at this point, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

They managed to disentangle themself enough that they could roll out of bed and crawl across the messy floor to their dresser. While their instinct was to slap their hand around on the radio until they found the off button, they had to be careful with it. The scuffed and chipped radio had been one of the few things other than clothing that Anabelle specifically left Milo in her will. All of her furniture had stayed with Ethel, which Milo was thankful for. On multiple occasions, they’d caught Ethel running her hand affectionately over the nightstand or armoire.

“Let’s check in with Pete, who will go over exactly what roads will be closed tonight.”

Milo pushed themself up off the floor and made a mental note to tell Ray about the road closures. While Milo was the designated driver tonight, as was the usual case when they went to the club, Ray was in charge of navigation and parking.

“Thanks, Chuck! For those of you making your way into the city tonight, you can expect—”

Milo shut off the radio and turned in a wide circle, cracking the top half of their back as they did so. Like a diver getting into position, Milo threw their hands in the air and then bent in half, eliciting several more cracks from the bottom of their spine.

From this vantage point, it was depressingly obvious why they’d set their alarm so early. Their place was a mess and very much not suited for hosting. Within arm’s reach, there were at least four days’ worth of clothes, along with a playbill from the musical they’d gone to see with Rowan the previous weekend and several crumpled up café receipts. They’d begun getting coffee on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and while their bank account wasn’t appreciating the additional day, their pony was. They whinnied happily at the mere thought of Rowan in all his suited-up glory.

Milo squatted down, using their arms like a snowplow to push everything on the floor towards their overflowing closet. They kept shoving until they managed to amass a pile almost the same size as their pony.

If they weren’t on a strict timeline, they would probably shift just to check, but as it was, they only had an hour until they had to meet Ray downstairs to head into the office. So, instead of that fun little science experiment, they yanked their laundry basket out from under all the clothes that were supposed to be inside it and began shoveling things in. They managed to rescue all the papers, including the unused napkin they’d pilfered from the diner and thought they’d lost, before cramming the laundry basket into their closet and shutting the door.

As they passed by their desk, they dumped all the papers into a fishbowl they kept for this very purpose. They weren’t nearly creative enough to make something like a scrapbook or memory box, but they liked to hang onto little things like these. Sadly, they hadn’t thought to do this until after Anabelle died, so the only things they had left from her were a few old receipts and take-out menus she’d crammed in her glove box.

Speaking of which, they needed to take their inherited car back to the shop, because while they’d managed to reattach the glovebox, they’d done too good a job, and now it wouldn’t open.

They texted Ray, “Road closures and glovebox,” hoping one of them would remember, and turned on their favorite cleaning playlist. The next hour was a blur of paper towels, belted-out showtunes, and their dustpan, which had somehow developed a crack down the middle.

With one minute to spare, they arrived in the lobby of their building and found Ray scowling down at his phone.

“Ready for a fun-filled singles event at the club?” Milo asked, and Ray glanced up, a furrow in his brow. “After an egregiously boring day at work, of course.”

Ray huffed a soft laugh and pocketed his phone. “I was looking at the road closures. It shouldn’t affect us too much, but it may affect parking. I found three different parking lots to try, but two of them have horrible reviews, and the third is only slightly better.”

Milo threw an arm around Ray’s shoulders and led him out of the building. “Slightly better it is, then.”

The workday was, in fact, egregiously boring, even with all the texting Milo did under their desk with Rowan. Of course, they’d rather be doing something else with Rowan under the desk, but—

Milo groaned and thunked their head down on their desk for the third time that day. Their pony nickered happily, not a care in the world that they were slowly infiltrating Milo’s poor brain with some very inappropriate thoughts.

Rowan was their friend. Their very handsome, nice-smelling, kind, gentle, sweet, wonderful friend that they absolutely, under no circumstances, ever wanted to risk losing all for some mild horniness.

Their pony huffed and pawed at the ground.

Okay, maybe more than just mild horniness, but still. Even if Rowan didn’t have an aversion to some forms of touch, they would need to have many, many more conversations about touch, affection, intimacy, sex, dating…

The moral of the story was that Milo had no business fantasizing about Rowan right now. If Milo wanted to have sex, there was a club full of shifters tonight who would probably be more than willing to meet that need.

Or they could finally talk to Rowan about all this. Tomorrow would be perfect for it, with the sunny weather and hours of uninterrupted time at Milo’s now mostly clean apartment.

Anabelle would have recommended that option, for sure, but given that she had left Milo with only two—now three—people in their life, they were hesitant to risk messing that up for some more than mild horniness and some definitely no longer just platonic feelings.

Milo’s pony gnashed their teeth, as if they had a bit in their mouth. Not that their pony had ever had a bit in their mouth before; they were just being DRAMATIC!

“Ugh,” Milo groaned, right as Ray walked into their cubicle.

“Is this a bad time?” Ray asked

Milo pushed up and out of their seat. “It’s never a bad time for you, sweet pea, and definitely never a bad time to get out of here.”