Page 6 of Shifter Omegaverse AU

Milo refused to do that, though. One day, his nagging would get through Ray’s thick skull. It had gotten Anabelle to move into the retirement community where she met Ethel, after all.

“Yeah, I…I guess you’re right,” Ray said with a sigh. “His attitude was pretty crummy.”

Ray went on to tell Milo how they’d gotten in a big fight over where to eat dinner the night before, and Travis had walked out. When Ray tried to call him, the phone rang once and went straight to voicemail.

“So, basically, he blocked me, and I blocked him back, so I guess we’re done,” Ray said, slumping sideways until he was wedged between Milo and the back of the couch.

“I’m sorry, sweet pea,” Milo said, taking over the hair petting duties and deploying Anabelle’s favorite endearment.

“It is what it is,” Ray mumbled before tucking his head under Milo’s chin.

Ray was an omega black cat shifter, and he and his cat loved nothing more than curling up and being pet. If Milo kept this up for too long, Ray would probably shift, and he’d be stuck pulling the purring cat out of Ray’s clothes and carrying him around like a baby for the next six hours. While he didn’t mind that, he was feeling a bit antsy. Or maybe his pony was. It had started the second they’d looked up from the floor at the large alpha.

Milo didn’t usually have crushes. Andrew had been the one to pursue him, and since then, Milo hadn’t even looked at another shifter. It wasn’t that he was in mourning over Andrew. No, the only person in his life he should be mourning was Anabelle, but…

Just as it always did, a white fog appeared in Milo’s mind’s eye, whiting out his pony and making his thoughts go quiet. This happened almost anytime Milo got too close to the edge of “the cliff.”

Almost two years ago now, the retirement home had offered Milo a session of grief counseling. The counselor had described grief as a chasm that slowly fills in over time but would always leave a visible scar, almost like proof that the person had lived and been loved. The metaphor had stuck with Milo because anytime he even tried to reckon with the fact that Anabelle was really and truly gone, he felt like he was stepping right up to the edge of a cliff and preparing to jump.

He’d only cried once, on the phone call from the retirement home letting him know she had passed away in her sleep. After that, he’d been so busy dealing with all the impersonal, stressful processes that came with death that he’d turned away from the cliff entirely. Then he’d discovered Andrew was a lying liar who lies, and he’d had to deal with the six-month-long fallout from that. Now, any time he tried to approach the edge of the cliff—or even got near it—he felt like Anabelle’s old analog TV, all crackling white fuzz.

For the most part, that was okay. He’d thrown himself into his new, somewhat sadder and duller life without Anabelle. Ethel was great, and Ray was everything he’d ever wanted in a friend. The chasm Anabelle had left in his heart definitely wouldn’t be healed by dating, though, so he hadn’t even tried.

And yet, his pony had felt something when he’d stared into Rowan’s hazel eyes. He wasn’t sure whether it was awe at just how big and beautiful the man was…or something more. Maybe, like Ray, Rowan had come into Milo’s life for a reason.

He didn’t necessarily believe in fate. Anabelle had claimed to have met her fated mate when she was younger, and he’d turned out to be a proper douche nugget, so she’d given up on dating. She was a beta shifter, like Milo, and she said fated mate bonds weren’t that intense for betas.

Milo didn’t know if his parents had been fated mates. He knew very little about them, except that they’d both died in a car crash that had miraculously left Milo unscathed. Maybe fate was real, and that had been his one and only pass. If that was the case, he would take it and do with his life what he could.

Like keeping his best friend—who sadly very much believed in fate—from turning into a sad lump on the couch for the next two weeks.

Ray’s whiskers were just beginning to sprout from the sides of his nose when Milo shouted, “Hey!”

Ray startled, and his ears popped out, parting his hair and bumping up against Milo’s hand.

Not one to be easily deterred, Milo began stroking one of his ears while he said, “Wanna hear about this really handsome shifter I met last night?”

Ray—or, more likely, his cat—pawed at Milo’s other hand until he used it to rub Ray’s other ear. “Was that before or after Ethel supposedly declared her love for Anabelle to the entire movie theater?”

Gods, Ray was such a beautiful soul. If Milo was attracted to omegas, he would offer to mate with Ray right this instant and spend the rest of his life showing Ray exactly how he deserved to be treated. Unfortunately, he was only attracted to alphas. He would just have to keep drowning Ray in all the platonic love he had to give and hope that one day Ray would find someone who saw him for the treasure he was.

“You know, I totally forgot that happened until you mentioned it. There is just the slightest possibility I fell asleep during the egregiously long intro and dreamed that whole thing up. I guess we’ll never know,” Milo said, using his thumbs to massage the insides of Ray’s ears.

Ray shifted around, and his fluffy black tail popped out of the back of his sweatpants. He rolled over, flopping down on top of Milo and going completely limp. Milo often accused him of secretly being a ragdoll, but Ray swore he was one hundred percent British Bombay, like his mother and father. Ray had been born here, so he didn’t have the accent, but he had the distinct piercing green eyes British Bombay were known for.

Apparently.

Milo only knew the bare minimum about cat breeds. Anabelle had several housecats over the course of Milo’s life, but they were strays she found in her garden. Milo’s favorite had been a floppy, fluffy girl he’d called—appropriately—Fluffy. That was how he’d learned the term ragdoll, even though Anabelle had said she wasn’t actually a ragdoll either, she just liked to flop around. Some of Milo’s happiest memories were sitting with Anabelle and Fluffy on her couch, watching the staticky TV and…

Milo’s hands stilled as his head filled with fog, and he lost sight of his pony. This was the worst part, feeling utterly disconnected from his inner beast.

“So,” Ray murmured, butting Milo’s chin with the top of his head. “Did you meet the handsome shifter in your dream, too?”

Milo’s thoughts snapped back into focus, and he began petting Ray’s ears again.

Ray was used to Milo getting lost in thought—or lack thereof. He said Milo would sometimes stare into space for over an hour, not saying a word. Ray always claimed he didn’t mind. He liked having Milo around, whether he was talking or not, but every once in a while, Ray would throw him a concerned or pained look.

Oh well. Milo would deal with all that at some point.