Page 7 of Shifter Omegaverse AU

“No, I met the gorgeous ginger giant—ha, GGG? Like triple G? Wait…isn’t that the name of a boxer?” Ray butted Milo’s chin again, and Milo laughed. “Well, while he looked like he could definitely take on ten men in a fight, he also seemed really gentle. My gentle gorgeous ginger giant. My quadruple G. My 4G, if you will.”

Ray lifted his head, his green eyes pinched at the sides. “Your ginger giant?”

Milo waved one of his hands in the air. “It’s just a figure of speech. Anyways,” he said, bringing his hand to the back of Ray’s head to gently push it back down onto Milo’s chest. “He was waiting for his brother while I was waiting for Ethel—oh my god, apparently Leonard blew up a toilet!”

Ray sighed but listened anyway as Milo detailed the wild story Ethel had told him. Even though Milo and Ethel weren’t related, they both had a similar habit of embellishing stories and being a little bit fantastical.

“Also, she sent me a doctored recipe for muffins, and I almost killed Rowan!”

Ray’s ears twitched. “Is Rowan your—”

“The 4G, yes,” Milo said, his pony swishing his tail happily. For some reason, he liked the way it sounded when Ray said “your.”

Which was all fine and dandy, except Rowan wasn’t Milo’s. He wasn’t his boyfriend, his friend, or even a contact in his phone. The second Ethel walked into the movie theater, Milo had lost all sense and ran over to grab her oxygen canister so she wouldn’t drop it on the linoleum floor and break it, like she had the last one. That had resulted in a ruined chest of drawers when the canister shot off like a rocket. While it was funny in retrospect, it had come within a few inches of hitting Ethel.

There was absolutely no way that would ever happen on Milo’s watch again, so he had all but flown out of his seat to her side and completely spaced on getting Rowan’s number.

“Am I to assume,” Ray said knowingly, “that because he’s a giant, he’s an alpha, and therefore—”

“You know, assuming just makes an ass out of you and me, and I like being a pony much more than a donkey, so we should avoid that at all costs,” Milo said, and his pony whinnied in agreement.

Ray’s hands crept down Milo’s sides in warning, but Milo didn’t want to talk about Rowan anymore. He would chalk it up to a missed opportunity and go on with his life.

“Speaking of asses, we have that huge board meeting all the rest of this week and next, right?”

“What does that have to do with asses?” Ray asked, his fingers pausing on Milo’s ribs.

“Well, our asses are going to be so sore from sitting in those horrific conference room chairs all day. Do you think we can sneak away for coffee at some point? I fear my survival may depend on it.”

Ray snorted and shook his head, even as he said, “Yes, my sweet, ridiculous Milo, we can get coffee.”

3

Author’s Note:

This was not meant to be a coffee shop AU, but it seems like I spend way too much time writing in coffee shops to completely avoid this. If you want an actual coffee shop AU, though, make sure to check out the next book in the series by KC Carmine!

Rowan

“And what can I get for you, handsome?” the barista asked, winking one of his striking blue eyes up at Rowan.

“Just a black coffee, please,” Rowan said, ducking his head to try to avoid the guy’s flirtatious gaze. “And whatever he’s having.”

“Aw, thanks, man,” Troy said, stepping up beside him. The blonde barista had to actually tip his head back to look up at Troy.

Growing up, Rowan had always thought his family was abnormally tall, but then he’d met Troy’s family. They were all well over six feet, whereas Rowan’s family sat just around the six-foot mark. Well, all except his omega mom. She was short and stocky, like her red-tailed hawk. Despite three of the four kids turning out to be hawk shifters, they’d all inherited their alpha ma’s height. She was an albatross shifter with the largest wingspan in the world. Riley was the other albatross kid, and one would think that would make her the odd one out, but that had always been Rowan. He wasn’t playful and chaotic like Ruben, Raina, or his omega mom, but he also wasn’t as intense and driven as Riley and his alpha ma.

His hawk shifted restlessly from foot to foot, and Rowan fought the urge to suck on the inside of his cheek. It was a bad habit he’d always had, similar to how his bird would pick at his feathers when stressed.

He didn’t know what he or his bird had to be stressed about, though. It was a busy day in the office, but that had become the norm as of late. His weekly ritual of getting coffee with Troy was usually one of the least stressful parts of his week.

They stepped off to the side to wait for their drinks, and his hawk spread his wings right as Rowan caught a flash of something out of the corner of his eye.

“Do you want to check in on how your first meeting with Rexford Shipping Co. went?” Troy asked.

Rowan nodded absently as he scanned the room, his eyes landing on a short man with a shock of black hair. At first, Rowan wasn’t sure what had caught his attention. The man was cute but not particularly standout-ish. Then, Rowan’s eyes landed on a familiar blonde, who was practically attached to the shorter man’s side.

He’d thought about Milo more than was probably healthy the past week, but it was like his hawk wouldn’t let it rest. Rowan watched as the two of them approached the register, and Milo seemed to order for both of them, gesturing wildly with their hand one moment, only to settle their hand in the middle of the other man’s back the next.