Page 95 of Shifter Omegaverse AU

“Gentle gorgeous ginger giant,” Milo mumbled. “I’m actually not even sure if he’s gay?”

Rowan inclined his head, his cheeks almost as red as his hair. “I’m bi, actually.”

“I suspect a lot of us might be, at least a little bit,” Ethel said, waving her hand at the two seats in front of her.

“I’m actually quite gay,” Milo said, but they paused halfway into their seat. “Although…I guess, if I’m genderqueer, that means I’m not actually attracted to the same sex? I’m just attracted to—”

“Gorgeous bisexual gingers, yes, we know,” Ethel said, shuffling the cards in her hand like she was some sort of card shark, not an elderly woman about to deal out a friendly game of gin rummy.

“Maybe you’re omni? That’s how Riley identifies,” Rowan said, accepting his hand of cards from Ethel. “Or, I guess to be specific, she’s omniromantic and asexual.”

“Ah, just like our Anabelle,” Ethel said, gesturing with her gnarled hand for Milo to take the cards in front of them.

“Anabelle was omniromantic?” Milo asked, making no move to accept the cards.

They had hoped that in coming here for the anniversary of Anabelle’s death, they could finally talk about her, but Ethel had been posted up at a card table waiting for them, which didn’t seem very conducive to deep conversations.

“I haven’t the foggiest idea what that is,” Ethel said, “but she was asexual. Or at least, that’s what she told me when I suggested we go for a roll in the hay.”

Was this it? The opportunity Milo had been waiting for?

Milo’s gaze caught on the bent corner of one of the cards in front of them. If they weren’t mistaken, that was one of the card counting tricks Ethel often used to win on poker night. Anabelle had always chided her for her shenanigans but never failed to join her in enjoying her winnings. One time, she’d won a huge, novelty Toblerone bar and ended up sharing it with the entire retirement home, but she specifically saved one of the triangles for Anabelle and Milo. It had been practically the size of Milo’s head, and they’d chipped away at it for weeks until the chocolate turned white and the nougat inside went soggy.

“I actually didn’t know she was ace,” Milo said, tangling their fingers in the hem of their navy blue skirt. They still hadn’t felt like dressing in fun, exciting colors this week, but Anabelle would have been so disappointed if they wore all black to remember her.

Ethel peered over the top of her fanned-out cards. “I suppose that’s not something she would have felt the need to share with you, but I’m sure if you’d ever asked, she would have happily told you.”

There were so many things Milo had never asked her. They’d thought they had more time. Just like they thought they had more time with Ethel, but nothing lasted forever. Not Ethel’s pranks, which were usually cleaned up or dealt with by the end of the evening, or Anabelle’s clothes, which were beginning to fade and fray the more Milo wore them.

They could only count on this moment, where their 4G, Triple S fated mate was by their side and their dear Ethel was sitting across from them, eyeing their cards like she was already counting them.

“Were you two together?” Milo asked.

Ethel’s smile was slow, smoothing out the wrinkles on her cheeks, but deepening the ones around her eyes. “We were, yes. She never wanted to use any fancy titles or make any sort of public declaration about it, which is why we never explicitly told you, but she always said that she loved me and wanted to spend the rest of her life by my side, and…so she did.”

Milo braced themself against the incoming fog, but what they got instead was Rowan’s knee pressing against their leg.

“And you loved her,” they said, a statement, not a question.

“Gods, did I love that woman,” Ethel said, placing her cards down with shaking fingers. “I loved her from the moment I laid eyes on her outrageous clothes and too-wide grin. Then you showed up, and I realized it must be genetic or something because then I found myself loving you, too.”

She reached across the table, and Milo scrambled to let go of their dress and take her hand.

“I was with her at the end,” Ethel said, squeezing Milo’s fingers with impressive strength. “Obviously, I didn’t know it was our final night together, but we talked about you before she eventually drifted off to sleep. We would often talk late into the night. They wouldn’t let us push our beds together, not that Anabelle would have wanted that, but those talks, even from across the room, always felt like I was holding her and she was holding me.”

Tears escaped down Milo’s cheeks, dropping onto the peeling laminate table. “I talked to her that night, too. Maybe around eight or nine. I was telling her something stupid Andrew had done, and I…I’ve always regretted it. I don’t want her out there somewhere worrying that I’m still with that asshole and miserable.”

Ethel tutted, bringing her other hand up to pat Milo’s knuckles. “Oh, my dear child, she wasn’t worried about you. That was what we were talking about. She was telling me how sure she was that the two of you weren’t going to last. She knew in her heart you would eventually see through him and his—” Ethel gave a soft bark of a laugh. “I believe she called it a ‘sorry excuse for pony-shit.’”

Something between a laugh and a sob burst out of Milo, and they bent forward over the table, bringing their forehead down to rest on their joined hands. “She used to say that all the time, didn't she?”

Ethel managed to free one of her hands, just to lay it back down on top of Milo’s head, ruffling their shaggy hair. “I think she passed on from this life, wrapped up in her favorite quilt, listening to me yammer on, after having a good conversation with her kid. She was always happiest after she got to talk to you, and I like to think, in the end, I made her pretty happy, too.”

“I know you did,” Milo murmured, a tear dripping off their nose onto the corner of one of the cards. Maybe it would be another trick for Ethel to pull out on card night.

“I’m sorry you never got to meet her,” Ethel said, speaking over Milo’s head to Rowan. “But if you spend enough time around us, you’ll get a good sense of what an amazing woman she was.”

Rowan shifted in his chair, and his leg pressed against Milo’s, hip to knee. “I would love that.”