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  Was I angry because Vy was spending time with someone else? Was I angry because he had clearly been telling that someone else things about me that I had considered personal? The answer to both of those questions was yes. But, of course, that raised the real issue. What Vy said and did mattered to me because he mattered to me. I cared about him.

  His stubbornness was intriguing, but when he let go and trusted, it felt like I was being gifted with something uncommon and special.

  His smile—rarely given but beautiful.

  His voice—the sexiest thing I’d heard, practically purring when he relaxed and let his guard down, and a contented rasp when he was sated and at peace.

  His eyes—a beautiful grass green that turned to an arousing gold.

  Plus the man was amazingly skilled. Vy had taken his talents as a carpenter and electrician and plumber and reused things that would have ended up in landfills to create a warm, eclectic, comforting space. Yet he brushed off compliments about his house, making it seem like it was nothing, which anybody with eyes could tell wasn’t true. Regardless, I found that fascinating as well.

  On the one hand he bragged about his leadership role with his ket, like he couldn’t risk the possibility that someone didn’t know what his bird had accomplished. But at the same time, the space he built as a man—using his hands, his brain, his heart—he kept to himself, not inviting many visitors over and brushing aside compliments as meaningless or unimportant. And that right there was the crux of the problem.

  This sharp-tongued, delicately beautiful, immensely talented, passionate man stepped into my life, and for the first time ever I thought maybe there was a chance for me to have something I’d never allowed myself to hope for. Maybe I didn’t have to say good-bye to everyone I met. Maybe this man was strong enough to live with all the parts of me and keep us both safe. Maybe with him by my side, I could try to plant roots. But the man didn’t want me. Instead, the bird had decided we were mates.

  It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard of the concept. I’d come across a lot of shifters in my life. I knew all about their beliefs in destined pairings. And I also knew that pheromones, prophesies, instincts, and even lust weren’t enough to build a healthy life in the long run. Because no matter how strongly shifters believed their particular animal was superior to others, no matter how many rules and guidelines and structures they put in place to organize their packs or flocks or kets, and whether they squawked or barked or roared, at the end of the day, we all had one thing in common—we were born men, we died as men, and no man could live a lifetime with a partner he didn’t truly trust and like and love. It was too important a choice to be foisted on anyone, least of all someone as strong-willed as Vy Aleknos.

  “Hi.”

  I didn’t need to turn my head to know who was talking to me. The kid had shown up when I was getting supplies in town, and he’d flown into my campsite earlier that day and the day before too.

  “Grab a shirt or a blanket from my truck, Chris. And if you’re thirsty, there’re a couple of bottles of water in there. Some granola too, if you’re hungry.”

  “That’s okay. You’re having beer. I’ll have one too.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “But I’m an adult and—”

  “No, you’re not.” I took a swig of my beer.

  “Fine,” he scoffed. I could hear him rolling his eyes. “I’m practically an adult.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am!”

  Oh, yeah. That was proving it to me. “Get a shirt or a blanket and a bottle of water, kid. Final offer.”

  “I’m not a kid!”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, you are. Ain’t nothing wrong with it.”

  “I’ve had sex.”

  “Congratulations. Getting off doesn’t make you a man, though. If some guy sold you that bill of goods, he’s an idiot, and you can do better.”

  I heard shuffling, my truck door opening, Chris rustling though my things, and then a scrawny teenager swimming in my shirt and sweater and wrapped in my wool blanket was sitting next to me.

  “Why do you think it was a guy?”

  I turned my head and met his gaze.

  “Who sold me the, uh, bill of goods.” He gulped. “Maybe it was a girl.”

  Answering his question was easy. The hard thing would be for him to say the words. Hard but necessary.

  “You want to know the first step to being a man, Chris?”

  He nodded.

  “Knowing who you are.” I looked back up at the stars. “And accepting it. No matter what.”

  After a few minutes of silence, he croaked, “I’m gay.”

  I reached over and patted his knee. “It gets easier every time you say it.”

  “I’m not big and strong like you.”

  He wasn’t, and blowing smoke up his butt wouldn’t do him any favors.

  “True enough.”

  “Around here—” His voice broke on the last word.

  I looked away, letting him compose himself in relative privacy.

  “Around here, ….” He panted. “Around here, you can get your ass kicked for being gay.”

  “Not just here.”

  He whimpered.

  “But you know what? There are all sorts of ways to get hurt in the world,” I reminded him. “That doesn’t mean we hide from it, right?”

  It was advice for him and for myself. Getting in my truck and driving away from Vy would be simple. Forgetting about him wouldn’t. Finding another man who made me think and feel and want and…. Thirty-five years it took to meet him. Did I want to drive away and risk wasting another thirty-five trying to find someone else I could love?

  “Easy for you to say,” Chris muttered. “Nobody would try to hurt you.”

  “There are a lot of ways to hurt a man. Only some of them are physical.” The ache in my chest was a testament to that.

  “So what am I supposed to do? If I stand up to them, they’ll beat me up or try to….” He snapped his mouth shut.

  Looking the kid over, I knew he didn’t stand much of a chance in a fight with one guy, let alone a group of them. And that was if they played fair. “These are the guys who ran you off the road?”

  He hesitated and then nodded.

  “Stay away from them. They’re dangerous.”

  “So I’m supposed to hide and cower and—”

  I shot up to a sitting position and grabbed his shoulders.

  “You are supposed to become the best man you can be. The first step to that is staying alive.” I shook him gently to make sure I had his attention. “What you need to do is figure out your own strengths and work with those.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. Like, work out?”

  “If you want to bulk up, sure. But that’s only on the outside.” I dragged my fingers through my hair. “You have friends who care about you. You have a gay kuar who will support you, but you lied to him about what happened.”

  He dipped his chin and lowered his gaze in shame.

  “How are your parents?” I asked.

  “My parents?” He furrowed his brow, looking perplexed.

  “Yeah. The nice lady who brought me cookies and thanked me for saving her boy. That was your mom, right?”

  He blushed and nodded.

  “And the guy driving the truck she got out of, the one who tipped his hat to me, that was your dad?”

  Another nod.

  “They seem like good people.”

  “They are.” He chewed his bottom lip. “I should tell them, huh?”

  The answer to that question wasn’t always clear cut.

  “They going to smack you around?”

  “No!” he answered, sounding horrified at the prospect.

  “Kick you out?”

  “No. No.”

  “Cut you off?”

  “My parents aren’t like that! They love me and they’ve always supported our kuar and yelled at anyone who makes comments about him being gay and—”
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  “Well, then, what are you waiting for?”

  He blinked in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “Your kuar is a strength. Your parents are a strength,” I pointed out. “Hiding what happened the other night from them isn’t helping you.” I paused. “How can they help take care of you if they don’t understand what’s going on?”

  “I can take care of myself!” He bristled with anger.

  “Kid, you almost died.”

  He deflated.

  “Needing help doesn’t make you weak, Chris.” I thought about what he’d said earlier. “Asking for help when you need it makes you a good man, Chris. A smart one.”

  Raising his gaze, he looked at my chest and arms before focusing on my face. “I bet you never needed help from anyone, huh?”

  I shook my head and said, “My parents helped me a lot.”

  “They did?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I paused. “What I said to you about becoming the best man you can be?”

  He nodded.

  “My father always told me I could be that man.”

  “How long did it take you?” Chris asked after a few minutes of silence.

  My mind had wandered to the past, to conversations with my parents, to nights filled with tears. “How long did what take?” I asked.

  “How long did it take you to become the best man you can be?”

  I rubbed my palms over my eyes.

  “I’m still working on it.”

  “You?” Chris asked incredulously. “What do you have left to work on?”

  Something about the kid brought out my paternal instincts. No, not something. I knew exactly what it was. If Vy had a son, he’d probably look like Chris.

  I wondered if that’s something he’d want—to have kids. It probably wouldn’t be hard to find a volunteer in his ket to act as the surrogate for the kuar. He could build a little nursery onto his house. In a flash I had an image of myself lying in front of Vy’s fireplace, a baby sleeping on my belly and Vy cuddled against my side. It would be a nice life. A life worth fighting for.

  “For some of us—” My throat felt thick, and I tried again. “For some of us, becoming the man we want to be is hard because it isn’t who we are.”

  “I don’t understand what that means.”

  “I’m a grizzly bear,” I sighed.

  “I know.”

  “You know much about grizzlies?”

  “I know you’re big and strong.”

  “That’s right,” I told him. “Big. Strong.” I paused. “Aggressive. Mean.”

  “You’re not mean or… or aggressive,” he said, sounding rattled at an insult to me, even though I was the one saying it. “You held up my parents’ van and got me to shift, and I saw you lifting three whole trees up so the rabbits trapped underneath could get free, and you’re so gentle with the birds you tag and—” He took a deep breath. “You’re amazing. A hero.” He furrowed his brow. “You’re not mean.”

  “Thanks, Chris.” I ruffled his hair, feeling deeply touched. “That’s the person I want to be.”

  “That’s who you are,” he insisted.

  “No.” I smiled weakly. “It’s not.”

  “VY.” I knocked for the third time. “Please open the door.”

  The warm glow of light flickering behind the curtains told me he was home. It was cold outside, but I was sure it was warm and cozy in front of his fireplace.

  “How long do you plan to ignore me?” I asked.

  It would have been easy to get angry, to stomp away and peel out of town. But if I wanted to form an honest-to-goodness relationship, I needed to get closer to Vy, not further away. Though I thought I’d been treating him well, the fact that he could so easily shut me out, not because of anything I’d done but simply because of something my body didn’t recognize, told me otherwise. Clearly my seduction and romance skills needed help. Thankfully, my patience was well honed after a lifetime of training.

  “I’ll be in my truck if you change your mind.” I dropped my forehead against the door. “I’m parked at your curb.” Something he could see for himself if he bothered looking out the window.

  Moving slowly, hoping he’d open the door and invite me in, I stepped away, turned around, and walked to my truck. There wasn’t a single sound from behind me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.

  My instincts warred between smashing through his door and fucking him into submission and smashing through his door and tearing him limb from limb for ignoring and disrespecting me. Thankfully, my brain knew better than to let either urge guide me. Instead, I climbed into the back of my truck, unrolled my sleeping bags, and, after a longer series of breathing exercises than I’d ever had to use, I fell asleep.

  WAKING WITH the sun was standard for me, so I knew exactly when Vy started his own truck. I climbed out of my bed slash house slash vehicle and stared at him through his windshield. My breath was visible in the morning chill, and I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stay warm.

  He knew I was there, but he refused to look at me. Instead, he raised his travel mug to his lips and drank what I assumed was hot coffee, put the truck in reverse, and backed out of his driveway. If I’d wanted to, I could have shifted into my bear, jumped onto the back of his truck, punched through the back window, and yanked him out.

  More deep breathing, a few minutes rolling my shoulders, and then I got into my truck and started the engine. My problem would be waiting for me that evening. The birds needed help today. I rolled down Vy’s street and turned toward town. Maybe one of the coffee shops would sell me a coffee and a muffin without a side of disapproving glares.

  When my phone rang and I saw my mother’s number on the screen, I wasn’t surprised.

  “Hi,” I said. “How are you doing?”

  “Robert, is everything okay? I’ve been feeling off since yesterday. At first I thought it was the cold front coming, and then I thought maybe a big storm, but last night I dreamed about you, so I think the cold and the storm are yours, not mother earth’s.”

  I snorted. “I thought I was part of mother earth, Mom. Aren’t we all her creatures?”

  “Don’t you get smart with me!” she snapped, moving from Zen hippie to pissed-off mom in a flash. “Your father had a dream too.”

  “That’s because you and dad smoke from the same pipe before turning in for the night.”

  “It’s herbal. You know that. And I know you use sarcasm and rudeness as a defense mechanism.”

  “A lot of things are herbal,” I said. “That doesn’t make them safe.”

  “Robert Kenneth Cimino.”

  “Heroin, cocaine,” I listed. “Bears.”

  “Oh, baby,” she sighed. The woman was five foot tall on her tiptoes and weighed eighty-five pounds soaking wet. It was ridiculous that she called me baby. I liked it anyway. “Talk to me.”

  “I met a man,” I confessed. “A good man.”

  “That’s wonderful!” I heard shuffling. “Anthony! Robert met a man.” More noise, which I knew from years of experience came from my parents wedging the phone between their ears, and then, “Your dad’s on too. Tell us about him.”

  “Your cell phone has a speaker feature.” I pulled into a parking spot in front of the coffee shop.

  “What?”

  “The cell phone.” I’d bought them both phones for their wedding anniversary. The flip phone they’d shared for a decade was ridiculous, so I’d replaced it with two easy-to-use smartphones. Turned out they weren’t so easy for people in their late sixties who had never owned a computer or television. “Look at the screen. There’s a button on the bottom that says ‘Speaker.’ Press it.”

  “There aren’t any buttons on this phone,” my mother said.

  “I don’t understand why they had to get rid of the buttons,” my father added.

  “Well, not a button button, but”—I smiled, really smiled for the first time since Vy had flown out of my campsite in a huff—“there
’s a spot on the bottom of the screen that says ‘Speaker.’ Can you see that?”

  “Do you see it, Jennifer?”

  “I think it’s this o—” My mother was cut off midword and there was silence.

  “That’s the mute button, Mom.” I waited. “I can’t hear you. You need to press the button that says ‘Mute’ again.”

  Another pause, and then, “Robert? Can you hear me now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Where are you?”

  “Uh, parked in front of a coffee shop. I’m in Colorado. It’s early here, and I need caffeine.”

  “Where in Colorado?”

  “Elk River.”

  “He’s in Elk River,” she said, presumably talking to my father. “We’re coming to see you.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Mom.”

  “Of course it’s a good idea. Your father and I both had a dream about you, and I already told you about the cold and the storm. Something’s wrong. We can meditate together and figure it out.”

  “I meditate every day, just like you taught me. You don’t need to drive here for that.”

  “I doubt very much that you meditate like I taught you, dear.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  She was quiet for a long time, and then she said, “When was the last time you let yourself take your bear form?”

  “Mom, you know I can’t—”

  “What I know is that mother earth gave you a gift, and you’re hiding it instead of being grateful.”

  Only from her and my father would I allow those kinds of comments without getting angry. No part of me, not the man and not the bear, could ever feel anything but grateful toward the man and woman who had raised me.

  “I realize you feel that way, but you don’t understand,” I said, trying to keep my tone respectful.

  “Your father and I have been studying grizzly bears since long before you were born. We have literally written the book on grizzlies. There is nobody who understands better than us. Your bear is not to be feared, Robert. What have I always told you?”

  “Mom,” I sighed in frustration.

  “Robert,” she said firmly.

  “Expression not repression,” I muttered.