Page 5 of Shifters in the Night

“I went with the traditional bachelor potluck contribution,” Jon said as she approached, holding up a twenty-four-pack of the German beer Zed loved so much.

She waved off his self-deprecation and wrapped her arms around his shoulders in a friendly hug. “I’m so glad you made it!”

Jillian Ramsay – known as “eminent League anthropologist Jillian Ramsay, PhD” by the international media – waved from her chair. “Hi, Jon! We need a non-competitive adult to supervise the grill.”

“Hey!” Bael Boone called from the end of the dock. “That hurts my feelings, elskede! I’m just standing here, minding my own business!”

Jillian cackled at her husband’s feigned indignation, getting a light shoulder punch from Zed’s girlfriend, Dani.

“Be nice to your husband,” she chided Jillian. “He’s so sleep-deprived from the baby, it’s mean to tease him.”

“Where is the bebe?” Jon asked the new parents. They absolutely doted on two-month-old Dalinda, a name they’d chosen because it meant “noble serpent.”

“Well, anytime she’s not with maman over there, she’s with her Granny Clarissa … and Mel.” Zed appeared to be pouting slightly, but Jon wasn’t sure whether it was because Zed’s favorite infant wasn’t present or the mention of the geriatric kappa who lived with Zed’s mother. Jon knew better than to refer to Mel as Zed’s stepfather. The reactions were always funny, but profanely ear-splitting.

“I really needed an evening out,” Jillian told Zed. “I adore the baby, but I needed to talk to adult people. And you’ll get to see her tomorrow.”

Zed sighed. “I know. It’s just not the same.”

Jon snorted. He had never been as close to Bael and Zed as Will was when they were kids. They were nice enough guys, they were just so … loud and full of opinions about so many subjects. Since Will had moved in with Sonja – who happened to be Jillian’s best friend – the six of them had become a tight little group of couples who got together like this on an almost weekly basis. They invited Jon regularly, which Jon suspected was part of Will trying to rehabilitate him into the sort of person who went into town voluntarily, like more than once a year.

While all of these people were good company, it felt weird tonight, being the only party of one in the group. Not that he was unfamiliar with being single, but watching everybody else paired off, being part of a shared life? That was new. Was it meeting Lia that made him suddenly so aware of other people and their partners? She’d brought out feelings in him that he hadn’t experienced in … well, he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced that sort of want mixed with fascination.

“Jon, you OK?” Dani asked.

He looked up to find Dani standing in front of him with a beer from the cooler. An energy witch who was doing research on the rift when she’d met Zed, Dani’s quirky calm was a perfect balance for Zed’s boisterous chaos. Or at least, she’d seemed calm as she’d stood in front of him for who knew how long, while he stared off into space.

“You seem a little distracted,” Dani said, returning to her deck chair.

“I don’t know if I can go into it,” Jon replied.

“OK,” she said, smiling at him. The silence between them seemed to bloom and Jon realized that for the first time in his memory, he really wanted to talk about a woman, and his feelings about said woman. Around a lot of people. Something shifted inside him, and not the usual “changing corporeal forms” sort of way. He’d known her a grand total of maybe twenty-four hours, half of which he hadn’t known her name … and she was affecting how he thought?

“I know that look!” Zed called from the grill, where he was smacking at Will’s hands, preventing him from taking back the spatula. “You met somebody!”

“You can’t know that!” Jon scoffed.

“Bael, when I met Dani, how did I look?” Zed demanded.

“Like that,” Bael said, nodding towards Jon. “All thunderstruck and calf-eyed. It was sad really. Thanks for putting him out of his misery, Dani.”

Jon muttered insults into his beer, making Bael guffaw. Dani chuckled, sipping her ginger ale. She’d been chugging the stuff like crazy to fight morning sickness. Jon shuddered lightly, imagining what the poor woman would go through birthing a baby of Zed’s proportions.

“And when Will met Sonja, how did he look?” Zed asked.

“Same,” Bael said, making Sonja preen. “No dignity left at all.”

Zed continued, “And when you met Jillian–”

“Hey, now, I married her, which means joking about it is off-limits,” Bael told him.

“When did that become a rule?” Jillian demanded. “I want to hear this!”

“Bebelle, he was an awful mess,” Zed assured her. “The moping was biblical.”

“I would say he’s lying, but it’s possible he might have photographic evidence,” Bael grumbled.

“Can we get back to Jon?” Dani asked. “Is Zed right, hon? Did you meet someone?”

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