Page 11 of Her Embarrassed Bear Mate

Alix glanced at Aditi, trying to work out how her friend was feeling about all this. The break-up wasn't super fresh but anyone would feel tender after ending a four-year relationship and a five-year friendship.

"Definitely not those," Aditi muttered, quickly swiping past the pictures with her ex only for more to appear. She sighed deeply. "I should delete these, I just haven't got around to it."

"You also don't have to. She was a big part of your life, you don't have to pretend it didn't happen," Alix said, feeling more forgiving and sentimental than while she was sober.

Finally, they found some good pictures of just Aditi and uploaded those to her profile.Alix helped with listing good qualities and then it was time to swipe. Since Aditi was a bear shifter, she was looking for kin and humans but there was no way to set that as a parameter in the app. Instead, they had to rely on limiting the search radius and hunt for clues in people's bios like emojis or code words.

"Too old," Aditi said, even though she chose the age limits. She continued swiping. "Too young. Too perky. Too macho. Too tall. Too short."

Alix rolled her eyes. "Come on, you're not giving anyone a chance. You're the one who wanted to try online dating."

"But none of them do it for me," Aditi complained, not even looking at the pictures as she swiped the people away.

"Stop!" Alix almost slapped the phone out of Aditi's hand. "Fuck, that's Veronica."

Now Aditi was interested. Her eyes shimmered like she just stumbled upon a treasure trove. "Oooooh. Hello, hot step-sister."

Alix swatted the back of Aditi's head. "Don't call her that!"

"She's cute," Aditi agreed as she flicked through the various pictures of Veronica. "Not my type, though."

"Thank the Goddess for that." Alix leaned closerso she could go through Veronica's profile. It did feel a bit dodgy that she was having a little stalk but she was drunk and she was curious.

From the various pictures, it was clear that Veronica hiked. Or liked to pretend she did. This was an online dating profile, everything was always embellished. There was an adorable picture of her with a cute black cat that made Alix's heart melt and a gorgeous shot of Veronica in a little red bikini that looked like it had come straight from the two-fold in a sexy magazine.

Alix fanned herself. "Told you. Smoking hot."

"You should make yourself a dating profile and match with her," Aditi advised, looking a lot more excited by that prospect than her own dating life.

"No! Were you not listening to the whole story? I need to stay the heck away from her," Alix said, her mind swirling with images of their night together and that horrible awkward dinner. The whole thing was like some sort of soap opera and she couldn't believe this was happening to her in real life.

In any case, she was determined to keep the whole thing a secret and not let anyone know how attractive she found Veronica. Especially not Veronica.

SEVEN

Veronica

It wasstrange enough to Veronica that her mum and dad didn't live together anymore, but a whole other out-of-body experience to arrive at her childhood home and find it filled with strangers. She wasn't so naïve to forget that her parents were both adults with their own lives, but that didn't explain why she had never met some of these people before. Did her dad never invite any of his friends to the family parties or were these all people he had met in the last months of being single?

She didn't know and she didn't like it either.

With her birthday present under her arm, shesearched the crowd for her dad. There were people everywhere, all chatting and drinking and laughing rambunctiously. She found her dad in the kitchen making small talk with his arm wrapped tightly around Dianne. The sight made Veronica's jaw clench. She knew her parents hadn't been happy for a while but it was still confronting to see her dad so loved-up.

He waved when he saw her and hugged her when she was closer.

"Happy birthday, Dad."

He beamed. "I'm so glad you could make it."

Veronica wasn't. She wished she had a good excuse not to attend the party but she didn't like lying. Instead, she screwed on a smile and handed him his present. She'd gone through great trouble to find a bottle of his discontinued favourite whisky and paid the online seller handsomely for it.

He only glanced into the gift bag and set it aside without much care. "Thank you, sweetheart. You haven't eaten yet, have you? There's a food truck coming later and I've organised an open bar tonight. They're dispensing drinks on the patio. You should get yourself something nice."

Veronica gritted her teeth. "Sure." Without another word, she made her way to the patio. She'dplanned on driving back to her hotel tonight but decided that she would get a cab back instead so she could help herself to alcohol. Lots of alcohol. She wanted to be anywhere but here but there was no escaping the party. The ironic part about that was that her dad likely wouldn't pay her much attention but he would definitely notice if she wasn't here.

The patio doors were open and there were lots of people outside, all grouped around the rented patio heaters. Veronica could smell the harsh smoke of cigarettes and the sweet scent of vapes. She continued on to the bar where two men in neat white shirts were serving drinks. There was even a little menu printed out.

"Can I have a gin and tonic, please?" she ordered.

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