Page 254 of As The Shifter World Turns

“Hey Toby, ready to go?” He met me outside at my vehicle. I hated it. I wanted to meet him at his place—my former place—but Neil said this fostered his independence and while he was right I couldn’t help but feel it had less to do with that and more to do with Neil not wanting to see me first thing every morning. My mate wouldn’t let Toby come to 3B without escorting him intothe manor, so not allowing me to collect Toby at the door was Neil telling me to stay clear.

And Gods that hurt.

“Yeah, Dad. Can we go straight there today? Some of the guys want to play hoops.” He opened the back door and climbed in, which was good because I didn’t want him to see the hurt on my face. I remember being that age and my friends were everything. Which was dumb. I wasn’t even friends with them the following year, but at that time, they mattered more than anything.

We drove to school and I asked him about his classes and all the typical kinds of questions to which he gave one word answers. It was normal. I knew this. But also it seemed like it was my fault and it probably was. Something had to give and soon.

“You can let me out here.” His friends were already on the court, as was a teacher holding his travel mug as if it was a life line and maybe it was.

I pulled over. “Have a great day, Toby. I love you.”

“I will, Dad.” And that was all he said as he rushed out, almost forgetting to shut the door.

I drove to the closest woods. Unlike some of my shifter friends, I could meld in pretty well with people. I’d get pointed at and humans would squee about seeing a fox, but that was about as far as it went. I pulled into the makeshift lot used by hikers and climbed out. I needed to freaking run. Maybe it would get my head on straight and give me some clarity.

The coast was clear, I shed my clothes and left them on the passenger seat. It wasn’t the safest of options, but I was far from thinking clearly. I took my fur and bounced off into the woods, only in all my inner chaos, I ran in the wrong direction and straight into the road only a few minutes later.

Thank fuck the human honked their horn. I’d been so intent on running that it had barely registered that I was on the street.

I scurried back the other way and straight back to my vehicle. I was not in a safe enough headspace to be in my fur. Shit, I shouldn’t be driving, but I didn't have a choice.

I went straight home, and parked the car, grateful that I hadn’t totally bunged all things up by taking Toby’s last parent from him. Last biological parent, anyway. Neil was a real father—a better one than me.

“I didn’t think you’d make it.” Neil stood on the sidewalk with a bag of groceries.

“You saw?” He was never going to give me a second chance if he knew I couldn’t even shift responsibly.

“Of course I did. Every. Single. Night.” He wasn’t referencing my shifting. He was talking about my friends coming over.

That was a lie. They weren’t friends. I didn’t even like most of them. But being alone was too hard and as long as I had some vodka and rum, they were willing to distract me from my own head. I wasn’t proud of using them like that, but justified it as I suspected they were using me too. They were transactionalrelationships and as long as we all knew, I didn’t really see the harm in it.

At least I didn’t before the hurt filled Neil’s eyes.

“They’re just coworkers. I’m not… I love you.” And there would be nothing that would ever change that, not even as I felt him slipping away from me.

“Love isn’t the problem.” He let out an exasperated sigh. “It never was. I need to put these away and pick up Charlie. Thanks for showing up this morning. Toby was worried.”

He started to walk away and I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, yanking it back immediately, not wanting to worsen things by crossing boundaries he set.

“Why did he think I wouldn’t show? Because of that one time when I missed the game?” And I hated myself for it.

“No. Because he heard the tall guy with the tattoo on his neck say he was gonna spend the night.”

Fuck!

“That was Bryant and trust me, that was never going to happen and he’s not allowed back here because he can’t be talking like that around my son. Wait? Why was he up?” Those guys had come over after nine.

“Because your asshat friends thought it was a good idea to have a smoke outside his room on a night when it was perfect to have the windows open. They woke him up.” He turned away. He was done with this conversation and honestly, I didn’t blame him. “Contrary to what they might think, both noise and smoke travel far.”

“I won’t let Bryant here anymore,” I promised.

“That won’t fix the problem, Martin. Not even a little bit.”

As hard as it was, I gave him time to get inside before I went back to my place.

“You’re back.” It was Ivor standing at my door all alone. It was weird to see him without Dyani.

“Is everything okay?”

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