Page 40 of Shaped to Be Yours

“Whatever.” Jason practically dumped the cat into my arms, and though I tensed, and the cat tensed too, it didn’t seem too upset by the exchange, now that it was calmed. “Mom still has Minnie’s old stuff in the mudroom. Just leave the cat in the house for now. I have to change and get to work.”

“Jason—”

But he was already storming inside, barely remembering his laptop, but he grabbed it as he passed, and slammed his bedroom door once he’d ducked through it.

I had gotten too caught up in it all, too excited and scientist-brained to ease him into the idea at the pace he needed. By the time Zinnia, Beck, and Kai breached the trees to join me, I heard the sound of Jason’s truck leaving the garage.

Chapter 9

JASON

Never drive angry, they say. Yeah, well, never type angry either, apparently, because I was pretty sure I was a few harder strokes away from cracking the J key on my office computer.

I had still somehow blown through most of today’s data entry, and without any errors, but even if I hadn’t been seething and pounding the keys like a madman, Mom would have realized I was pissed. I wasn’t known for being subtle.

I’d told her about the cat when I arrived—that we found one that Ricky was going to bring inside for now—but that was all.

“Oh, did you and Ricky decide to—”

“We just found it, okay!” I’d snarled. “Sorry. I’m not in a great mood.”

How could I have even begun to tell her the rest? It was all sofucked.

What. Was. I?

And why was the only way to find out the one way I couldn’t stand the thought of? Even worse was that Ricky had been thinking I should do it the whole time. Because he was the sensible and reasonable one and probably right.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

“Sweetheart?”

I turned, but I didn’t think Mom had heard which word I’d growled at my computer screen. “Yeah?”

“Are you hungry yet for lunch? If you’d like some time to step away, you could go get something for the office team. Ms. Greystone and Mr. Omang messaged me their orders. We usually have something delivered like yesterday, but since you have the truck, you could go pick it up for us.”

I must have been even more obvious than I’d thought if Mom was giving me an excuse to ditch. “Yeah. Sure. I can do that. Where from?”

Beastly Brewhouse.

Naturally.

Because of course I needed another reminder of Ricky when I was still pissed at him.

The place served sandwiches and snacks and all the usual fare for a coffee house café. I consoled myself knowing that Ricky hadn’t actually been inside the place yet. I would have been more consoled if I hadn’t gotten weird looks from people I passed on the sidewalk. People who knew me. This was my first time being downtown again, and since apparently everyone knew I was a monster, they looked at me like I’d grown a second head.

Only the dog I passed, being taken on a walk by their owner, reacted better than, well, their owner. The pup had desperately wanted to sniff and play with me, tail wagging like crazy, untilthe owner, a literal neighborfrom my neighborhood, realized it was me and hurried off.

Inside the brewhouse, some horse guy was working the counter. He was pale skinned with darker patches like birthmarks, which was normal for horses like pintos, I supposed. I wouldn’t have guessed he was a horse at first glance. His face was pretty human looking, and his little white ears could have indicated any number of monster types, but I’d seen him out from behind the counter when I first came in, and he definitely had hooves.

It didn’t help my mood that when I opened my wallet to find the company card Mom had given me, I also found something I hadn’t noticed earlier. A folded-up piece of paper, and written on it twenty-five times was:

YOU WILL NOT BE A DICK

Fuck, that was cute.

Ricky, you asshole.

I ordered sandwiches and coffee to go and stepped aside to wait. There were a lot of monsters in here. Being monster run meant it was a novelty for people whowantedto meet monsters, so humans who came in knew what to expect. The monster stans were a little weird though. One chick in the corner was clearly trying to get a shot of horse guy for her Instagram.

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