Page 61 of Shaped to Be Yours

“You don’t.”

“I do too!” I pushed him, but he held onto my waist. “I have plenty. I got us in trouble with Whitmore because of our woods frolicking. I can get hyper-focused on things and miss totally obvious things, like you pining for me for years.”

“Thatwaspretty terrible of you.”

I pushed him again. “And… I take too much for granted.”

“Like what?”

“Having my big, happy, close family. How easy school stuff always was for me. That my best friend would always be there, totally forgetting that you might have life-changing things happening right under my nose, and I easily could have lost you. I still could—”

“You are not going to lose me,” Jason said hushed, glancing at his mom at the dining table. No one was eavesdropping right now, not even Kai, who I could see over Jason’s shoulder petting Mickey. “No one is losing anyone. Because neither of us aregoing to be idiots again, we are going to figure out what I am, and the assholes of the world are not going to win.”

I had been trying so hard to convincehimof that. It felt good to have Jason turn the tables.

“Deal?” he asked.

“Deal.”

“Good. Now let’s get movie number two started!”

Kai enjoyedHellboyeven more thanThe Shape of Waterfor the brighter colors and happier tone. Abe wasn’t even his favorite character. He liked Hellboy and how much that character loved cats.

“I promise to be like Hellboy and never eat you, Mickey,” Kai said to the cat who still hadn’t left his lap. “For you are soft and nice and I like it when you vibrate.”

We were definitely enjoying having Kai as a friend.

We still planned to watchHellboy II, since it had been decided that Kai would spend the night and return to the facility with us in the morning, but we moved downstairs to Jason’s room, so Sandy could get some sleep without us making a ruckus right below her bedroom on the second floor. Jason didn’t have a separate TV, but he had a huge, curved computer monitor that worked perfectly, with all three of us sprawled on the bed.

Maybe because of his ordeal or another dose of pain meds before movie number three, but Kai fell asleep with about half an hour left. We didn’t wake him. Or Mickey, who had followed us downstairs. But I did take the opportunity to scoot closer to Jason and steal a kiss.

“You know…” Jason pressed his forehead to mine, which was just as sweet as when he’d done it while sporting antlers. “Today almost felt normal. Tonight, I mean. Not the earlier parts. But you help me feel normal, even with a new fish buddy.”

“It is normal. You’re normal. Normal for you. We’ll figure out the rest, and I am not going anywhere.”

“I was hoping you’d go somewhere.”

I waited for Jason to elaborate.

He grabbed the remote and turned off the movie. His grin might as well have had fangs already because it was absolutely devious. “We have a whole other room. We should use it.”

Chapter 12

JASON

Bathroom break first, then I was joining Ricky in his room, since Kai was asleep in mine. Fucked up as some of the day had been, I felt pretty good about things at the moment.

Until, after I’d washed my hands and was stupidly checking my phone like the habitual response it was, I saw a new notification from the Monster Match app, and upon checking it, I saw that it was not a message from Cael or Teracht.

It was a notification that my profile had been updated.

Name:Jason Bosco

Species:Monster (Uncategorized)

They must have learned about my visa, but because that very unhelpful delineation was all they’d had to use to register me, that’s all the Monster Match app knew too. They hadn’t closed my account, but the message that had come with the update was almost worse.

We apologize for the mistake with your profile! The Monster Match App recommends that you update your Species and other specifics as soon as possible to better reflect your nature. The more we know, the better we can help you meet your match!

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