“Damn straight,” the guy said. “I’m Cole, and that damn fool who knows nothing about cars is Lennox.”
Lennox was a big guy in his fifties, with broken veins in his cheeks that meant he either spent a lot of time outdoors or with a drink in his hand. Or maybe both. Cole was a few years younger, his blond hair turning to gray, and talkative. Make thatverytalkative.
Chuck—the guy behind the bar, whose thoughts on cars were almost as criminal as Lennox’s—kept the beer flowing as Cole talked, and Riley began to relax. He wasn’t a car guy, but he knew enough to pass for one. And as the evening wore on, he realized that, for the first time in a long time, he was enjoying something. He’d been welcomed, made to feel part of something. Almost as if he belonged.
With guys decades older than him, with whom he had nothing in common? Jeez, he was pathetic.
“Keys, Cole.” Chuck held his hand out over the bar.
Riley blinked at Chuck, slow to catch on.
“Jesus, it’s just up the damn road,” Cole protested.
“Far enough to kill someone or get yourself arrested.”
“Fucking Urban,” Cole growled. “Lawson would never have stopped a man driving home just because he’d had a beer.”
“Lawson ain’t sheriff now,” Chuck said. “Keys, Cole. I don’t aim to be visiting you in lockup. Or the morgue.”
“Fucking shifters,” Cole grumbled, finally tossing his keys on the bar. “It’s unnatural, the way they are.”
Unnatural. The word sat there, thick and heavy in the air. Like shifters were monsters.
Riley’s spine stiffened. He’d almost forgotten why he was here. It was a reminder how important his story was and what was at stake if he didn’t break it, didn’t stop Urban’s plans.
“Your sheriff’s a shifter?” he asked, keeping his voice mild.
“For now,” Lennox muttered into his beer.
“What Lennox means,” Chuck said, a little too fast, “is that elections are coming up.” He didn’t look at Lennox when he said it.
“No one in their right mind’s gonna vote for one ofthemagain,” Lennox said. His voice had dropped low but sounded ugly.
“Must be interesting, having a shifter as sheriff when most of the town’s human,” Riley said.
“You’re telling me,” Cole snorted. “This used to be a decent place. Now it’s full of mongrels.”
Riley flinched. He covered it by taking a swig of his beer.
“That’s enough, Cole.” Chuck smacked the bar hard. “I don’t give a shit how much you’ve had. You don’t talk like that in my place.”
Cole sneered but didn’t argue. Riley guessed in a town this small, even a bigot had to watch who he pissed off.
“Sorry about that,” Chuck said, with a forced smile at Riley. “You want another?”
“Sure,” Riley accepted. He waited until Chuck moved down the bar to serve someone else before asking any more questions. Seemed like Chuck was a shifter-sympathizer and would shut him down.
“So how many shifters are there in town?” he asked Lennox. “And how can you tell if they’re a shifter or a normal person?” Because hestillhadn’t found a way to identify a shifter on sight, no matter how long he’d trawled online for suggestions.
“’Sides the collar and leash, y’mean?” Lennox barked a harsh laugh. “Can’t tell them apart by sight, but we know ’em, the ones here. You will too, if you stick around long enough.”
Before Riley could ask anything further, Chuck was back, and the damn man stayed there jawing away about cars until Cole and Lennox both decided to call it a night.
Damnit. Well, Riley would just have to come back again tomorrow night. As he finished his beer, he realized that part of him didn’t want to. He hadn’t expected to encounter such open anti-shifter hostility, and it left him feeling… like he needed to shower, actually.
Riley had his reservations about shifters, sure—who didn’t? He’d grown up with stories about out-of-control alphas and coverups. And God knew, he didn’t trust any man who had the power of lawanda pack behind him. But listening to people spew that kind of vicious hatred made Riley feel like maybe he’d been swimming in dirty water too long to realize how murky it was.
It was the ease with which they’d used those words, in public, like talking about shifters as less than people wasn’t shocking anymore. He wondered if they’d have been so welcoming if they knew he was gay. Guys like that rarely kept their bigotry in one lane. His father sure hadn’t—raging about shifters taking over one minute, and disowning Riley the next. Different targets, same poison.
