“And how has no one been discovered yet? There’s a camera in literally every single person’s pocket nowadays.”
“A shift is impossible to photograph. No matter what lens or camera you’re using, no matter the aperture or the technique.”
“What about video?”
“Same,” I answered. “You aim a camera at someone shifting, and the entire memory card erases. The only vulnerability would be if we’re in our were forms. Thishappens every full moon and lasts the entire night. Most weres have bunkers and other secure locations they could go and lock themselves in to keep out of the public’s eye.”
“So… am I the only, um, human who knows about this?”
I shook my head. Our feet brushed together under the water. I didn’t move away, and neither did Eli. My ankle crossed his and stayed there. My stiff cock ached. I subtly massaged it under the bubbles. “There are people who know. Close family members, some select friends. Coach Julian knows, Emmy deciding to tell him after he noticed the lack of injuries and was beginning to question things. It’s not against the law to tell people if you think you can trust them and they could handle it. There are some in the government who also know and who help cover up anything that might cause issues.”
“Great, is that what Area 51 is, then? Since it’s not aliens?”
I gave him a deadpan stare before I followed it up with a laugh. “No, that’s just where they store all the Christmas decorations.”
Eli rolled his eyes. “You’re so dumb.”
I rubbed my foot against his. He met my gaze and chuckled. Licked his lips. Reached for his glass and took another sip. “In general, though,” I continued, “the people that know are an extremely small number, and it’s important it stays that way. People fear what they don’t understand, and that fear can easily froth up an angry and mindless mob, driven by prejudice and quick judgments instead of by logic and heart. Us shifters, we’re powerful, but we’revastlyoutnumbered by the masses. If they wanted blood, they would get it, and that would either wipe us out completely or start a prolonged and messy war.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck.”
“Have you ever told anyone else? Beside me?”
I nod and take a sip of my drink, needing it to blunt my next words. I ran a wet hand through my hair. “I have. I’ve told two people. Told my mom when I shifted for the first time. She had known it might have happened, since her grandfather was a shifter and had told her about it, that it might appear in the family line at some point. She helped me and connected me with the previous alpha of the Burlington pack. And I told my older sister, Lily. But, well—she doesn’t remember. She’s suffering from dementia and schizophrenia. It really worsened around the time of our dad’s death, so much so that I can’t tell her about Mom’s passing without thinking she’s going to go back on all the progress she’s made.”
Eli’s eyebrows dipped downward, wrinkles appearing in his forehead. He grabbed his drink and scooched around the hot tub so he sat next to me. His scent filled my nose, mixing with the fresh, chill air that carried the sweet scent of pine from the trees around my yard. It helped ease my racing heart, helped stop the tightening I felt around my chest. “Oh, Gabe, Jesus.”
I gave him a smile. I didn’t often talk about the struggles I dealt with at home. My team knew, and they supported me, Coach never giving me any shit for having to leave practice—or sometimes a game—because my sister needed me. But talking about it with Eli felt different. There was a vulnerability here, and it wasn’t because we were both in just our underwear. “She gets panic attacks sometimes, and instead of flooding her with drugs that just turn her into a zombie, I found that me being there helps calm her down. That’s why I have to leave suddenly sometimes.”
Eli’s eyes open wide. “That morning… God, I’m sorry for ever even giving you a little bit of side-eye for that. I’m such an idiot.” There was a ruthless venom in how he directed that insult at himself. He winced and shook his head. “Fuck.”
“Hey, it’s fine. You’re not an idiot, at all. I should have been more open with you. And now I can be. You knowing my deepest, darkest secret and all.”
Eli filled his lungs with a deep breath. “Sorry, I’m hard on myself sometimes.”
“Don’t apologize.”
He licked his lips. It took him a moment to speak again. Under the water, his leg found itself resting over mine. “So this is why you don’t come out, either?”
“Yup.” I casually stretched out an arm over Eli’s wet shoulders. “I mean, obviously, homophobia and bigotry is still a problem—that’s obvious if you look at any of the comment sections on one of our Pride night posts. I’m sure you’ve dealt with all that fucked-up bullshit too.”
“I have. I had to lock down my comment sections on all my accounts after I did a big interview about being gay in the AHL. Before then, I was pretty under the radar, but after that, theDaily Maildegenerates set their sights on me.”
“It’s so fucked. People being angry because of this?” I reached out and grabbed the back of Eli’s neck, tenderly massaging him. He rolled his head and sighed. “Scared of a touch? A little romance? Some love between twobuddies. As if we’re forcing them all to sit down and make them watch us. It’s fucking stupid.”
Eli nodded. His hair was damp and his cheeks flushed from the heat of the hot tub. The lights that I had strung up around the hot tub glimmered in his hazel eyes. “I guess it’s exactly what people would think if they found out werewo—eh, sorry,shifterswere real.”
“That’s a good boy,” I said with a wink. Eli’s cheeks flared ruby. “How did you come out?” I asked.
“Pfft, in the most chaotic and insane way possible. It was Christmas. I was fifteen, and me and my family took a trip to North Carolina. My dad was dead set on seeing snow. Well, we did—we saw a record amount of snow that had us trapped inside a cabin for almost five days. By the third day, I started getting a bad case of cabin fever. We were playing Monopoly, and I’d just been sent to jail—passing Go and not collecting shit—when I thought I heard my cousin say something about not dropping the soap. That’s when I blurt out, ‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do!’”
My eyebrows lifted. “Then what happened?”
“My grandma cheered, my grandpa gasped, my mom dropped her head, my dad laughed, and my cousin pointed to my aunt and said, ‘I was talking to her about not dropping therope.’ Then he pointed at the rope figurine my aunt chose to play as. My aunt slapped his finger and told him not to point and then proclaimed that she had dated a girl in her mid-twenties for a while but broke up with her because she was deathly allergic to birds, and she had a thirteen-year-old cockatiel that she was way too attached to.”
I snorted out a laugh. “Holy shit, that sounds batty.”
