“Sorry, I, uh…need my bag back,” Cameron said, gesturing awkwardly at the bag strap on Emory’s shoulder.
Gods, what was this man doing to him? His thoughts were a jumbled mess, and all he wanted to do was call Shay…but also possibly hug Emory until sometime next week.
“Oh…you’re right,” he said, laughing a bit awkwardly. “I’m feeling a little out of sorts after the long delays and, well, meeting you, of course. My fated mate.” Emory’s eyes went distant for a moment. “I’m going to have so much to tell?—”
Emory blinked, as if coming back to reality, and his brows pulled together. “Are you going to tell your family? About…me?”
The question threw Cameron for a loop. “Uhm, yeah? I mean, I was planning on calling them the second we walk away—or maybe I’ll wait to tell them in person, but…is that alright?”
Did Emory not want him to share their news? Cameron, of all people, was well aware that they might not work out in the end. His birth parents sure as hell hadn’t. The last he’d heard, from an update he hadn’t asked for when he turned 18, his alpha father was in jail, and his omega mother’s location was unknown.
Even if it wasn’t anything as extreme as that, fated mate bonds weren’t immune to human folly. For all their romantic glory, Cameron had heard of a few seahorse shifters who had lefttheir fated mates, and certain shifters were more known for their commitment—or lack thereof—than others. While some shifters were polyamorous and had a fated mate as well as other mates, some flat-out cheated on their fated mates. Cameron would never cheat, but he wouldn’t force himself to stay in a failing relationship either.
Did Emory have the same doubt? He tried not to let the thought bother him, but his octopus slapped his tentacles on the ground.
“Oh, yes, of course it’s alright!” Emory said, still looking a bit flustered. “Please, feel free to share with your family and friends. I was just realizing I… Well, I don’t really know very much about you. If I were to tell my mother, she and the aunts would start an inquisition, and I probably wouldn’t know any of the answers.”
Cameron’s shoulders, which had been inching towards his ears, relaxed. “Oh, well, that’s fair. Maybe after Fall Harvest, we can meet up and get to know each other?”
A foreign giddiness filled Cameron, making his fingers tingle and his foot start to tap. It was like his octopus was making him dance. While Cameron was still beyond skeptical of this entire thing, his octopus was completely on board.
Emory eagerly pulled out his phone to exchange numbers with him. He was about to ask Emory about his trip when a loudspeaker announced that Emory’s plane was beginning to board. Cameron retrieved his bag and found himself nearly tackling Emory for one last, awkward hug.
Except it wasn’t really awkward. It was wonderful and warm and safe and?—
Emory tilted his head down and nuzzled against Cameron’s neck, right where his scent gland would have been if he were a mammal shifter.
Cameron tensed in the hug. “I, uhm, don’t have a scent gland there. Or anywhere, actually.”
“Sea shifter?” Emory murmured, and his breath ghosted out across Cameron’s cheek.
“Uh, yeah.” While Cameron braced for his response, his octopus forced him to cling harder to Emory’s arms. If this was going to be their final hug, he wanted a few more seconds of it. “Is that a problem?”
“No, beautiful, it’s not,” Emory said. “I’m a land mammal, but your species doesn’t matter to me.”
Cameron bit his lip and was about to ask if it mattered what kind of water shifter he was when his eyes caught the clock on the wall behind them. If he didn’t leave right this second, he was going to miss another flight. Emory must have felt his tension because he gave him one more squeeze and then released him.
“I don’t want to hold you up, Cameron. We’ll talk again shortly, I’m sure.”
Cameron felt the urge to go in for another hug, but he truly didn’t have time. He bid a quick farewell and hurried across the terminal, running on the moving sidewalk, which earned him quite a few looks from the other patrons. He arrived at his gate right as the final boarding group was being called.
He didn’t check his phone until he took his seat and pulled it out to turn on airplane mode. Emory had texted him a brief hello message, which kept Cameron company the entire plane ride home.
“Oh,my love! It’s so good to see you. You smell… Wait. Do you smell different? Honey! Come smell our child and tell me if he smells different!”
“Pa—please, my eardrums!” Cameron complained as his pa tried to squeeze the life out of him while shouting.
“You know your sense of smell is better than mine. Oh, helooksdifferent, doesn’t he, sweetheart? Something’s different,” Cameron’s ba said as he walked into the room.
“That’s what I’m saying! There’s something different about you, Cameron,” Pa said, stepping back to give him a quick once-over.
“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Shay snarked as she shouldered past Cameron to walk into the kitchen.
He glowered at her retreating form. When she looked back over her shoulder to wink at him, he stuck his tongue out at her.
Every time they came home, some of their childhood antics returned. Growing up, they’d constantly play-fought on land and in their pool. He’d changed a lot since then, but thankfully, his relationship with Shay and his adopted parents never wavered.
As they’d gotten older, they’d both fallen into their roles in the family. Shay was the older—by three months, a fact she pointed out a lot growing up—golden child. She’d been the most popular girl in school, and after college, she’d jetted off to one country after another to do field research and earn a master’s in shifter biology. Cameron was the more subdued one, content to graduate college early and work in the nonprofit sector, filling his time with volunteering and quiet evenings at home. Until this week, he hadn’t hoped for more. But now…
