Trash Panda (Shift Work #3)

1. Prologue

Prologue

Rollie (Several Years Earlier)

It’s not every day that I get royally plastered and puke on a stranger’s shoes, but man, can I pick ‘em. The shoes in question are gorgeous. Pointy-toed leather boots polished to a glossy shine. They’ve got enough pizzazz that they were probably a pain in the ass to find in a large enough size to fit the gorgeous shifter standing before me. Probably expensive. I groan as I swipe the back of my hand over my mouth.

I track my eyes up the long lanky body in front of me, take in the skintight faded jeans. The toned muscles under an aquamarine mesh shirt with silvery threads of metallic glitter that make him look almost magical. I can see his dusky nipples through the barely there fabric. I have to tear my eyes away from the shiny silver hoops threaded through those pretty nubs up to his face.

An aquiline nose set over full, kissable lips, his glossy dark hair frames his face. Dark, dancing eyes meet mine with amusement when I finally stop ogling him long enough to notice I’ve captured his attention. The sardonic grin he flashes me is a relief; the beautiful stranger isn’t pissed off about the shoes I ruined.

“Sorry,” I slur, weaving in place. “Send me the dry cleaning bill?”

The stranger laughs. “You can’t dry clean knock-off Manolos, hun. They’ll wash just fine. Are you here with anyone?”

“Nope. Just me. Alone. Lonely.” I clap my hands over my mouth. I did not mean for that last word to slip out. Fuck, what am I even doing?

He snorts with laughter and gently puts an arm around my shoulders, guiding me away from the puddle of puke on the sidewalk outside the bar I just left. “Okay, Lonely, let’s get you cleaned up, shall we? Do you have a name?”

“Thomas.” My nose wrinkles at the bitter taste of my legal name. “But my friends call me Rollie.”

“Ah, and do you often make friends by puking on them, Rollie? If so, I may have discovered the root of that loneliness problem for you. I’m Seb, by the way. Short for Sebastian, but only my moms call me that.”

I turn my face into his chest to try to hide my embarrassment, baffled that he’s being so nice to me. He smells good, so I nose in closer, chasing that whiff of vanilla and a hint of sweet lime. “Sorry, I’m wasted.” I mumble into the rough mesh of his shirt.

“I couldn’t tell.” Seb gives a dry little chuckle as he nudges my face away from his armpit. “Lucky for you, I’m an avian shifter, so puking is sort of a way to show your love. If we squint real hard and pretend you’ve also got feathers.”

“Sorry,” I repeat, unsure whether he’s mocking me.

“Don’t be. I’ve been there. Let’s get you cleaned up and into a ride home.”

“I’d ride you home,” I blurt.

Seb laughs. “Not when you’re this drunk, Rollie. Ask me again when you’re sober.” He winks at me. And then he guides me back inside the dimly lit, too-loud bar. He nods to the bouncer, who must know him because the burly shifter just nods back. Seb leads me past the dancing crowd to the washroom.

The single stall is hosting multiple occupants and I’m pretty sure they’re fucking. Seb pulls me to the sink and wets a paper towel to swab my face. Then he bends to take care of his boots. I feel like a total perv as I lean heavily on the wall and ogle his ass in those skintight, bedazzled jeans.

“Ask me when you’re sober, Rollie,” Seb repeats, with a wink when he glances over his shoulder and catches me looking.

“I’m not an alpha,” I clarify, since from the whiff of scent I got from him, I’m all but certain he’s an omega.

“So?” Seb arches an elegant eyebrow at me.

“You’re an omega, right?” I swallow hard. Bile rises in my throat at the reminder of the roles that were drilled into my head growing up. Gorgeous omegas don’t settle for betas.

A dark look flits over Seb’s expressive face and I’m worried I said the wrong thing again. Or misgendered him. Trans secondary gender shifters who embrace an identity outside the one they’re born with are a concept I’ve learned about since leaving home. I’ve known about static humans having transgender people, since I’m a trans primary gender shifter. Secondary gender is different.

I grew up in a raccoon shifter community—called a gaze like a group of static raccoons. My gaze made it seem like secondary gender was an immutable biological reality. To my family, primary gender is about cosmetics and blending into static human society, but secondary gender is what determines a shifter’s role within the gaze and the home.

Only, in Four Corners, I’ve met some shifters who aren’t the secondary gender they smell like. Not all shifters are traditional about what that means when it comes to sex and relationships either. Even some of the cisgender shifters in the mixed species community have vastly different roles associated with their secondary gender. Bear omegas are the heads of their households; the opposite of how my gaze taught me things should be. It’s been a huge culture shock, and I’ve felt so disconnected and out of place, but hopeful that I could fit. More hopeful than I ever felt at home with a gaze that had no use for a beta shifter. Except I might’ve just fucked up by making this gorgeous shifter think I’m as set in my ways as the gaze I left behind. Ugh.

“I am,” Seb says, tone unreadable. Or maybe I’m just too drunk and spiraling into guilty regret to parse the complicated emotions in that simple statement. “I’m pansexual though, so I fuck pretty much anyone who catches my fancy. Alphas, omegas, betas, and even statics.” He winks at me.

“Oh.” That’s a bold declaration to make to a stranger. Or are we friends now? He’s calling me Rollie and wiping up my sick, so maybe we’re friends? The heavy weight in my gut at knowing I’m not anything he could possibly want dissolves into fizzy bubbles of hope that maybe I could fit in here, be among shifters who see me as more than my anatomical lacks. Seb just told me something personal. But then again, I asked him something personal. “Sorry.”

“That I’m pan?” Seb raises that elegant eyebrow again in question. I suppress the drunken urge to rub my fingers along it. That would be weird.

“Gods, no! Sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I just meant you smell really nice.”

“When you’re sober, Rollie,” Seb repeats in a lilting sing-song that makes me really wish I was sober.

Right, I’m still coming across as flirty. Seb’s smile is so pretty. I could stare at him for ages. Seb shakes his head like my older sister does when I say something socially inept, and she’s despairing of what to do with me; like he thinks I’m cute and funny, if a little awkward.

Seb loops an arm around my shoulders to steer me outside again. “Time to get you home.”

He pours me into a cab, then settles into the back seat next to me. I give my address and Seb grins as he rattles off his own, not too far from mine in Four Corners. I’m thrilled with the company for the long drive out to the shifter community where I live now.

“Fellow shifter, huh?” he asks as our driver pulls into traffic. That’s an easy guess; almost everyone who lives in the cozy little community of Four Corners is a shifter. Not to mention most of the patrons at the bar we just left smelled like shifters. Still, it’s odd that he didn’t realize sooner.

“You can’t smell it on me?” I ask, taken aback since even three sheets to the wind I recognize a fellow shifter by scent. Even without his declaration earlier, I’d have guessed he’s an avian shifter. They have a feathery scent that’s hard to describe.

“Took scent blockers earlier. Wasn’t really looking for a pushy alpha’s attention tonight. Forgot to bring a second dose, hence calling it an early night.”

Oh. Well, they must be wearing off, since I smelled him just fine. Only with my nose pressed practically into his scent glands though. That explains why—try as I might—I can’t seem to catch another hint of his enticing scent. We chat about Four Corners and what brought me to the area. Being from away always invites questions.

I want to use the ride to chat Seb up, but the lulling vibrations of the car have me nodding off. I wake up when we pull off the highway at Four Corners. It takes me a few groggy breaths to remember Seb taking me under his wing, even though my face is pillowed on his shoulder. His scent is stronger now, and even more enticing in the enclosed space of the backseat. The mesh from his shirt pressing into my cheek is uncomfortable, so I sit up and glance over at him. Seb smiles at me. He doesn’t seem to mind that I used him as a pillow for most of the drive.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to drool on you,” I say sheepishly.

“It’s fine.” Seb’s lips quirk into a playful grin. “Seems like you need a keeper, Rollie. If you’re going to get so wasted that you can’t get yourself home, at least bring a friend next time, yeah? Safety first.” He winks at me.

“Yeah. I know. I’m still new to the area, is all.” I stare at my hands, embarrassed to admit that I don’t have any friends here.

“That your way of saying you need a friend? Next time you want to tie one on, give me a call, okay?” Seb nudges a slip of paper with his number scrawled on it into my hand. “Text me so I have yours too.”

“Oh. Sure.” My skin flushes with warmth and my heart races with pure elation. He’s giving me his number. I somehow got the sexiest omega I’ve ever met’s phone number. I obediently type his digits into my phone and text him a dorky message. “Thanks.”

His phone pings with a notification and Seb makes a show of checking it. He snorts when he reads what I wrote.

Rollie: Hi. It’s Rollie. Sorry about your shoes.

Seb: Stop apologizing.

He sticks his tongue out at me when I check the reply, and we exchange grins. It’s so ridiculous, sitting next to each other and texting, but this feels so utterly nice and normal. It’s one of those little things that I watched my siblings do with their friends back in high school, and envied with a hollow ache of knowing it wasn’t ever going to be for me. I didn’t have a place with the other raccoon shifters we grew up among, and the static kids we attended school with weren’t ever allowed around enough outside of school to get really close to them.

It’s ridiculous to feel like he’s someone I could text silly inside jokes to from across a room someday. We only met tonight, and I spent the bulk of our time together snoring on his shoulder. But hope and longing are a heady thing and he’s so bright, the most sparkling treasure I could imagine. I want to cling to any scrap of his attention he’ll allow me.

When our ride stops at my place, Seb makes sure I get inside and waves from the backseat as I blush furiously and wonder if I’ll see the flirtatious omega again soon or if I blew my chance with him with the terrible first impression I just made. As the taxi pulls away with him in it, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

I pull it out and beam at the message.

Seb: Drink some water, Rollie, and don’t forget me once you’ve sobered up ;)