6. Dennis
Dennis
“So,” Bjorn said from his position on the bed, “want to go check out the happy hour?”
Dennis, who was slumped in the room’s single armchair, sighed heavily. On one hand, a drink would be nice. On the other hand, ugh, standing up and moving. “I don’t suppose they deliver?” How could he be so tired and sore from just…sitting all day?
Bjorn chuckled. “I’m pretty sure they don’t. Though, I could go down and bring you back up something, if you’d like?”
“Nah.” He didn’t expect the other man to wait on him. “Let me just decompress for five more minutes and then I’ll put my shoes back on.”
That got him a scoff. “Shoes are overrated,” Bjorn said, lifting his large, bare foot into the air. “Let everything air out.”
Dennis couldn’t help but laugh at that. Bjorn’s feet were fucking enormous. They probably needed their own blow-dryer to air out. “What the hell shoe size do you wear, anyway?” he challenged.
Bjorn’s eyebrows went up, and he studied his foot like this was the first time he was seeing it. “Fifteen. Why?”
“Jesus.” Dennis’s own feet were a larger-than-average size eleven. He couldn’t imagine trying to shop for size fifteen shoes. “Where do you even buy boats like that?”
Bjorn lowered his foot and shrugged. “Online, mostly. I have a couple styles that I know fit and I just replace them when they wear out.” He sat up then and scooted to the edge of the bed. “Ok, your five minutes are up. Shoes on and let’s go out drinking.”
“Does it count as ‘out’,” Dennis wondered out loud, “if we’re just going downstairs in the same building?”
“Sure it does. It’s still a bar and it’s ‘out’ of our room.” Bjorn clambered to his feet, overbalanced, and caught himself on the arm of Dennis’s chair, landing with his face inches from Dennis’s. “Oops.”
Dennis sucked in a breath at the sudden movement, then held it when he realized how close they were.
He’d avoided getting too close to Bjorn the previous day, except for their enforced snuggling in bed, to avoid tempting Bjorn and to get his not-mates message across.
Now that they were a breath apart, though, he was hypnotized by the gold sheen to Bjorn’s brown eyes.
Was that a shifter thing? He’d never been close enough to one before to look into their eyes like this.
Bjorn's eyes were soft, with crinkles in the corners like he smiled a lot.
Realizing he’d been holding his breath, Dennis breathed out explosively, then winced when he realized he’d just blown full into Bjorn’s face. “Sorry. My breath is probably not great after all the car snacks.”
“Nah.” Moving with exaggerated care, Bjorn straightened up. “Smells like roses, I promise. So.” He bent down to put on his shoes and Dennis did not look at his plump ass. Nope. “Drinkies?”
Dennis rolled his eyes. “Drinkies?” he mocked. “Are we sorority chicks now?”
Bjorn grinned as he straightened up. “Like, totally,” he played along in a Valley girl voice.
Trying not to smile, Dennis slipped his feet into his own shoes. “Good to know. Okay, let’s go down.”
They walked in companionable silence to the elevator, which took approximately an age to arrive. “Jesus,” Dennis muttered as they crammed into the car with the about twenty other people already inside. “This place needs more elevators.”
Bjorn, crushed up against Dennis’s back, huffed a laugh. “It’s just because everyone’s trying to get to the bar at the same time,” he pointed out. “I’m sure it won’t be like this later.”
“Oh, no,” said a woman who’d apparently been listening, “it’s been like this every time I’ve taken it, and I’ve been here three days.”
“See?” Dennis demanded, turning to glare at Bjorn like it was his fault. Which he knew it wasn’t. But still.
Bjorn just turned up his hands helplessly. “Sorry, boss. This is the place that had a room available.”
Boss? Where had that come from? Dennis just shook his head. It wasn’t as if he liked being addressed like an authority figure. That would be…weird.
Finally, the elevator disgorged its crowd on the ground floor.
The mass of people, moving almost as a unit, surged toward the bar, which was already crowded.
Dennis did want that drink, but damn, at what cost?
Before he could complain, however, Bjorn had taken his hand and was using his freakishly large body to plow through the crowd.
“‘Scuse us,” he announced as he pushed past a slow-moving couple. “Sorry,” he added as he accidentally hip-checked the woman who had spoken in the elevator. “Comin’ through.”
By the time they got to the bar, Bjorn had them well in front of the elevator crowd, and the people already standing at the bar took one look at the shifter and started easing themselves out of the way.
Bjorn, for his part, seemed entirely unaware that he was intimidating the others.
“Oh, thanks,” he said cheerfully as an alarmed-looking man jumped to the side, allowing Bjorn to belly up to the bar.
He brandished two of the drink tickets the desk clerk had given him.
“I’ll have an IPA, if you have one. Dennis? ”
Dennis, still trying to figure out how Bjorn had cut through the crowd that easily, blinked. “Oh. Uh.” He owned a damn bar and he couldn’t think of what he wanted to drink? He was ridiculous. “Jack and Coke,” he finally said, pulling a near-random drink out of his mental lexicon. Well, it would do.
The bartender nodded and started pouring Bjorn’s beer. Once he’d handed it over and turned to mix Dennis’s drink, Bjorn picked up his glass and took a sip, licking his lips. Those lips were plush and pink, and Dennis kind of wanted to lick them himself.
But he wasn’t going to.
“So,” Bjorn said teasingly as the bartender pushed Dennis’s drink toward him, “you come here often?”
Dennis snorted in spite of himself. “That was awful. Please don’t ever try to seriously pick anyone up with that line.”
Bjorn’s smile dimmed slightly. “I wouldn’t try to pick anyone else up,” he said, sounding almost offended. “I take being mates seriously, even if you don’t believe in it.”
Ouch. Dennis didn’t like the way it sounded like he didn’t give a shit about Bjorn’s feelings. Not that he did, he reminded himself. They were strangers. Sure, he didn’t want to hurt the other man, but he also wasn’t going to bend over backwards to accommodate his crazy belief in mates.
Bjorn studied him for a few seconds. “Do you really not believe in mates and the fates?” he asked tentatively, “or do you just not want to mate me?”
Shocked, Dennis could only splutter for a second.
“It’s not about you,” he finally managed to say insistently, though he was unsure why it mattered so much to him that Bjorn believe him.
“It’s just a level of chaos I’m not ok with letting into my life.
Like, not getting to choose my own partner?
Being mated to a guy who can’t control his shifts and will probably destroy my bar accidentally? ” He shook his head. “I can’t.”
Bjorn did him the courtesy of considering all of that before speaking.
“Well, if we mate, then I will be able to control my shifts,” he pointed out.
“And I’d never destroy anything of yours.
Or, well, if I accidentally did, I’d definitely replace it.
With something even better.” He paused, thoughtful, before going on, “And I don’t think it’s so much that the fates make it so you can’t choose your partner.
I think of it more like them putting a giant flashing red arrow on the right person for you that says ‘Best option, right here’.
You still have free will. You can say no.
” He snorted lightly. “As you’ve already figured out.
But from my point of view, why would I want to go through years of dating unknown quantities when I could just… look for the giant flashing red arrow?”
Dennis drained his drink and set the glass down on the bar, catching the bartender’s eye and up-nodding him for another. “But what if I prefer someone who isn’t wearing an arrow?”
Bjorn’s eyes sank to the floor and his hand holding his beer sagged so far he almost poured it out on the ground.
“I want you to be happy, Dennis,” he said softly.
“That’s what being a mate means to me: prioritizing the other person’s wants, needs, and happiness.
So if what makes you happy is being apart from me - even if it’s being with another person - I will learn to live with that.
Do…” He swallowed. “Do you already have someone else in mind?”
Dennis, fighting the inexplicable urge to sweep Bjorn up in a hug, only barely caught the end of that question. “What?” he blurted. “No.”
“You don’t have someone else?” Bjorn asked, lifting his eyes to Dennis’s again with a look of hope dawning.
Dennis snorted. “Nobody wants to date someone as grumpy as me, Bjorn. People avoid me. Thanks,” he added when the bartender slid his refilled drink toward him.
Bjorn took the last sip of his beer and wiped foam from his upper lip, then set the bottle aside.
“Sure, you’re grumpy,” he allowed, leaning a bit more into Dennis’s space, “but you’re also nice in your own way.
You let me sleep in your bed because I wouldn’t fit on the couch.
You haven’t thrown me out of your life. And I bet you have friends who love you. ”
“Friends?” Dennis asked skeptically, thinking about it. Did he have friends? “Well, there’s Myrah, but she kind of has to like - or at least pretend to like - me.”
Bjorn squinted confusedly. “Why would she have to pretend to like you?”
Dennis shrugged. “Well, she still owns a stake in the pub - a minority stake - so if she wants me to implement anything there that she wants, she has to convince me to do it. Which means being nice to me.”
The other man considered that for a while. “You wouldn’t listen if she was convincing but didn’t suck up to you in the process?” he asked finally.