Chapter 1
Eran
Guardians of Glitter Bomb Territory
With only hours to go before Bernard and Nashen’s move out party, I headed to The Cuddle Club.
I needed to be squashed under someone giant and furry until all my frustration at the pregnant lynx squelched out of me.
I’d never extend my claws and whack him one, but my cat was close.
Super close. He might be the bigger cat, but my inner beast grew up wrestling with my Ursidae siblings.
Still, Nashen was pregnant and seemed to hate everyone except Bernard, his parents, and my little brother, Jacand.
I wasn’t sure why he tolerated the latter so well, but that was the situation at the apartment.
I’d miss Bernard. He’d been a decent roommate and he was tidy.
Still, I wouldn’t be sad to see them go.
Jacand thought he was moving in with me but until he was old enough to have a job and pay rent he could stay with the mixed colony of bears, lions, and cats that were our immediate family.
I adored the kid, but if I found one more piece of mouse on the floor—
I stopped and gave myself a good mental shake before I walked into The Cuddle Club. I didn’t want word getting back to my parents that I looked any more stressed out than usual. I loved them but they had enough kids to take care of without worrying about my grown ass.
“Nashen is an omega. A pregnant omega,” I told my cat as he lounged on a high branch of a tree inside his inner sanctum. “And he seems to think that we are going to eat him.”
My cat went on a mini monologue about how that was exactly what he was going to do if the lynx didn’t put his balls on ice as I walked inside.
The bell above the door chimed. The GGB now boasted four Cuddle Club locations, but the original had always been my favorite.
I grew up in and out of the place so much that it might as well have been my second home.
It was Jeran, the owner himself, behind the reception desk that morning. He yawned and waved to me, glancing down at the schedule which I wasn’t on.
“One squash please,” I joked with him in lieu of hello.
“That bad, huh?” he teased. “Let’s see. All the regulars are booked up this morning, but we have a new bear. He weighs in at over eight hundred pounds shifted. Squashed enough for you?”
“I’ll put him through his paces,” I nodded and handed off my tote bag to Jeran.
I could’ve taken it back to the room with me, but I’d forgotten more than once after a good squash.
Most of the big shifters who worked here knew me and had gotten over their hesitancy to plop down and squish me but new cuddlers were always leery of my request.
“Amorti!” Jeran waved to a man sitting on one of the plush floral sofas reading what looked to be a graphic novel about ghostly serial killers.
“If he only knew Ferrick was on the loose,” my cat chimed into my thoughts.
I shushed the furball as the man stood up.
He was tall and broad. Definitely an alpha bear.
He even had that thing down where they sniff when they hear their name as if deciding whether to eat you or not.
He had dark brown hair, and his eyes were those of his bear.
His hair was pulled up into a bun on the top of his head and his feet were bare.
“Got your first client here,” Jeran said. “Eran’s an easy one. Fifteen minutes of squash and then rub his temples until his single feline brain cell exits stage left.”
Amorti glanced at me to see if Jeran was funny or offensive. Jeran was a lion and my eldest brother’s mate.
“He’s a cat too,” I shrugged at the bear.
“I’ve never played squash before. I didn’t know you had a court here…” he said and I waited for him to laugh.
“Oh, no. No team or competitive sports for me. I played junior soccer for a season but scratched the crap out of another kid when he stole the ball from me when I was on a roll. Forgot I was playing soccer. Squash is I shift and you shift and you lay on me. Deep pressure therapy and all of that.”
I waited for him to ask if it was safe like most new cuddlers did, but the bear just shrugged and jerked his head for me to follow him.
He led me down the familiar hallway and into one of the smaller cuddle rooms. Most of the larger rooms were booked up weeks in advance by couples or small groups.
I kicked off my shoes and pulled my shirt over my head before hanging it on a coat hook.
Then I set to work arranging the mat and the blankets just the way I liked them.
“Do you have a safeword or safemeow if you’re too squashed? I’m not on the group link. Just moved here and I’m not sure if I’m staying,” Amorti said while I worked out the issue with the blanket that would not go the way I wanted to no matter how many times I moved it.
“I’ve never needed one. Oh! Speaking of knead. Sometimes I knead while I’m squashed is that okay?” I asked without looking up at him.
“That’s fine, but how will I know if you’re suffocating?” the bear asked.
I stopped fiddling with the blankets and stopped to think. I looked up at him from where I crouched and wondered where he was from. Bears came from all over the world but his accent was a bit more southern than I noticed at first.
“Stop if you feel teeth?” I shrugged.
“Fair enough,” he shrugged.
“How’d you come to work here?” I asked, making small talk while I tried turning the blanket over the other way.
“Eh, complicated.”
“Man of many words,” I chuckled. “Sorry. We’re all nosy here.”
“My carrier is a drag queen,” he offered up.
“Oh, that’s not complicated. Is he in town visiting for the show coming up this weekend?” I asked.
“Not this time. He hasn’t been here in a while,” Amorti said. “Needed a lower stress thing to do.”
“Squashing cats for the win!” I mock-cheered and he huffed out a laugh.
The blankets finally decided to play by the rules and fall in the correct formation for me to lay on.
I stretched out, wiggling my fingers and toes, before giving in to my cat.
White fluff sprouted from in between my toes and fingers and I shrank into the most perfect specimen of Felis Catus to ever grace the Cuddle Club.
I groomed down a stray piece of fluff sticking up on my paw and looked up at Amorti waiting for him to join me.
He smiled despite himself. I could tell he was trying not to.
Big shifters never knew how to react to those of us who shifted into what were considered more domesticated forms. To his credit, he didn’t try to pet me.
Instead, he pulled off his t-shirt, hooking his finger into the front collar and yanking it over his head.
“That collar isn’t going to last long,” my cat chimed into my thoughts as he did a big stretch before curling up.
Amorti was fit. He had the combo of muscles and fluff you expected to see on a bear alpha who lived off the land, had outdoorsy hobbies, or worked manual labor.
The Cuddle Club wasn’t exactly manual labor, but I glanced at his hands to find a few spots that might’ve been calloused at some point.
Then his hands were gone and a few moments later a hulking grizzly bear stood over me.
I waved the bear to me with a wag of my paw.
He took tentative steps as if trying not to step on me.
It took him a few seconds to get into position over me.
His fur brushed against mine as he lowered himself down.
He was slow at first and then I was squashed.
Amorti relaxed slowly and then I was squashed to perfection.
Every atom in my body purred underneath his bulk.
There was something about being under something fluffy and big that made the world seem right again.
Maybe it was because my carrier laid over me a lot when I was a kitten.
Maybe my sire tucked me into their bear fluff.
I didn’t know but it squashed the anger right out of me.
I knew from my formal education that deep pressure therapy was recognized as a method to regulate the nervous system but sometimes it felt like it went further than that.
Like it might’ve squashed my soul back into the right place.
Fifteen minutes after Amorti laid down, he stood up slowly and stretched.
Then looked at me between his front legs like I might be a pancake cat from a cartoon.
His scent turned a bit relieved as he shifted back into human form.
I loafed up and presented him with my head.
With a single big finger on either side he massaged my temples while I gave in to the grumbling purr vibrating through my body.
Yep. He killed my last brain cell and then and only then did I shift back into my human form and grin up at him.
“Don’t worry. I’m weird but I tip well,” I laughed.
“Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect working at the Cuddle Club even after training.
It’s a lot easier than what I was doing before,” he said and then his brow creased as if he immediately regretted what he said.
I decided not to ask him about it this time because there would definitely be a next time.
If he didn’t put me on his nope list I’d ask for his big fluffiness by name.
“Eh, I think you might get some weird requests, but everything is rated G. You can work with couples but that’s a whole other ballpark,” I said.
“As for me, I’m always a solo squash.” I stretched my arms and legs as far as they could reach before springing to my feet.
“Hate to squash and run but I have a house moving party to get to. I’ll leave your tip up front. That’s how they normally do it.”
He flashed me a look that said I was telling him something he already knew but he was letting me by with it because I hadn’t actually left the tip yet.