Chapter Two
Ty
I got to Animals early, hoping to get a booth. My date said he might be late, so I ordered a beer.
“How about an appetizer, hun?”
The deer shifter waitress flicked back her pink hair. Her name tag said Shannon, and her Texas accent comforted my nerves. I hated blind dates.
“No, thanks. I’m waiting for someone.”
“All right, hun. Beer coming up.”
I’d only agreed to the date because a friend cajoled me into it. “We shifters need to stick together,” he’d said. “My friend’s friend is a lonely tiger like you. It’s the perfect match.”
What could it hurt? We’d meet, and that would be that. No strings. So why was I so nervous?
By the time my beer was half gone, my date hadn’t shown up. I drained my glass and ordered another, checking my phone. I saw no calls or texts. My date was half an hour late. I texted my friend, but he didn’t answer.
I flagged Shannon.
“Another beer, hun?”
“Yes, please.”
“Is your friend coming?”
“At this point, I doubt it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
When Shannon returned, she smiled. “This one’s on the house. Maybe you’d like to move to the bar?”
The place had gotten busy. I was sure it was her way of saying I should give the booth over to a group. “Yeah. Sorry. I’ll do that.”
“No hurry, honey. I was thinking there are more people to mingle with over there, that’s all.”
I nodded, getting up and grabbing my beer. She followed me over to an empty barstool.
“Are you sure I can’t get you something to eat?”
My stomach growled at the mention of food. Lunch had been a long time ago. Not sure what I wanted, I said, “Do you have a combination appetizer plate?”
“Sure thing. Coming right up.”
The dance floor was filling up. The music played live. This was a pretty cool place. People had told me about it, but this was my first time here. I should have been out there having a good time. But my luck seemed to go off-kilter every time I tried to have a love life.
My mom used to tell me that love struck when you weren’t looking. “Don’t try so hard,” she’d say.
I wasn’t really all that bummed about my date ghosting me. I liked to look at things optimistically. Maybe I’d dodged a bullet. For all I knew, the perfect person for me was sitting right next to me.
As soon as I had that thought, the guy next to me turned toward me. He was a handsome alpha. A wolf from the looks of him, with a glimmer in his eye and a soft mane of dark golden hair. His smile made my heart skip for a moment. The only holdup—he was an alpha.
I didn’t have any particular hang-ups about alpha/alpha pairings. I simply didn’t seek them. I preferred omegas and assumed he did, too.
“Hi, my name’s Freid.” He held out his hand.
“Ty.” His palm pressed warm against mine. Something about him, an energy or charisma, drew me right in.
My tiger pressed against my skin. Handsome stranger.
He wasn’t wrong.
Look. He’s wearing me.
That made no sense to me until my mind caught up with what my tiger saw.
Behind his neat blazer, Freid wore a T-shirt with a tiger on it.
I almost laughed when I saw the tiger’s eyes sparkle.
The colorful design was trimmed in rhinestones, the stripes flashing pink and purple, the eyes faceted amber.
“What brings you here tonight?” Freid asked.
“A blind date who stood me up.”
“Whoa, that sucks.”
Immediately, as if we’d known each other for years, Ty and I began to talk, asking questions about each other, bonding over wings, beer-battered shrimp, and mini tacos.
“What about you?” I asked.
His story was far more interesting than my own.
“Don’t laugh.”
“What? I won’t laugh.”
He spoke low, as if confessing some sin. “I dreamed I’d meet my true mate here. I was wearing this shirt.” He tugged at the neck of his tiger T-shirt.
“You were actually wearing that?” I didn’t mean for my question to sound critical, so I immediately added, softer, “It’s pretty. I’m a tiger shifter, you know.”
Freid put his hand over the tiger’s head. “You are? I hope it isn’t offensive.”
“Not at all.”
“My five-year-old niece gave the shirt to me last Christmas. There isn’t a single tiger shifter in our family, yet she’s obsessed with tigers.
Has a whole collection of tiger dolls and stuffed animals.
I’ve never worn it. But it was in my dream.
Everything else was in it, too, this nightclub, the bar. Except for one thing…”
“He didn’t show up?”
Freid gave me an exaggerated pout and shook his golden head.
“Did you get a look at him in your dream?”
“Unfortunately, no. But there was a scent. Something I can’t quite remember. It was there and then I woke up and”—he waved his hand between us—“gone.”
“Wow.”
“But I came here anyway.” He hung his head. “Sounds ridiculous, yeah?”
“Not really. Not as ridiculous as my night. I hate blind dates. I don’t know why I agreed to it in the first place.”
When the appetizer plate showed up, it seemed the right thing to do to share it with another lonely alpha. He ate quite fast, as if starved, three-quarters of the plate gone before I could grab a second taco.
He looked up, all sheepish and, well, cute. “Sorry. I was hungry. This is on me, okay? I’m going to order another.”
“You don’t have to—” But before my protest finished, he’d flagged Shannon and ordered us two more beers and another set of appetizers.
That gesture went straight to my core. At that moment, I knew we’d become instrumental in each other’s lives. I saw the future, almost like his dream, and he was in it.
Yes, beautiful stranger. Mine.
My tiger wanted him, too. But it wasn’t the offer on the table. Freid’s dream was about waiting for someone else. Not me. But nothing said we couldn’t become friends.
And I was right.
Over the next three years, we met every Friday or Saturday night at Animals.
Sometimes both nights. My feelings for Freid secretly grew.
My tiger kept insisting, alpha aside, he was my mate.
But it wasn’t to be. Freid was steadfast, the type of wolf who never gave up.
He was waiting for someone else, not me, and always wearing that flashy tiger T-shirt like it was a beacon to Fate.
I loved him. Everything about him. We texted a lot. We exchanged birthday and Christmas gifts. But the more my tiger and I wanted him, the more I had to remind myself it wasn’t to be.
Had I fallen in love with him? I had to be honest with myself. The truth was, I had fallen for him. But it wasn’t meant to be. That was that.
I gave myself and my tiger lectures often. “He’s waiting for his fated mate. That isn’t me.”
Beautiful stranger not ours?
“It is what it is,” I whispered to my tiger every night before falling asleep. “He’s