I had been at Riven and Ren’s house for about a week when I finally agreed to go to lunch with Nathan.  He’d been stopping by pretty much every day, trying to win me over, and with both Riven and Ren telling me Nathan wouldn’t hurt me, too, it was hard to resist.  Not to mention my stupid heart kept insisting that it really, really liked him and he was just my type and all that nonsense.  I wasn’t about to allow myself to have feelings for him, but I might try being friends again.  Cautiously.

During that week, I’d also met Ren’s mom, Violet, who came over to talk to me for a while about the whole situation.  She seemed really intense at first, all professional and business-like, but she got softer the moment we started to talk about my past.  She felt bad for me, I could see it in her eyes.  I could live with that, as long as she believed me – and she did.  That was all I really wanted.

She’d been up front about it being potentially difficult to get rid of the complaint he’d made against me which resulted in the warrant.  Since it was basically my word against his and he’d had bruises that day which were officially documented, things did tip in his favor.  I’d nearly panicked when she said that, afraid it meant she’d send me back after all, but she looked almost as freaked out as I did when she saw how upset I was and quickly tried to calm me down, explaining that it while it was hard, it wasn’t impossible.  For one thing, my practical disappearance for well over two years spoke in my favor.  He didn’t have an explanation for that which would make much sense.  Violet also said she wanted to do some investigation, see if she could find out where the bruises came from, if maybe he had a history of complaints of domestic violence before me, anything really that could help.  She did promise me that if it came down to it, she could pull strings to just get the thing settled out of court – an advantage to being a prominent politician, I guess?  And then she promised, liked Ren, Riven, and Nathan had, that they would not send me back to him, they would figure out a way to make sure that didn’t happen.

So even though things weren’t really resolved yet, I was feeling cautiously optimistic when I went to lunch with Nathan.  I’d been a little wary about leaving the house since it was supposedly so safe, but at the same time, I kind of felt cooped up and wanted to get out for a bit.  So I’d given in and agreed to this lunch.

I found myself curious when Nathan’s car pulled up at a park.

“It’s a food truck,” he explained.  “Some of the best food in town, to be honest, but kind of a secret treasure.  A lot of the landscaping crew sees trucks like this regularly and use them to get our food, so we’ve learned this one is phenomenal.  We can eat outside if you want.  There’s a gazebo over the hill, and there’s some indoor dining if you’d prefer.”

“Outdoors is fine.”  I slid out of the car, glad, actually, that we were outside for this.  I felt freer outdoors and while Riven and Ren’s back yard was incredibly nice, it wasn’t the same as being free without fences.

Nathan ordered some food for us, then led the way to one of the picnic tables when it was done.

I bit into the sandwich, paused, and then almost started scarfing the rest of it down without chewing.

Nathan laughed.  “It’s not going anywhere, you can slow down.  If you want more, we can always get more.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.  “It’s just so good.”  He’d been right about that – whatever this sub sandwich was made out of, it was fantastic.  It was vegetarian, too, Nathan had made sure of that for me, and I’d brought some of the special fairy tea in a thermos just in case.

“So,” Nathan began after I’d mostly finished the sandwich and was testing out the homemade chips, “you got a degree in childhood education?  Have you always liked being around kids, then?”

I nodded enthusiastically.  “Kids are awesome.  They have such vivid imaginations and they have so much potential.  Sometimes you have to help them a little more to figure out who they are, but when you do, it’s all the more worth it.”

Nathan lit up, nodding in agreement, and we ended up spending most of the lunch time talking about our shared love of kids.  I liked elementary school ages – that was what I’d once hoped to teach – while Nathan admitted he was particularly fond of the preschool kids.  He just thought they were so adorable.

“I was worried for a while that the reason I wasn’t getting a job was because I’m a predator shifter,” I admitted as I went to eat one of the chocolate chip cookies.  “That people wouldn’t want a predator shifter around their kids.”

Nathan shrugged.  “There might be a handful that care, but realistically, they shouldn’t.  Humans wouldn’t even know, and they run a lot of the institutions.  In cities this size, we have a lot of interaction between prey and predator shifters, so most of them are used to it and it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.  In every school in town, the student body easily has both types.  It shouldn’t matter at all, especially if they know what kind you are.  You’d be more likely to have kids and parents flocking to you.”

I rolled my eyes.  “Yeah I’m tiny and cute, I know.  It’s awesome.”

Nathan ignored my sarcasm.  “Fennec foxes are pretty cute,” he agreed.  “You and I both kind of have the ear thing going on though.”

I looked at him, confused.  “Ears?”

“Fennec foxes have huge ears, and English lops have really long ears.  Mine go down past my paws.”

I stared at him, incredulous.  “Really?  That’s a thing?”

He laughed lightly, his amusement twinkling in his eyes.  “Yeah, I’ll have to show you some time.  Ren and Sorrel used to tease me all the time when we were kids, convinced I’d step on them and fall flat on my face.  I don’t, of course – I mean, I know where my ears are so I wouldn’t step on them unless I was knocked off balance or something.”

I hesitated.  “You…are really good friends with them.”

It wasn’t exactly a question, but he seemed to understand what I wanted to ask.

“Yeah, I’ve known them for forever and Sorrel figured out I was his soulmate when we were still in elementary school, I think.”  He looked up at the sky for a moment, breathing in the fresh breeze.  “I think they’ll always be important to me, but…Riven’s right about letting go.”

Really?  I…I wanted to tell him I thought that was a good idea, too, but I wasn’t sure it was my place.  Especially when my heart was doing a happy dance at the thought – it felt too self-serving.

Nathan noticed how quiet I was being and turned his attention back to me, giving me a smile.  “For what it’s worth, I think it helped to have someone else to be interested in while I was thinking this through.  It made me wonder if I’ve missed opportunities because I’ve been so rolled up in the impossible.”

I tried not to take that wrong.  He just meant as a distraction, as someone to wonder about and worry about, not as like interested interested.  Yeah, just like a distraction.

“Well, I hope you find your opportunity, then.  Um, now.  Since you’re looking for it.”  I stood up and started clearing off the table.  “Should we be getting back?”

Nathan looked thoughtful as he helped me and we headed back to the car.

“Hey,” he finally said after we got into the car.  “You like running in the woods, don’t you?  You said something like that back in the mountain.”

“Yeah, sometimes it’s nice to go for a run.”

“Do you want to come with me this weekend?  There’s a hiking trail I take sometimes, pretty quiet and peaceful.  We could shift and run it, though I’ll warn you I can’t keep up with you in shifted form – I’m a sprinter, not a marathoner.”

I found myself very interested in the idea of getting out of town and running a bit, but I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, either.  “Well we could always shift back and just walk it once you run out of steam.  How long can rabbits run, anyway?”

We ended up talking about rabbit abilities the rest of the way back and how different some of the rabbit breeds were from others.  Nathan admitted that lops weren’t at the top end of the energy scale, but he promised we could at least run for a bit.  He suggested bringing Sapphire so I could run with her, but I was a little nervous about the idea of having her around Nathan in shifted form – since she was an actual dog, I couldn’t exactly explain to her that he was to be left alone – so I decided against that option.

I found myself relatively happy with my life that night as I went to bed.  I had new friends who were nice and believed in me, I was starting to trust Nathan, and Violet had even arranged for me to get a driver’s license again so I’d have ID.  I felt like I was starting to get a bit of my life back.