Page 6 of A Hutch for Hoover

I knew the place had been rented out, but I wasn’t sure when they were coming in. “Yeah, my old place got sold so…moving fun. I’m—” The rest was a mumbled, jumbled mess of a sentence, due to him turning his body as he headed inside and up the stairs.

Great. I was going to have to ask his name again. How embarrassing.

I wanted to help him carry the box, but the shape made any help I could give no help at all. Instead, I walked behind him, thinking I might be able to open the door for him or something once he reached his new place.

As we reached our floor, I offered to either grab his keys or the box and set my slushie down in front of my own place. He handed me the box and opened his door.

I helped him get it inside, and his unit was in worse condition than mine. I wasn’t sure what his old apartment was like, but I strongly suspected this was a downgrade.

“Thanks. I didn’t catch your name.” He gave me the opening I needed.

“I’m Hoover. I live next door.” I slapped on a smile. “And I didn’t hear your name either.”

This is when I became brave. I’d told others about my hearing loss, but they had all been humans. Shifters were different. They looked at physical limitations of any kind as weakness, especially when an animal was already prey. The last thing I wanted was pity, especially with the first potential friend I’d met here.

I sucked in a breath and pointed to my ears. I had promised myself I’d be more proactive when communicating with people, and this was the time to do it. At least I had the hearing aids as a prop to help. Not that they were a prop, but the visual allowed me to not have to explain as much. “Oh, sorry, I’ll be sure tospeak louder. I’m Rustle.” He scented the air. “I’m a bear, and you’re a rabbit, right?”

I appreciated that he didn’t call me a bunny, although I often referred to myself as such. There was something a little disrespectful about it when the term came from others before they were given permission. And maybe that was me being a little unfair in my standards, but there we were.

“Yeah, I am. My name’s Hoover.”

“Nice to meet you, Hoover. Do you want to find someplace to shift?” He stepped back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so forward. I wasn’t, you know…”

“I didn’t take it as anything but an offer to get our fur on,” I assured him. If anything, he was giving green flags galore. When people said they chose the bear, they probably were talking about him. A big old teddy bear who accepted people for who they were.

“Yes, but also…I can’t hear at all then, so I might be sticking close to you.” There. I asked for help from another shifter and it didn’t kill me.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Why don’t I help you unpack your truck first?” If he was going to do a nice deed for me, it felt only right to do one in return.

I spent the next hour helping him unload his vehicle. He didn’t have a lot, which was good because the place wouldn’t fit a lot.

“Let me see what’s closest.” He pulled up an app I didn’t even know about that showed safe places to shift, and off we went.

I reminded him again about how I couldn’t hear in my animal form at all, and that I was born to stay close to home, if that was okay. He was great. It was wonderful having another person to shift with.

More than once as we chatted, I thought he would get along really well with Dirk. Gods, I missed my brother.

The place he found was small and really close. It was the kind of location I might feel safe enough shifting in alone for very brief periods of time. Not long, but when my rabbit was extra grumpy, a minute or two usually did the trick, so I didn’t need a long time.

I hopped around, discovering quickly I didn’t like sand as much as I did the tall grasses. My rabbit was thrilled to be out in the elements again, but also a little apprehensive…not of the bear, never of him, but of the different bugs we would catch out of the corner of our eye, and a lizard that was far too large for our liking.

But when we were done and we shifted back, he was happy, and so was I.

Rustle started talking to me before I had my hearing aids in then quickly apologized when he saw me put them behind my ear. I hated bringing attention to my hearing loss, and had been really bad at it since the accident, but I was going to change that, because if it made things so much better with my new friend, why couldn’t the same be true for other people I met?

We grabbed some pizza on the way back to the apartment, my treat, and before I left him to finish his unpacking, he suggested maybe one day we could hit up Animals with some of his local buddies.

I’d heard of it. Who in shifter circles hadn’t? But, for some reason, I hadn’t taken note of how close I was to it.

“Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

At least I wouldn’t be thinking it was too loud like I did the last time my brother and I decided to go out to a club. Because if I didn’t find the positive in the little things, I wasn’t sure I could find it in anything.

Chapter Six

Grant

---