Colin knew they were going to cause problems the moment they walked in the door. It was so obvious, in fact, it transported him to some Old West movie full of clichés.
Two men swagger into the tavern. They approach the bar and start harassing the little lady in charge. No one realizes there is a lone gunman in the corner. Cue twangy yet suspenseful music.
Except, of course, it wasn’t at all like that. The tavern was instead a quirky well-lit cafe in a busy tourist town. The kind frequented by locals who knew what they liked and ordered it quickly, and tourists who got confused by the awesome power of daily specials and were a pain to everyone except the bottom line. The cafe was called Bean There, Froth That, because the owner was an idiot. Everyone else called it the Bean. It was early evening – one of those chilly fall nights that descended suddenly in the Bay Area. No warning, no wind, just penguin-ass-nipping cold because, unlike the East Coast, the West has never learned to do autumn properly.
The two men who swaggered into the cafe bumped Colin’s table. Which was on point for Old West baddies. They both wore double-breasted pinstriped suits. No hats. Colin was disappointed – baddies should wear hats. Also, neither shirt nor tie appeared under said suit. Just suit jackets over hairy chests.
They bumped him on purpose. Yes, Colin did like the small table near the door, but it was well out of normal foot traffic, so they’d jostled him on purpose. The newcomers smelled like briny prey – browned butter and kelp – yet they were big enough to be threatening. Colin hadn’t met any face-to-face, but he still knew selkie blubber when he smelled it. So these were not really men at all, but shifters.
They didn’t act like regulars but they sure weren’t tourists. Which meant they were infiltrating pack territory – his pack’s territory. Colin really didn’t want to get involved, but selkie tended to have mob connections. Besides, his textbook on The Reality of Sense Perception wasn’t addressing the shifter sensory experience. He hated human-centric philosophy. So he marked his spot, set it down, and watched.
One of the selkie (Colin decided to call him Blubber Bozo One) leaned over the counter in a film-perfect loom.
“Yo, fag,” was his charming opening statement.
“What can I get you, sir?” The barista, Trick, dove into his role of little lady in a Western shoot-‘em-up. Trick’s attire was relatively understated for the part. He was wearing a long-fringed scarf and one dangling feather earring, which was good, but otherwise jeans and a t-shirt. Colin liked Trick because it was really hard not to like him. Colin was annoyed by this, as he tried not to like anyone. The fact that Trick had made it through his defenses was really… well, tricky of him.
“Get me? You can get me the goods. Now!” Blubber Bozo One loomed even more loomy-like.
Trick was barely over five feet, always cheerful, with never a bad word to say against anyone. Through the relentless application of a crooked smile, sweet greeting, and always remembering Colin’s order (decaf latte with whipped cream on top) he’d endeared himself, despite Colin’s best efforts.
Colin knew Trick was some kind of shifter, because he smelled of wet riverbanks and fresh hay, but he didn’t know what kind. Trick’s scent was closest to that of a kelpie, but Trick was far too small to be a water horse. He wasn’t a merman either – no salty pong. Plus Colin’s pack had contact with the local kelpie (there could be only one) and the local merfolk pod, and Trick certainly wasn’t either. He was, in fact, a bit of a mystery.
“I’m sorry, what?” Trick batted his lashes at the bozos. Colin suspected this was a defensive mechanism.
Colin wasn’t supposed to get involved. Wolves do turf, not surf, his dad often said. But Colin hated his dad almost as much as he hated the word fag.
“Listen here, you slimy little shit, you’re Inis, aren’t you? Inis is holding our goods and owes us. Took forever to track your ass down.”
“Inis? You’re after my family?” Trick’s dark eyes went even rounder than normal. “I don’t speak to them. Or, more properly, they don’t speak to me. Whatever. We don’t speak!”
“I don’t care if you’re in with ‘em or not. They vanished with our goods and you didn’t vanish good enough.”