tabby

caught Kasim’s glare or the strange look Bae wore when he wasn’t focussed on the mission.
Kasim’s glare didn’t surprise. I was over being shocked at his actions and reactions to her. From the moment he stuck up for her on the rock wall, the night she’d run away from us instead of climbing alongside. Everything he did was so uncharacteristic that Bae and I tended to tiptoe around him. Neither of us wanted to trigger the dark predator he kept tightly chained. After all, bears and panthers didn’t normally mix.
But Bae’s reaction... that was a horse of a different colour.
Wearing only a towel wrapped around my waist, I left the bathroom, praying I didn’t run into either of my roommates. Our relaxed hideaway den now oozed tension and stiffness. The second last thing I wanted was to arrive at Tabitha’s frustrated with and concerned about my teammates.
Pulling on my pressed khaki pants over my boxer briefs—I wanted the extra reinforcement to keep myself in check—I worried about Bae. His normal quiet demeanour around the house changed. Instead of jokes and reading while sprawled out in his hanging bamboo chair, he marched around the den, offering terse comments, and chose to sit on the couch, staring off into space, brooding. In truth, he acted more like Kasim on a normal day. Maybe we’d been in contact with aliens who performed a body switch on Kasim and Bae?
The thought made me snort as I pulled the polo shirt over my head. I’d chosen to wear my blue one because the colour matched the tank top Tabitha wore that night.
I wished the answer to the Bae/Kasim issue was aliens, but that would be too easy. To fix it, all we’d have to do was find the aliens and talk them into performing the same procedure to switch them back. Instead, I worried the problem was far greater.
Tabitha.
It all came down to her.
I suspected Kasim, despite his words to the contrary, was experiencing his first real crush. And it sucked that I liked the same girl. With anyone else, I would have walked away because I wanted the best for him. But not with Tabitha. Besides, she kissed me. That had to mean something even if she acted like it never happened when the four of us were together.
But Bae... I couldn’t figure out his problem. Could he like her as well? The thought had crossed my mind when I turned away from Tabitha and Kasim after the kiss. Bae had stood there, staring with a look of hurt and longing in his eye. But it had only been a flash. The moment he caught my gaze, the look shuttered, blanking out all emotion. And in a terse voice, he said, “Time to switch. Race you to the top, Kasim.”
The rope flew at my face as he pushed past me to the base of the wall. He didn’t even wait for me to get into position or for Kasim before he began to climb.
And since then... he hadn’t been the same.
Dressed, I grabbed my new cross-body messenger bag. Doubled checked my sleek pulled-back low ponytail and ensured my belt matched my bag and my shoes. Yup. Fuck. Spending all this extra time on my appearance, pretending to be someone who cared about fashion and makeup sucked, but at least it meant I got to spend the next few hours alone with Tabitha as we went shopping. Being with her was the only thing that would make those hours bearable.
“Going out?” Bae leaned in the doorway to the kitchen. For the first time in days, I saw him holding an almond butter and honey sandwich, his favourite. Phew. Maybe he is back to normal now?
I nodded. “Yup. I’m taking Tabitha shopping today. We need to pick out her costumes and the makeup she’ll need. That way she’ll have time to become comfortable wearing it before her audition interview in three days.”
Bae pulled the unbitten sandwich from his mouth and tossed it into the trash can. I clenched my jaw muscles to keep my mouth from falling open. Bae, in all the years I’d known him, had thrown out an uneaten almond butter and honey sandwich twice, and both times he’d been struck with a bear flu that was extremely rare to shifters.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course I am. Why do you ask?” He pushed himself off the doorframe, turning until he filled the opening with his crossed arms and shoulders. His glare channeled Kasim, and I had to work to fight my instinct to attack. Calmness tended to my normal walk, as if I didn’t have a care, but provoke me at all and I attacked. My physical combat prowess may have been slow moving, but what I hit tended to stay down. And with Kasim’s training, my slowness no longer hampered me.
I flexed and stretched out my fingers, not wanting them to curl into a fist for any length of time. “No reason. Just wondered if you wanted to come along. Start the manager slash bodyguard role already.” I didn’t want him along, but this situation called for an offer to compromise and yield. Without it, neither of us would be leaving the house until we shifted to heal.
He deflated a little. “I should come with, but I have a meeting with Director Cooper and some more research to do.”
Research? That’s usually my job. Wonder why he’s doing it. And on what? As much as I wanted answers, I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if it came from the Trojans. I’d take the time alone with Tabitha. And hopefully I’d get to use some of those Trojans.
At my knock, she answered her door, pulling it open only wide enough for her to slip through. I still managed to take a quick glimpse into her room over her head before she slammed the door shut. For a FUCN’A student, even by the rigid standards they upheld on dorm rooms on