Callon
The first half of our day was spent at the Christmas tree farm nearby. Our community grew and sold them, and everyone had shifts.
Usually, it was fun, but this year, it was a profound reminder of what Aerin and I were lacking.
A family.
Children and their parents walked hand in hand, choosing their Christmas trees and getting ready for the season. Many of them were human, but seeing them stirred the same longing. A longing for something we didn’t have and if we didn’t take some kind of action, would never have.
I had an idea.
I’d seen an ad for a shifter-and-supernatural mating app a while ago but mostly ignored it. Seemed like a scam to me. But over the months since, I’d done my research and waited to pull the trigger.
“After lunch, I have something I want to talk to you about.”
Aerin stopped in his tracks as we walked up the road to our cottage. “No. Absolutely not. Talk now. You can’t do that to me. I will be freaked out until you tell me.”
I snorted. I did know that about him. “Okay, okay. I have an idea about how we can find a mate or…someone to make a life with.”
“I don’t understand,” he replied. “You make a life with a mate. How can you separate the two?”
We walked into the house and headed straight to the kitchen. Trimming trees and cutting them down for customers was hard work and different than what we were used to. Good thing we only worked there through the season. I set about making some grilled cheese sandwiches while Aerin set a pot of our homemade tomato basil soup to warm it on the stove.
“Explain what you meant,” he said, turning to lean his back against the counter.
“There are ways that we can get a mother for our children without finding a fated mate.”
He nodded. “I’ve heard there’s an app.”
“Is that right?” I asked. We both pulled out our phones and showed how silly we’d been. We both had the app downloaded. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I didn’t sign up. I was waiting for the right time to talk to you.”
“Elf females are hard to find,” I said, shrugging while I flipped all four sandwiches on the griddle.
My friend nodded. “And especially one who would accept two mates.” We stayed quiet until we got to the table where we sat, both exhaling loudly. “So what are we looking for on this app, Aerin? That’s why I asked you about the other options. We could find a female who would live here and have our children and be their mother without the promise or hope of being a fated mate?”
He shook his head. “Just say the word, Callon. You want to get on the app for a breeder.”
“And what’s so wrong with that?” I asked. “It’s not like the female wouldn’t be aware.”
A few bites of sandwich later, he cleared his throat. “What if our fated mate showed up? Say we have three kids by then and our chosen female is here, rooted in our home and our lives and our fated mate shows up or worse…her fated mate shows up.”
“Aerin, look around you. Half of the elves we know and more than that of the shifters and monsters, their mates are chosen, as in, their mates are picked out by them instead of waiting for Fate to hand them to you. Sure, we might have fated mates, but I’m not going to spend a minute more of my life looking under rocks and hoping on the stars that I run into her.”
He snorted. “Have you been looking under rocks for our female? Well, no wonder we haven’t found her.”
“Come on, man. You know what I mean. And if a female is on the app, maybe she’s already met her mate and he rejected her. Or she didn’t want him. Maybe he was a real asshole. Whatever it is, we’ll work through it. I’m wasting my life, Aerin. Today just reminded me of what we don’t have and what I desperately want.”
“I do too,” he murmured. “More than anything. I think it speaks volumes that we both had the app downloaded and were ready to go.”
“Then let’s not delay. Let’s fill out the information and get this process going.”
“Are you sure about this?” Aerin asked.
“I am. More sure of this than I have been in a long time. Everything will be out in the open. We will know our expectations and hers. As long as we stay honest and transparent, this will be okay.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Later on that night, we had everything done and spent some time looking at profiles under the breeder category. It was strange, looking at females in that manner, but we’d decided and so had they by signing up.
“This is weird,” Aerin laughed, putting his phone down.
“It is, but at least there’s hope now. Let’s go to bed. Let the app do the work. I bet we have a match by the morning.”
He chuckled, standing up and stretching. “You sound so confident.”
“I am. Maybe for the first time in a long time, I am.”