During the week, he didn’t allow himself to get lost in his hobby like that. As a geneticist at a lab connected to the Oregon Health and Science University Hospital, he couldn’t afford to be sleep deprived. He lived in Portland to be close to his lab, and he spent his days researching how genes were inherited and how they mutated. He had a PhD in molecular biology, and identifying genetic disorders was his life’s work, but his passion was astrophysics.
He had chosen a different path for his career, but in his spare time, he studied space.
On the weekends, he went home to stay in his family home with his dragon shifter clan. His parents had always indulged his hobby, and when he was fifteen, they let him build a separate garage on their property where he could set up his equipment.
He’d started with astronomy and studied the stars and the planets. Later, as he learned, he moved onto astrophysics, even getting a degree in the field just because he enjoyed it.
When he got lost in his work and forgot to eat, his mother smiled fondly and patted his head. His father clapped him on the back and boasted to the neighbors about how his son had two degrees. Neither of them ever got angry at him.
But that was not the case with his girlfriend. Or any of the females he’d dated. His preoccupation with his work, both paid and unpaid, seemed to piss all of them off beyond reason.
“Tonight?” he asked.
She flung her arms out to her side. “Eli! Yes! There’s a big group going over to the cliffs. We’re supposed to go flying.”
“We can do that anytime.”
“No, we cannot. It’s really windy, which you know makes it more fun.”
Windy weather could be fun, especially when there was a lot of rain and fog. It meant that no one was out. They didn’t have to worry about planes, or drones, or sailboats. The humans would all be taking shelter.
His laptop beeped, and he turned his back to her. “Let me just check a few things.”
Sometime later, there was a loud crashing sound. Eli typed in another equation and then turned around just in time to see his girlfriend opening the door.
His metal recycling bin was on the floor with a few cans spilling out of it. “Did you kick my bin over?”
“Yes!” She stomped her foot. “Eli, I freaking kicked it over! You didn’t even turn around.”
He’d learned to tune out loud noises at the lab. As a shifter, his hearing was more sensitive than a human’s, and he often wore noise-canceling headphones.
“I just had to put the—”
“I don’t care what you had to put in. I don’t want to know. I’m leaving! You can stay here and goof around with your computer, and I’m going to meet our friends at the cliffs.”
He stepped away from his desk. He could tell from the pounding of her heart that she was furious. He still wasn’t sure why she was so angry. She didn’t need him to go flying. She was part of their clan, too; she would know everyone there.
His parents, and Jackson, too, had tried to tell him that he needed to be more sensitive and listen to what she wanted. And he tried to do that—he really did. But the hard truth was that she wasn’t his mate. He knew that. And she did, too. He wasn’t trying to be a bad boyfriend.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He forced a smile. It pained him to leave his project behind before he’d answered all of his questions. “Let’s go right now,” he said. “The fog is only going to get thicker, so we won’t miss much.”
She crossed her arms. “No. I don’t think you understand. I’m going. And you can go if you want. But we aren’t going together.”
“Why not?”
She let her head fall backward. Her hands rolled into fists as she raised her head back up and glared at him. “Damn you, Eli.”
He was baffled. “What’s wrong?” If he was honest, he didn’t really want to know, but he didn’t want to treat her badly. He did care about her, even if she wasn’t his mate.
“Let me spell it out in simple terms. I am breaking up with you.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
She made a growling sound that was dangerously close to the sound shifters made when they changed. He took a step back, shielding his computer and equipment. “Please don’t shift in here.”
“You really are an idiot.” She spun around and then she was gone.
He waited a moment, a little stunned by her wrath. Then he peeked out the door. She was truly gone. Now he didn’t have to worry about going down to the cliffs. He was free to work on his measurements and study his data.
Five hours later, someone knocked on his door. He inhaled, fearing it was his girlfriend again. Or now, he supposed he should call her his ex-girlfriend.
But it wasn’t her. It was his best friend, Jackson. He was alone. His mate, Helena, wasn’t with him.
Jackson didn’t wait to be invited in. He barged in, just like he always did.
“Hello,” Eli called out over his shoulder. He had a few more calculations to check.
“Why didn’t you come down to the cliffs?” Jackson asked.
“I was busy.”
Jackson didn’t share his love for outer space. He always said the Earth was good enough for him. But he also didn’t give Eli a hard time about the way he spent his free time. Jackson was a little more open-minded than other shifters in their clan. He’d married the daughter of a demi-god after all, and he was supportive of his cousin Garrett, who’d left their clan to live in Las Vegas.
However, Jackson was not accepting of everything. He wanted Eli to be mated, just like Jackson himself was.
