Vincent had no idea what to wear. His closet was full of shitty clothes, ones he had ordered online from fast-fashion companies and that his mom had bought on sale from Macy’s. He had crop tops and cute little booty shorts and khakis and polos but nothing that screamed, “Hey! I’m sexy but not a complete whore, want to mate with me?”

Everything felt either too whorish or too prudish. He should have planned for this exact scenario because of course he knew it was going to happen. He’d been both dreading and looking forward to it for fifteen years now, and today was the day. The mating ceremony. He was twenty-one and holding a pair of ripped jean booty shorts in one hand and gray khakis in the other. And he hated both options. And himself.

He groaned, falling dramatically back onto his bed. Whitney was painting her nails a cherry red over his sink, and she looked up at him when he let out that very (gay) dramatic groan. “You’re fucking worse than me,” she said, shaking her hand as she finished painting her pinky. She said it helped her nails dry faster. “Why don’t you just wear like jeans and a T-shirt? That’s hot. I think. What do gay werewolves like?”

“Twinks who know how to dress themselves,” Vincent muttered, rolling over onto his stomach and pressing his face into his bedspread.

“I’m sure they like booty shorts too. Lesbian werewolves do. They’re even hornier than guys, I swear. Just like, I don’t know, wear what makes you comfortable or whatever. Mates aren’t supposed to care what you look like.”

“That’s bullshit,” Vincent said into his blankets. He sat up and pulled his coverlet on top of himself, curling into his nest of pillows.

Whitney blew on her nails. “Look, you probably aren’t even going to get a mate. There hasn’t been a compatible mating pair in this town for like a decade, and if you do get lucky, it’ll probably be Nik Bhirumat,” she said.

Nikhil Bhirumat, the least gay alpha Vincent had ever met. He was captain of the meathead posse, and if they’d had a football team, he probably would have been quarterback. Instead, all they had was a small basketball team with just enough players and no alternates, and oddly enough, Nikhil had sucked at basketball when they were in school. He had played post, or so Vincent had been told, because Vincent—in stereotypical twink fashion—understood literally nothing about sports. He knew there were balls, which were thrown at people and kept away from other people, and then those balls went into small holes. It was the gayest thing ever, and Vincent thought maybe he should have gotten into it. He might have liked it: sweaty men, balls, holes. But he was out of high school and there wasn’t much in the way of recreational sports except for a pick-up game here and there at the local park.

Not that he wanted to join a pick-up game with the people in his town.

He wished he lived in a bigger pack where there was more to do than just sit at bonfires or go to work or the occasional drive-in movie. There were packs as big as cities with thousands of werewolves and even the occasional human who had been mated to an alpha. Mating ceremonies were a much bigger deal in those big packs. In smaller packs like Vincent’s, the odds of actually finding your true mate was next to none. Still, the tradition was carried on just in case some lucky couple had found their way into the same tiny pack.

“Yeah, you’re right but…” Vincent said.

“You want to be hot for Ky. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I wish I had someone I wanted to be hot for. I’ve exhausted all my possibilities.”

“I don’t even know if he’s gay or like bisexual. He’s probably straight.”

“Straight? Yeah, no, I don’t think so. God, your gaydar sucks.”

It was true. His gaydar did suck. He thought all of the guys on Grindr were gay, which he had learned was not the case. He tried his hardest not to go on Grindr because his werewolfdar was also abysmal. Human men were thankfully extremely imperceptive, and he’d only talked to a few of them. Still, it scared the shit out of him to even talk to humans. What if he accidentally slipped? He didn’t know how he could over just text, but his fear remained.

“I know,” Vincent groaned. He slipped out of bed and padded back over to his closet, pulling out a pair of jeans ripped at the knees and then an oversized Joy Division T-shirt he’d gotten at Hot Topic for his birthday. “You really think he’d like this? It seems boring.”

Whitney had finished painting her other hand and was shaking it. She glanced over at him when he showed her the outfit. “You got some like Converse to wear with it? Preferably high top?”

“I think so,” said Vincent. He placed the outfit on his bed and rummaged through his closet, finding an old box with high top green Converses in it. There had been a period in his life when he’d been obsessed with moss green, and this looked like it came from that era. He hoped it matched his outfit. The T-shirt was black and white though, so he had good odds.

He undressed and redressed then looked at himself in the full-length mirror beside his bed. He tried a French tuck, then a full tuck, then bubbled the T-shirt out. No. Stupid. He tucked it into the side just a little, letting the T-shirt flow down to his mid-thigh. It looked ridiculous on him, but he kind of liked it.

“Okay, you were right. I look cute,” he said to Whitney.

“I’m always right. You just need to listen to me more.”

***

The ceremony was held in the local school’s gym, which was about as un-glamorous as you could possibly get. The gym smelled like sweaty feet. Super romantic. But people still packed in like sardines, squeezing onto the expandable bleachers in front of the basketball court. There was a podium set up underneath one of the goals where an elder would perform a small ritual that would allow one half of the mating pair to find the other. Vincent’s mom had told him a vision of his mate would appear in his mind, but the vision would vary in clarity depending on how close his mate was. Part of him hoped his mate was a blurry blob of nothingness. He didn’t need it to be anyone in this town, especially not some asshole who hadn’t figured out he liked boys yet.

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Vincent sat with Whitney on the front row of the bleachers. They were supposed to sit in alphabetical order, but no one was doing it. The adults (the true adults) who organized the mating ritual every year didn’t seem to care either. Ky hadn’t arrived yet, and Vincent had the same sinking feeling as yesterday that he wasn’t going to show up. But maybe he was one of those people who was perpetually late to everything.

Who knew? Vincent certainly didn’t; he hadn’t known Ky for seven years, and he felt like he really hadn’t even known Ky then. He hadn’t known how desperately Ky had wanted to get away. His parents had always been nice when Vincent had gone over to his house to play Star Wars or work on a school project. Sure, he had heard them fighting sometimes, but it never seemed like they were on the verge of getting a divorce. And they had stayed together even through the wake of their two children up and leaving. It should have broken them that their children had wanted to get away so badly. It should have broken them that their children had gone no-contact for seven years. It should have broken them that one of their sons had died at twenty-five from lung cancer, and they hadn’t known anything about it.

While he was thinking, the ceremony had begun. The lights had dimmed, and an elder was talking about the importance of mating and keeping the tradition alive. “This ceremony represents were culture and separates us from the human world we live in. We are honored every year to perform these rituals, even if we are not blessed with any mating pairs,” the elder, Mary, said. She had long silver hair that scrolled down her back and sharp eyes that seemed to see everything. She was silent for a moment before she said in a booming voice that needed no microphone, “Let the mating ceremony begin.”

The first person to be called was Misha Agapov, Vincent’s class’s salutatorian. She had her hair pulled back into a severe bun, and he saw her put down the book she had been reading on the risers as she stood and walked down to the podium. The elder woman held up a large garnet and murmured a few words, and the sharp metallic smell of magic permeated the gym. Garnet was a common conduit for werewolf magic because of its cyclical lunar connection, but it was only used by women of the pack. Legend said that it cursed any male who tried to use it.

Vincent watched Misha closely. She had closed her eyes, but when she opened them again, she had a small smile on her face. She shook her head slightly to Mary who nodded and sent her back to the risers. That small smile remained on her lips as she took her seat and reopened her book. Vincent wondered what she had seen.

The ceremony continued with no success. Almost every werewolf who bounced up to the podium frowned when they saw their vision, and when they opened their eyes again, they shook their heads to the elder who dismissed them. Vincent was sure this ceremony was bound to break up a few couples before it was done.

Before he knew it, it was Whitney’s turn. She turned to him, patted his leg, and then stood up, sauntering over to Mary. Whitney didn’t close her eyes as Mary waved the garnet, but her eyes did widen slightly when her vision came over her. She stared off into space for a moment before shaking her head, returning to her senses. “Nothing,” Vincent saw her mouth to the elder.

Mary nodded for the umpteenth time and sent Whitney back to her seat.

When Whitney sat down again, Vincent leaned over and whispered, “What did you see?”

“I don’t know,” Whitney whispered back. Her eyes were still wide, and her face was a little pale. “I’ll tell you later.”

A few more people went up and sat back down uneventfully. Vincent knew, as they neared the end of the ceremony, that his turn was coming up soon. His last name was Weatherstone, and he was only one of two W surnames in his class.

But still, he startled when Mary called his name, “Vincent Augustus Weatherstone.”

He stood on newborn legs, trying not to trip as he walked down the steps to the court. He blacked out as he made his way to Mary, focused on all the eyes watching him. What he remembered was a flash of red as the garnet was waved in front of his face and then he was standing at the front of the gym in the hot sun, watching a motorcycle zoom into the parking lot. Of course, it wasn’t hard to tell who he was looking at because the rider wore no helmet. A leather jacket settled over his shoulders despite the summer heat scorching across the blacktop.

The vision was so crystal clear, it felt like he was watching a movie. He gasped softly and took a step back, running into the gym door. “Ky,” he murmured as the motorcycle pulled into a parking spot.

Ky ran his fingers through his hair before balancing his motorcycle on its kickstand. He wore a dark T-shirt much like Vincent’s, but it was plain and form-fitting, clinging to his solid torso and broad chest. Vincent wondered what his arm muscles looked like with his jacket off.

Suddenly, he snapped back to reality, reeling back into his body with a bang. He stumbled back, blinking at Mary. She stared at him and blinked too.

The gym was incredibly quiet. All Vincent could hear was air conditioning whirring.

Then, he was streaking across the gym, his shoes squeaking across the shiny court. He dashed up the stairs and out into the lobby. He stopped before he got to the door, watching the world unfold in slow motion as Ky made his way across the parking lot. Vincent’s fingers itched to shove open the door, and his throat burned to scream, “We’re mated! We’re fucking mates!”

But he didn’t. He just watched Ky, just stared longingly at him until Ky opened the door and stopped dead when he saw Vincent standing there. “Hey, is the party over?” he asked. He didn’t smile.

Vincent didn’t need him to.

“Yeah,” Vincent lied. He smiled even if Ky wouldn’t return it. His desperation to scream that they were mates was only intensifying, clawing at his chest like his wolf did when it saw wide open spaces to run. “Your apartment. You promised to let me see it.”

“I guess I did,” said Ky. He looked over Vincent’s shoulder, no doubt noticing the scores of people still sitting on the bleachers. Vincent didn’t want to look behind him. He didn’t need to know what was happening. All that mattered was he had a mate. And it was Ky.

He hadn’t even considered that possibility. Hadn’t even fucking thought of it.

“Vince! There you are!” his father, Blake, said as he pushed open the door to the gym.

Vincent winced. He looked over his shoulder and said, “Hey, Dad, sorry. I, um… I just… Ky was here, so I thought I’d show him in.”

Vincent’s mom, Carla, stood behind his dad, and she looked bewildered, her eyebrows reaching her hairline. “You can’t just run out a mating ceremony like a maniac,” she said. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

“You what?” said Ky. “I thought you said it was over.”

“Well, not quite,” Vincent said.

“Yeah, not at all,” Vincent’s mom said.

“Mom,” Vincent said.

“You ran out of the mating ceremony? Why?” asked Ky, and Vincent turned his attention back to his mate. The electricity between them was palpable, dancing over Vincent’s tongue. He wondered what Ky’s tongue would taste like.

“Nobody knows,” his mom commented.

“Mom!”

“You’re the one that ran out, mister,” she said. “What did you see?”

Vincent took a deep breath. His heart beat so hard against his chest that it ached. “Nothing,” he lied. “I didn’t see anyone at all.”