Usually by now I’d wrecked it somehow, or the man had done something I could point at and go See, see I knew it wouldn’t work. Micah had managed to walk the maze that was my heart and not get caught in any of the traps. He said his good-byes to the people and came to me.

He smiled, the edge of his mouth quirking up like it did sometimes, his eyes shining as if laughter were just a thought away. “What are you looking at?” he asked, voice low.

I smiled back because I couldn’t help it. “You.”

Our hands reached for each other at the same time, our fingers just finding each other, entwining, playing along the touch and feel of each other. I’d had one friend say that we could get more out of just holding hands than some couples got out of kissing. But we did that, too, leaning in and being careful of the lipstick. Micah went through most nights with a touch of my lipstick on his mouth. He didn’t seem to mind.

“Who was that?” I asked as we turned and began to make our way hand in hand with the last of the crowd toward the auditorium.

“One of the families in our support group,” he said.

Micah was the head/spokesperson for the Coalition for Better Understanding Between Human and Lycanthrope Communities. It was affectionately known as the Furry Coalition. The Coalition helped new shapeshifters adjust to the change in lifestyle, and kept them from shifting early outside safe houses. A new shifter was unpredictable. It could take months of full moons before they were in control enough to be trustworthy without older, more experienced shifters riding herd on them. And yes, unpredictable meant they were consumed by a craving for flesh, and fresh was better. They also blacked out and had few memories of what they’d done. Most newbies passed out after shifting back to human form, so they needed to be either in a safe place or where someone could get them under some literal cover.