We-Haul, Part 3 (Patreon)

"So, let me get all this straight."  Griggs slammed back perhaps her sixth beer.  Eric Harker, just glumly dotted his finger against drops of condensation forming on the outside of the singular glass he was still working on.  "You went home."

"Yup."

"See all sorts of decorations and such up.  Love letter on the counter, dinner in the oven, whole shebang."

While unintentional, Eric snorted a bit at her pun.

"And you naturally assumed that your fiance had done it all for you."

"Naturally," he grumbled, leaning his chin down against his wrist more.  "Never done it before but..."

"But... it wasn't.  For you, that is," concluded the Tiger Anthro.

"It wasn't," he confirmed.  "It was all for her."  He scowled at his half-full beer, torn between taking a sip and swallowing past the sour lump in his throat.  "Apparently, it's their... whatever monthiversary."

"Sure," Griggs let out cagily.  There was a short pause.  "So...?"

"So," he sighed.  "I go back to the bedroom, flower petals and all, and there they are."  He gestured vaguely with his hand at nothing.  "Just cuddling in post-sex bliss."  Saying the words made the lump grow slightly more, intensifying more and more as the memory replayed itself before him.

"And you...sort of lost it?" Griggs ventured.

Harker snorted again.  "Lost it?  I'm starting to suspect I'd lost it a long time ago.  It being any sort of possibility that my engagement isn't absolute bullshit."

"And you're totally understandable in thinking that."  He heard her trailing a claw around the rim of her glass.  "But..."

"But yes, I did lose it too.  Got...angry.  Really angry.  She'd never done that kind of thing for me, not once."

"Very shitty."

"It's a shitty situation all around."

The Tiger sighed, leaning back in her booth.  Her powerful arms strained the jacket she wore over the belly-length croptop, exposing her corded abdomen and trailing down towards the line of her...

Harker jerked his thoughts away from that train.

"Have to agree," she sighed a moment later.  "But..." she began again.

Rolling his eyes, he thunked his forehead down against the cool, polished table.  "But yes.  You did warn me that opening our relationship up while it was already rocky, to begin with, was a bad idea."

"I never said it was a bad idea," came her voice, a bit softer than he was used to hearing.

"I tried to use as PC of words as I could to replace all the shit you've said about it since.  Yes.  You were right.  I was stupid.  I practically asked for this kind of crap to happen."  

Griggs didn't comment, merely pounding back another beer.  

"Hell, at this point," he snarled, vision slightly hazy and hot.  "I might as well start sleeping around too!"  A second or two of heavy breathing got him back to his usual morose, bitter attitude.  That wasn't who he was; who he was though still made parts of him recoil in revulsion and disapproval for thinking this way.  Guilt and anxiety gnawed at him; maybe he had overreacted.  Maybe he was just overstressed from work.  Maybe...  "I should probably apologize."

He began to pull out his phone from his pocket but a sudden tap from Grigg's long tail on his leg caused him to drop it under the table instead as he jumped.

"Oy!"  He glared up at her, watching as she lowered the emptied glass to the table.  Foam clung to her whiskers and the fur around her jaws before she licked it off with that big, long, broad tongue.  It was a nice tongue.  No.  Stop it.  That's Griggs.  Back off Malebrain.

Griggs seemed half a world away, glancing down at him with those inscrutable yellow eyes.  He tried to lean down and reach for his phone, only to see her surprisingly dexterous tail scoop it towards her instead, after which she retrieved it with a paw.  Still leaning under the table, he saw all sorts of muscles coiling and flexing even mildly under all that soft-looking fur.  Her legs were slightly separated, the ripped fabric on her knees delightfully rebellious, the crook of her trunk-like legs... STOP IT!

Jerking himself back up to avoid being caught staring at her under the table, he glowered over at Griggs.  She was currently palming his phone, scarred face entirely unreadable.  Even so, he wasn't in any mood for games.  He extended his hand.

"Phone."

Her eyes flicked back to him from his screen.  Something he wasn't used to seeing was going on inside his oldest friend's head.  Some kind of internal conflict he hadn't seen her struggle with for a long time.  Then she did something he never would have suspected; she opened the neckline of her croptop and dropped his phone down into her chest where it caught at an angle.  Its edge tented the front of her shirt, straining already as it was but still very noticeable.

"Oy!" he repeated indignantly.  "Give me back my phone, Frosty!"

"Sure," she growled, leaning slightly over the table towards him.  Her gaze was bizarrely hooded, a smell coming from her, even subtle, that he wasn't as used to.

He stared at her, nonplused.

"Go ahead."  Her jowls quivered and the hint of a smile spread across them.  "Reach right on in and..."  Her paw once again plucked at the neckline of her shirt, pulling it out and away, revealing the expanse of her throat, collarbone, and diving down towards where his phone was currently trapped in between the beginning swells of two mountainous, fluffy white fur-covered shapes.  He thought he saw the flash of a black strap on one side, pressed deeply into the deep orange of her broad shoulder.  "Get it out."

Eric blinked, mouth slightly open, totally taken aback.  "I...uhh..." he managed to get out.

Her growl intensified only by a minor degree but it was noticeable.  "Finally made you speechless huh?"  The already raspy, feral voice had dropped an octave or so.  "Didn't think it was possible."  There was a sound, sort of like a chuckle, but deeper, more dangerous, alluring.  "So...?"

"So?" he asked, eyes still glued to what he could see of his best friend's canyon-like cleavage.

"You wanted your phone back right?" she teased.  Teased?  That wasn't at all like her.  "You were gonna make a call?"

 A call?  What call?  To who?  He wracked his brain but came up shockingly empty.  Then he managed to remember somewhat loose fragments of their conversation of only seconds ago.  His hand tensed, about to lift and reach forwards, but caught halfway up from the table as if turned to stone.

"Don't want it back?" she asked, leaning slightly away again and loosening her hold on her shirt.  The wondrously nice view retreated out of sight and a part of him rebelled petulantly as he hadn't been done staring.  He could have spent a whole day doing nothing but that.  At Griggs.  Griggs' chest.  "I guess I'll keep it then."

Finally managing to get his brain in some kind of working order again, Eric gritted his teeth and growled right back at her.  "Give," he commanded, resuming reaching forward.  

She seemed to pull away for a second, then leaned back forwards to the angle she had been.  Her eyes never left his, and he hers, as his sweaty hand delved hesitantly inside her top.  It was much warmer inside the shirt, the edges of her fur tickling his skin by the barest of brushes as he kept reaching down, down, how the fuck far down was it?!  His fingers bumped against something very soft, very fluffy, very pliant and warm, and very much not his phone.  He recoiled, jerking his hand halfway back out.  

Her deep chuckle was maddening.  "Whoops.  Try again?"  

Steeling himself, still utterly confused, he reached in again and managed to grip the corner of his phone and pulled.  It didn't come straight away, as if indignantly trying to remain where it was ensconced.  Eventually, it slid out and free, and it returned, along with his hand, from the extremely hot confines of her shirt.  Her purring chuckle resounded in his ears, drowning out the muted sounds of conversation and music droning on in the background of the bar.

It was so...warm...

Shakily trying not to focus on that detail, he began lifting the device to his ear.  Oh god, it smelled...like her.  He'd never smelled it before, this musky, jasmine-sweet scent, but he knew exactly what it was, or more accurately who it could only be.  If he were blind, he'd still know the source from that first brief whiff.  He'd never understood all those simps who claimed Aggression-addiction; he understood now.

"Before you make your call though," Griggs interrupted him again.  She'd let go of her shirt again, causing the view to vanish entirely, but then replaced the borderline heavenly visual by leaning forwards over the table towards him even more, arms crossed and her breasts smooshing against the lacquer-polished surface.  They flattened eventually against it after a second or two of conforming, but still remaining massive; he was reminded abruptly of the stereotypical car-wash scene where swimsuit-clad girls pressed themselves up against the windshield while the driver was still inside.  ".Just... a quick question if you'll indulge me."

"What...?"

"Are you still with her?"

The query made his old brainwaves jumpstart back to a semblance of their usual capacity and his scowl returned.  "I mean...I wouldn't be shocked if I wasn't after what all I exploded on her with."

"But you didn't say, it's over, yourself?"

"No?  What the hell are you getting at?"

Her yellow eyes rolled and finally, blessedly, the old Griggs seemed to return for a second.  "Let a girl try and be fucking mysterious once in a while, Harker," she snapped.  Despite everything of that tumultuous evening, that alone made him smile inside and he nodded, ready to listen.  Smoothing her features once again, she continued.  "You're in an open relationship."

"Yes?"

"Open meaning she can see other people besides you?"

"Obviously..." he grated out.

"Open meaning you can see other people besides her?"

He started to reply with the same curt singular word, then caught the look in her eyes again.  "...Technically?" he ventured.

"Maybe your issue with everything, other than the actual relationship idiosyncrasies and failures on her part to properly provide the same kind of intimacy and attention, like she gave to her girlfriend, to the man she's been with for years...isn't that she is doing all of that with someone else."

Parsing through what she said, he tried frantically to think of where all of this could be going.  He felt woefully stupid right now, lacking any and all kind of idea or proper information about what was going on, and he as always deflected it with sarcasm.

"I'm surprised you can say...idiosyncrasies."

Griggs' eyes did not change, did not narrow, she didn't even quip back at him.  She just kept staring across the table at him, still partially leaning forwards atop it.  "Maybe your real issue is that you're jealous."

"Jealous?" he growled, feeling taunted.  "Of her fuckbuddy?  Sure.  Yes.  I could see where I might feel that.  The intimacy she and I have never had, certainly nothing she ever attempted to do for me."

She nodded, not so much in a motion, but the way her eyes blinked, long and slow at him, a decidedly feline expression.  "I did warn you about opening a relationship like this."

"Oh for the love of the Gods and Spirits, Toni, what are you getting at?!"

Griggs paused for a long moment, and then, slowly, her smile spread.  The tips of her teeth flashed slightly and her smell doubled in intensity.  "I like when you call me by my name," she purred.  Once again, his mental faculties suddenly shifted any and all attention from his anger to...something very much not anger.  "What I'm getting at...is that I know exactly what it feels like to feel jealous like that."

"Yeah...?" came a voice from him that he wasn't even aware he could make.

"What I'm getting at is...I'm jealous that in opening your relationship, you never...considered the second half of it all.  More specifically..."  Her claws ticked on the lacquer top of the table, setting up a hypnotizing rhythm that, coupled with her huntress eyes, had his complete and utter attention as if spellbound.  She let it hang pregnant and obvious in the air before she finally breathed out, "Certain...interested...parties."

Even he knew what she was saying, or not saying.  

Heat bloomed in his cheeks and all his old defenses shattered into pieces as they all rushed to try and take up their usual placements against the wave that was her Aggression.  "Y-you're...drunk," he finally rasped out.

"Sure.  I'd never be brave enough to say all this otherwise."  She chuckled then and finally that stoic expression faltered.  "I mean come on, I dropped your phone down my shirt and let you fish around in my tits to get it back."  He flushed but actually managed to chuckle a bit with her.  "Drinks aside though," she continued.  "I still mean it."

"You mean...it," he repeated lamely.  "It...being..."

"Me," she purred softly.  Somehow she'd gotten even closer to him, not across the table but around it, sliding her bulk across the circular booth towards his side but never once breaking eye contact.  A paw engulfed the hand on that side.  All he could see, all he knew existed, was her at that moment.  Her breath was heavy, boozy, and very warm.  "Ordinarily, I would never, and haven't, even considered it myself."

"Ordinarily...?"

"I respect you too much, Harker.  I respect our friendship, and more importantly, your relationship too much, even if I always hated her fucking guts for how she treated you like second choice."

The air was so thick between them that he felt like he was swimming in it.

"But if your idiotic fiance is going to make the kind of bullshit decision to show such love to her girlfriend, not the man who has supported and loved her for years..."  She was even closer now, leaning down, filling the space between them with only their breath keeping them still apart.  "Then momma's done playing nice.  I'm open if you are."

Emotion swept through him, the scent of her massaging him somehow from outside in.  Doubts even so wormed their way into what to him was abruptly all he had ever truly wanted, an idea he had squashed long ago back when he and Griggs had first started being friends.  Back when a scrappy, tiny Tiger cub had been being bullied relentlessly, pelted with rocks to the point of one cutting her brow, just for going into the boys' restroom on accident.  She had needed a friend, and Eric had too.

All they ever needed for so long was just that, a constant, solid companion.  Only now did he realize, he'd wanted more for a long time.

"It's...just..." he grated out, hating himself.  She listened, patient, calm, looming and warm.  "You're drunk...and...I can't help but worry that you'll..."

"Regret it?" she asked.  He nodded, feeling hollow.  "Eric, I've regretted a lot of things.  Including not saying something before now.  For not jumping your fucking ass the instant you opened the travesty of your relationship, so I could start showing you what a real woman should treat her man like."  Her paw brushed his cheek, practically having wrapped herself around him.  Any closer and he'd be in her lap.  Not a bad idea, all things considered.  What had he been upset about before?

"I...should..." he began, but failed at a blink from her.  He tried again.  "Tell...her...first?"

"Did she tell you first?"

"No..."

"Do you want to tell her?"

"...No. Yes.  I don't know."

"Do you want me?"

It was unavoidable, unmistakable, undeniable.

"Yes."

"Say my name again."

A weak, teasing grin spread across his face.  Her eyes sparkled and her purrs rang in his head like vibrations inside his brain, massaging and soothing away years of old hurts, resentments, regrets, and wishful thinking.  "Frosty?"  They both laughed.  "Toni."

"Eric."

"I've always...I never said it but...I never knew I did but..."

Her expression hooded once again, thoughts as mired and undecipherable as if parsing through deep dark water.

"Too soon?"

"Years," she growled.  Her paw jerked him yet closer.  Apparently, there were still inches separating them.  Skin and fur pushed near flush and he was forced to turn halfway in his seat to remain facing her.  "Too long without."

Their first kiss wasn't perfect, wasn't clean, wasn't even all that coordinated.  Human lips to Anthro muzzle was never an exact science, but it didn't have to be.  Eric Harker and Toni Griggs kissed as if to make up for all the years they'd missed out on, years they intended to make up.  

Tanner didn't even give them their bill as the finally-realized couple hurried out of the diner.  He knew they'd settle the tab, and he couldn't help but grin approvingly.  The satisfaction was also helped by the number of sour-faced patrons and members of his staff whom he collected bets from.

As he counted his winnings, he glanced out the doors once more.  "Have fun, you crazy kids," he chuckled.

And what fun they were to have.
End of Part 3