She'd wasted most of her twenties not dating, hiding from people she'd known at school. When she ran into guys she'd dated when she was the school basketball star, she felt ashamed, convincing herself that she saw surprise and disappointment in their eyes. By the time she was 29, she was borderline anorexic, living on 800 calories per day, which was what it took to keep her weight at a level she was happy with. One day, she was so weak from hunger and over-exercise that she collapsed in the shopping mall. When she regained consciousness, lying on a hard marble floor with a splitting headache and a crowd of people standing around her, she'd promised herself that it stopped right there. She'd started eating sensibly, with normal portions, and continued working out hard. Her weight had stabilized, and her figure was shapely and well defined. She still didn't feel like herself, but people said she was sexy. She had boyfriends on and off into her thirties, but she could never let her guard down. Regardless of what they said to her, she thought they'd leave her for the skinnier girl. She was always defensive, always trying to stay one step ahead of them. She mostly dated bad boys, so it wasn't a surprise when they dumped her, while the nice guys would eventually tire of the endless conflict, and move onto someone else.
Kristin stared at the full-body shot gloomily. If it was someone else's photo, she might have said that she was looking at a statuesque, voluptuous woman, but she couldn't help zeroing in on the things she hated about her body – like her wide hips and oversized boobs. Still, Dina and Lauren had said it was a dating site for curvy girls. She looked at the tiger's profile again. Under the family section, he'd selected the option "no kids yet, but planning on having a big family some day." And that was the other issue right there: she had no idea whether she'd be able to provide a partner with children. And that made her feel like she was on the dating scrapheap.
Kristin jumped at the sound of chairs scraping across the floor. Damnit! She'd missed the last 20 minutes of the meeting at least, and now she had nothing to write about. Tomorrow afternoon's paper was going to involve some heavy creative license. Oh well, that was nothing new. The truth was that there wasn't too much to write about in their local town. There had never been a murder or a kidnapping. Violent crime was almost unheard of. Regardless, she loved working for the Hope Valley Echo. It was all about community. When she'd graduated from college, she'd gotten offers from several high profile papers, but she'd never wanted to live anywhere but her hometown, and write about the daily happenings of the people she cared about.
She dropped her phone, her notepad and her pen in her bag, and got to her feet. She needed to head back to the newspaper office and complete half a dozen articles for tomorrow's paper, as well as covering for the subeditor who was off sick. It was going to be a long evening. And the last thing she needed was to be distracted by sexy tiger-men that she couldn't have. She took her phone out of her bag and moved the app to trash. She didn't even have the log-in details, so there was no way she could access it, even if her resolve weakened.
Late into the evening, when the sky had already been pitch black for several hours, Kristin's eyes slid to the bottom right of her computer screen. 10:15pm. Her eyes were stinging, and the fluorescent light overhead buzzed dismally. There was an empty container of chicken salad, a half-eaten packet of dry-roasted peanuts and two diet coke cans on the desk next to her. Rubbing her eyes, she looked around the office. She was the only person there. All her news stories were written and everyone else's were subbed. She sent all the final versions to the editor in chief, and she leaned back in her chair and stretched. Work is over for the day! she told herself, and she was immediately filled with elation, and thoughts about what she was going to do with the rest of the evening. She'd been thinking about Shiftr on and off while she'd been working. The tiger wasn't the one for her, clearly. But Lauren and Dina had both found gorgeous men for themselves, so she wasn't ready to ditch the app altogether. Maybe there were shifters on there who weren't so keen to have kids. She was itching to go and see the girls and find out more about these shape-shifting men. But was it too late? She tapped out a message to Dina, since she tended to be a night owl when she didn't have to get up for school the next day.
Dina replied as Kristin was walking across the parking lot to her car:
Yes, I'm still up, hun! We're at home and Lauren's here too. Come see us!
Kristin deliberated for a moment. She was tired, and a drive out to the national park seemed like a lot right now. But it wasn't like she had anything else to do. The thought of her lonely bed wasn't too appealing either. She messaged Dina back, asking her for directions.
Half an hour later, Kristin turned into a very dark road. From the car's headlights, she could barely make out that it was a dirt track. Dina had given her exact coordinates for her GPS, and she followed the soothing male voice as it told her to continue for 623 yards and then stop. "You have reached your destination," it said. There was absolutely nothing around. Just woods on the right, and a steep bank on the left. She called Dina.
"I'm here – I think," she said hesitantly, as Dina's chirpy voice came on the line.
"Hang tight, Logan will come pick you up," Dina replied.
Moments later, Logan came bounding through the trees.
"Hey, Kristin!" he called, enveloping her in a giant hug. He was built on such a large scale that they made her feel tiny.
"Hey, Logan! Good to see you," she replied.
"It's this way," he said and dived back into the woods. She followed him closely as he picked his way among the trees, asking her all about her day. The enveloping darkness lifted as they came to a row of cute wooden cabins.
"Ours is the third one along," Logan said, showing her in. Kristin walked up the steps leading to the veranda, and into the arms of a grinning Dina.
"Hey, girl!" she yelled. "I'm so excited that you finally get to see our place! Come on, I'll show you around." She took Kristin by the hand and led her inside. Lauren was in the living room, reclining on a big leather sofa, and she pulled herself up with difficulty to hug Kristin hello.
The cabin was adorable. It was cozy and rustic, but also stylishly furnished, with a lot of beautifully-carved wood.
"Like a drink, Kristin?" Logan asked, as she sat down on the sofa next to the girls.
"Why not?" she replied. "I don't suppose you have whisky?"
"Of course," Logan said with a chuckle, and poured her a tumbler-full. It was rich and peaty, and as she sipped, the stresses of the week drained away.
"So?" Lauren said expectantly. "How's the app?"
"Um, you're going to have to give me the password, since I had to disable it after it resulted in me not getting any stories out of that damned town hall meeting," she said, laughing.
"Oh, it's just Shiftr. But let me download the app for you. I need to use a link from my email, because it's not available in the regular app store. It's a secret app." Kristin handed her phone over and Lauren fiddled with it. "Ooh, you haven't activated your messages. Let me fix that right now!"
As Lauren gave the phone back to Kristin, it began to emit all kinds of beeps. "Wow, Kristin, you've got mail!" Dina exclaimed. She and Lauren huddled on either side of her as she accessed her mailbox. There was a total of 15 messages waiting for her. Kristin tapped to open the first one, and immediately caught her breath.
"Oh my god, it's from the tiger!" she said.
"Who's that?" Dina and Lauren said at the same time.
"Oh, this insanely hot guy I was staring at earlier," she replied. Her pulse had quickened, and perspiration broke out on her palms. "Ok, what's he saying to me? – Hi there, beautiful. I see you've left your scent on my trail. You sound very interesting. I'd love to get to know you better," she read. She paused, frowning. "What's he talking about? Scent? Trail?" Lauren laughed.
"One thing I didn't mention is that when you visit someone's profile, you leave a track behind, so they can see you've checked them out."
"What? This is terrible!" Kristin exclaimed.
"Shifters are pretty direct; there's no hiding yourself on this site," Logan said in his warm, rumbly voice.
"And what are you worried about?" Dina said. "He thinks you're hot!"
"No. Just no. He's way hotter than I am."