Page 5 of Grumpy Bear (Return To Fate Mountain #4)
“Unless that’s what he likes,” quipped Uncle Jessie.
Henry endured the teasing with gritted teeth, counting the minutes until he could reasonably excuse himself without offending his father.
When the enormous birthday cake appeared, he briefly contemplated using the distraction to slip away unnoticed, but his mother’s watchful eye caught his glance toward the door.
“You’re staying the night as planned,” she informed him quietly but firmly. “Your old room is all made up.”
He knew better than to argue. As the party gradually began to disperse, with uncles and aunts gathering their respective families to return to their own houses scattered across the ranch property, Henry felt the tightness in his chest begin to ease.
Logan and Mason announced plans to meet friends in town, earning envious thoughts from Henry about their easy escape.
Finally excusing himself, Henry climbed the familiar stairs to his childhood bedroom.
The space had been converted to a guest room years ago, but still contained enough remnants of his youth to feel uncomfortably personal.
Trophy buckles from teenage rodeo competitions.
A bookshelf still holding well-worn field guides and wildlife journals.
The contrast between this room and his cabin struck him anew.
Here, everything spoke of the wealthy, socially connected family he’d been born into.
The expensive furniture. The framed artwork.
The plush carpet beneath his feet. His cabin, with its handmade furniture and practical simplicity, reflected the life he’d chosen instead.
A life where success was measured in quiet moments of connection with the forest, not business deals or social engagements.
He sat on the edge of the bed. Logan and Mason had adapted to their roles in the family business while maintaining active social lives. Even Uncle Cyrus, similarly uncomfortable with crowds, had found his mate and created a life on the farm.
Why was it so difficult for Henry to do the same?
The new smartphone sat accusingly on the bedside table.
With a resigned sigh, he picked it up, turning the sleek device over in his large, calloused hands.
Technology had never come easily to him.
He preferred tools he could understand, with visible moving parts and straightforward functions.
This glossy rectangle seemed designed to confuse and frustrate.
“Damn thing,” he muttered, pressing what he hoped was the power button.
The screen flickered to life, displaying a setup menu that might as well have been written in ancient Greek. Henry squinted at the tiny text. Just as he was about to toss the device aside and call it a night, a text message notification appeared.
Joy: “Don’t forget to set up your mate.com profile! Already downloaded the app for you. No excuses, cousin! ”
Henry groaned, tempted to power off the phone and “accidentally” drop it in a cattle trough.
But guilt nagged at him. His family genuinely worried about his solitude, even if their methods of addressing it drove him crazy.
Joy had gone to the trouble of buying the phone and setting it up for him.
The least he could do was look at the app once before deleting it.
He reluctantly tapped the mate.com icon, bracing himself for an equally frustrating setup process. To his surprise, the interface was relatively straightforward, clearly designed for even the most technologically challenged shifters to navigate.
The profile creation asked basic questions.
Name, age, shifter type. For his photo, he grudgingly selected the picture Joy had already loaded to the phone.
When prompted for a self-description, Henry typed with deliberate bluntness.
“Forest ranger. Live alone in a cabin miles from town. Prefer solitude and wildlife to people and parties.”
There. That should scare off any potential matches. No woman would read that and think, “Yes, that’s exactly the social isolation I’ve been looking for in a relationship.”
He completed the personality questionnaire with minimal effort. When asked his “spirit vegetable,” he scowled and randomly selected “potato.”
He wasn’t looking for a mate. He was completing this profile solely to get Joy and his mother off his back for a few weeks.
He hit “Submit” with a sense of finality, ready to power off the phone and collapse into much-needed sleep after the social marathon of the evening.
The device immediately pinged with a notification.
Henry frowned, assuming Joy was texting again with more unwanted dating advice. But when he opened the alert, his breath caught.
“Congratulations! We’ve found your fated mate.”
He stared at the screen in disbelief. The match had come through instantly, as if the algorithm had been waiting specifically for his profile to complete the connection. A fuzzy warmth spread through his chest as his bear stirred with sudden interest.
Beside the 100% match percentage was a small profile picture of a woman with bright eyes and an even brighter smile. Her curly brown hair was pulled into two puffy ponytails, and she appeared to be standing in what looked like a laboratory. Her profile name was Sun Bear.
Henry’s thumb hovered over the screen, torn between wanting to see more and an instinctive need to reject the match immediately.
Instead, he did something between the two, letting out a dismissive grunt while his heart hammered in his chest. Then he abruptly shut off the phone and set it face-down on the nightstand.
He stripped into his underwear and laid on the too-soft bed, staring at the ceiling. Sleep refused to come. His mind raced with the implications of the match.
His bear paced restlessly beneath his skin, more alert and interested than it had been in years. Something about Sun Bear with her sunshine smile, had awoken a primal recognition he couldn’t explain or deny. Henry rolled onto his side, shutting his eyes. It was just an algorithm. It meant nothing.
But as sleep finally claimed him, the image of that smiling woman followed him into his dreams.