It's A Hoot (mxm)

Chapter 3

With that in mind, he started to walk. He scanned the signs above the stores, hands shoved in his pockets.
Furniture, baked goods, gift shops, antiques. They had a little bit of everything. Small family restaurants, a few bars, and dress shops.

Toren was staring up at the police station when hands caught his elbows, stopping him from running into someone in front of him.

Startled, he took a step back and blinked up into the man's face.
Good grief, he almost ran smack into an officer.

"Sorry," he hastily apologized.

The man was a bit of a giant. He towered over Toren, with a stern face. He smelled strongly of the woods with an underlying musky scent lingering on him. There was no denying it. This man was a bear, in all aspects.

"Watch where you're going next time," the man grunted out. He stepped back from Toren and eyed him.

Slightly unnerved by it, Toren stared unblinkingly back, going rather still as he did.

The man raised an eyebrow. "Bird?" He was probably the first person he'd met to ever get it even close. Most people guessed cat or snake. It was curious. The bear had a good sense of smell and a keen eye, which was likely due to his job.

"Bear?" Toren returned, though it wasn't a question he needed answered.
Bears were always obvious, even humans could smell them. There was just something about the large animals that gave them away. He just didn't feel like throwing out his species quite yet. He still didn't know how the town felt about his presence.

"Excuse me," Toren moved to walk around him, but froze when the bear spoke up again.

"Michael, my name is Michael." It was a bit jumbled the way it came up, making Toren wonder if he'd made the big bad bear nervous.

He tilted his head to glance back over his shoulder. He offered a smile. "Toren." Then he resumed his course.

Shrugging off the odd encounter with the officer, he finally found the local realtor. He spoke with the lady at the office and got a list of all the houses for sale. She also gave him their website to visit and better view them. He asked for places to rent as well, to which she lit up and handed him a paper, stating that there was a cabin that one of her customers was trying to rent out. There were other options, of course, but Toren was intrigued by the thought of a cabin in the woods.
She said it was located on the owner's property, but secluded from the main house. The rent was cheap, which he also liked. She said she could arrange a tour with the owner. He hastily agreed and left her his contact information.

Things were looking good for him. He liked how smoothly it was all going.
He decided to call it a day and head back to the bed and breakfast, hopefully get a few more hours of sleep before the night.

He greeted Betty, who was still in the main room, then hastened upstairs. Sitting on his bed, he checked his bank accounts, finger hovering over the net amount.
He bit his lip.
It was a lot. There were more zeros in there then he'd ever had before.
His parents had left him everything, but he couldn't find it in himself to use any of it. He didn't want to touch it. So he kept it in a seperate account. It was enough to live pretty for a long time, it just didn't feel right to use it.

He closed his eyes and turned off his phone. He needed to make his own wages again.

He laid his arm across his eyes and exhaled. He needed to work hard for himself. To forget everything. Pretend it wasn't there, like how he pretended that he hadn't just lost everything.

Home.

Home was gone.

He sighed and rolled over, curling up into a ball.
He slept for a few more hours, through dinner and into the night. The sun had long since set when he woke up. The bed and breakfast was dead quiet. He could feel the presence of others, but they were all sound asleep.