Page 120 of The Heat of Us

Our proposed bar crawl stopped abruptly on the second location when we realised they had soju available. We’d been playing drinking games for the last hour, getting rowdier and finding each other more and more hysterical for some reason. The table was littered with bottle caps and when Juno’s alpha Everett announced he had just placed a huge order of fries Juno and I almost cried with joy.

“Are you going to marry him?” I wept, clutching her arm.

“I should, shouldn’t I?” she gasped.

One of her other alphas — Ari — leaned over and muttered to Everett out of the corner of his mouth. “Wait till they find out about all the dipping sauces they come with.”

“Dipping sauces?!” Juno shrieked.

Ben clapped his hands over his ears. “God, Juno. Some of us want to have hearing left after tonight.”

Remy was mystified watching Ben and Juno interact.

“I like my sister. You don’t like your sister?” Remy asked.

“Not really.”

An ice cube hit Ben squarely in the middle of his forehead.

“Even less now,” Ben said, retaliating with a balled up napkin.

Remy looked at him for a long time. “I don’t believe you,” he said finally.

Aleks was the least drunk out of all of us. Not that we asked him to be. He turned down everything after his first drink despite my best puppy eyes.

“You don’t have to take care of us. It’s ok to have fun.”

He kissed me. “Looking after you is fun.”

Such a liar. But I understood his inability to truly let go for now. I made a mental note to take him out when all this was over and get him properly sloshed.

Then the waiter arrived with the fries and I caught Aleks’ muttered oh thank god.

The drinking games were abandoned as Juno and I began to very seriously analyse and rank the sauces. I’d missed her. We hadn’t been catching up as much, a natural consequence of falling into relationships.

“We need to do this more often,” I told her seriously.

Juno was waving a fry around, dancing and weaving with it. “You, me and this any day of the week, Hazie,” she said dreamily. Ari quietly swapped her beer with a glass of water.

She was so light and carefree these days and deserved nothing less. Unfortunately my mind decided to jump straight to the fact that my world had gone to shit in comparison.

“Excuse me.” I stood up, forcing out a laugh. “Bathroom.”

Ben immediately rose. “I’ll come with you.”

Because we don’t know if I’m even safe out here like this.

His hand found the small of my back in the dimly lit hallway. “Are you all right?” He shook his head. “Sorry, that was dumb. Of course you’re not.” His forehead creased as he struggled. “I meant, are you alright for right now. Did…did that make sense?”

I squished my nose into his chest and sighed. “Ben, you’re drunk.”

“Yeah, I guess I am a bit.” His arms came around me and he breathed me in. “God, you smell good. Have I ever told you?” Before I could answer he barrelled on. “I want to rub my face all over you like a cat every time I’m around you.”

I jerked back with a surprised laugh. “You never told me that.”

“And I always want to fuck you,” he sighed, heavily. “It’s so inconvenient.”

Oh this was getting dangerous now. I loved the way he was holding me, swaying slightly to the background music all liquid and honey around me.

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