Page 103 of The Good Boys Club

She wasn’t angry now either, I realised. I was bracing myself for impact, but instead, Mam shrunk in on herself. She was six foot three, but at that moment she could have been a child.

“I see,” she eventually said.

“I’m not ready, Mam.” I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready. “I love it here, and I love you all so much, but I never chose this.”

Her hand found my shoulder. “I know you didn’t, sunshine.” She let out a long sigh and a groan. “Okay, take a seat. Let’s have a chat.”

I pulled out a chair and sat down, and Mam placed the plate of chicken on the table. She took two highballs from the cupboard and filled them to the brim with chocolate milk.

“You’re never too old for chocolate milk.” She also sat.

I waited a full minute—possibly two—before I spoke, all the time mulling over how I would phrase it. Saying I wanted to do another degree would be a lie, and it didn’t feel right lying to Mam.

“I’m going to study for a PhD. It starts in September. Just after my birthday. I have a sponsor. I’ve been looking at places in Remy to rent long term.”

“You’re going to be a doctor?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, but I found myself wincing.

“Well, this is good news, I suppose. If you’re gonna temporarily reject the call, what better reason?” I could hear the relief in her voice.

She’d said“temporarily.”Not that I planned on rejecting it indefinitely, but I already felt like I was on borrowed time and I hadn’t turned twenty-five yet.

“So . . . a doctor of . . . what will you be studying?”

“Dendrology. Trees.”

Mam took a big swig of her chocolate milk, though I got the sense she was buying herself more thinking time. “Well, that’ll come in handy on the reserve.”

I said nothing. Kept quiet.

“Is this what you want?” she asked.

I couldn’t answer. At least not honestly.

She waited a few moments. “Your father never wanted this either, and neither did I. I never imagined when I fled my pack at age eighteen I’d end up becoming an alpha’s mate—a beta for one of the most influential packs in Lykos. He kept saying we should run, run away from all of this . . . go to Borderlands and live the rest of our lives somewhere far, far away from his responsibilities.”

“What happened? Why did he change his mind?”

“Oh, he didn’t change his mind. Nana Rita won’t tell you this, but we ran. Not all the way to Borderlands, but to Gwindur.”

“Oh my gods. Why has nobody ever told me this?”

Mam shrugged. “People want to make it seem like everything is perfect and everybody is happy all the time, but that’s not real life.”

“What happened?”

“Well, we were gone for three years. We left when your father was twenty-four and I was twenty-two. We came back because Igot pregnant with Clem, and after eighteen months we—together—decided we missed this place too much. You know the saying, it takes a village to raise a child? Well, that was us, I guess. We couldn’t make it work. Your father had two jobs. I was trying to work from home, but woodworking machinery and newborns don’t mix. It also became clear to your father the alpha role would not automatically shift to your uncle. So we came back, and your father accepted the call, and we didn’t have to worry about starving to death again. So that was nice.”

I laughed. “What did Nana say?”

“Oh, Rita was pissed. Absolutely fuming.” She must have seen the worry in my expression because she added, “This is different, though. Rita had no clue when, or even if we’d come back. You will come back, won’t you? How long is a PhD?” Mam grabbed my hand. She wasn’t asking, she was pleading.

I decided not to answer the first of her questions, because I honestly didn’t know when or if I’d be back. “It’s four years.”

“Four years and you’ll be a doctor?”

“Yeah.”

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