Page 116 of The Good Boys Club

“Bangers,” he said, still not taking his gaze away from the light. “Everything cool?”

I sat next to him, took my flip-flops off, and dropped my feet into the water too. “I hope there are no jellyfish in here.”

“If you get stung, I’ll piss on you.”

“What are friends for?” I said. The fact that Mash hadn’t smiled or laughed yet was an alarm ringing in the back of my mind.

“So . . .”

I breathed slowly through barely parted lips, trying to muster the courage to tell Mash how I felt about him. Could I do that? Could I really confess that I’d been in love with him for a decade?

“I need to tell you something.”

“Can I tell you something first?” he said, finally turning to look at me.

“Uh . . .” The sound tumbled out of my mouth before I could think of a proper response. Mash had never asked me anything like this before. He’d never interrupted me. He was a listener. “Sure.”

He turned away again, let out a sigh.

I waited for him.

“My pack needs me to go home . . . back to Howling Pines. I should have been there five years ago, but . . . They want me tomate, settle down. I’m almost thirty. It’s time I stopped being such a selfish ass.”

I wanted to scream at him. How was he the selfish party here? They were asking him to change who he was, become a different person, give up everything for them.

“I can’t do it, Ci. I can’t do what they need me to.” A tear tracked down his cheek. The moonlight reflected off it. He slapped it off his face. “They have someone they want me to be with. Her name’s Dee-Dee. She’s like my cousin, but not really. But she’s not the someone . . .” He shook his head. “I’ve been talking with the dean. Agnes has offered me a position on the UR payroll if I want to stay. A research fellow. I’d have to teach some classes.” He laughed. “Gods, can you actually imagine me being responsible for young people’s education?”

I kept quiet, couldn’t quite formulate a response. I thought my heart might burst through my chest. Please stay. Please.

“No, me neither,” he whispered.

“What do you want to do?” I said eventually.

He didn’t answer me. Not immediately, and not with words. Instead, he turned his face to mine, wiped another tear away with his knuckles, and simply stared at me. His gaze landed on my lips. His tongue darted out to wet his own. Butterflies erupted in my stomach. But the moment was over as quickly as it had started, and Mash dragged his eyes back to the light in the distance.

“I’m staying in Remy. Alpha is going to be so pissed, but I love you, man. I don’t wanna leave just yet.”

Tell him. Tell him now. Tell him you love him too. That you’ve always loved him. That you will love him no matter what, or where, or who he chooses.

“I . . . I . . .”

Fuck.

“I know,” I said instead. I was a fucking coward.

He watched me for a few more moments. “I’ll get my own place. I think that’d be good for me, even if I have to do nights at Absym to afford it. But I’ll find an apartment within walking distance from yours, yeah? You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Sniffing Out Trouble

Present Day

Cian

Tomorrow was the Harvest Moon shift, which meant I’d spent the entirety of today, my birthday, in Clem’s kitchen preparing vegetables. There was butternut squash and peanut curry, baked potatoes with all sorts of beans—pinto, kidney, butter—in a smoky tomato sauce, and cauliflower shawarmas withred cabbage, tahini, date syrup, and pomegranate seeds. And pumpkin pie. So much pie. No meat, since the focus was on the harvest part.

Clem told me next month was the Hunter’s Moon, where we basically eat nothing but flesh, and if I wanted to help in the kitchens, I’d need to learn butchery. Which she would teach me. I just nodded along. Something deep in my gut doubted I’d be around for the following full moon.

At some point Mash was going to have to tell his family I wasn’t his one true love, that we’d broken up, or at the very least pretend I had returned to Remy and that we were on a break.“My mate has a job he can’t get out of in the city, so we’ll do the long-distance thing for a while.”

---