Page 120 of The Good Boys Club

“Why, thank you. I do try,” she said, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. “I’m obsessed with your new look.”

“My new look?” I asked.

“This.” She motioned a hand towards my upper lip.

“Oh, the tash?”

“So new you forgot you had it?” she said. The wings of her eyeliner crinkled with her laughter.

I smoothed the bristles out with my forefinger and thumb. “Ci likes it. You still single?” I brushed the collar of her blouse aside to reveal a mate-bite-free neck.

“Perpetually. Terminally.”

“I thought that was your jam?” I said.

“It is.” Her fingers slid up my bicep, but she wasn’t flirting—I knew in my gut—this was just how Sam had always been. Basically, a feminine version of me, but a thousand times hotter. “I could never be tamed. Though I was in a polycule for a couple of years, but it didn’t work out. So, Cian, aye? Tell me about him.”

I bit my lip in anticipation, and shot Ci a quick glance. He was busy with Clem in the jacket-potato trailer, serving a customer I recognised as one of the Stewall pack.

I hadn’t seen Sam in over a decade and a half, but something deep in the marrow of my bones told me to be honest about my feelings. Like she would listen to me, and she wouldn’t pass judgement either way. She’d be a friend.

“Well, I met him my first year of uni. We were roommates.”

“Did you know then that he was your mate? I’ve heard that some wolves just know. They can smell it on the other person.”

“I had no clue,” I said. “But he made me feel . . . strange. Different. From that very first moment. And then as time went on, I got more and more confused about my sexuality. I thought, okay maybe I’m bi, but I never wanted another dude in that way. Ever.”

“So, you’re demi? With guys, I mean.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t think I’m gay enough to be fully bi.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s how it works. You’re either queer, or not. I don’t think you need to qualify for it by being a certain level of gay, like, there’s no test. No one’s going to tell you you’re not queer enough. Actually, that’s a lie. People say that kinda shit to me all the time, but fuck them, they’re trash.”

“Hmm,” I said. Made sense. Who needed gatekeepers?

“Anyway, I don’t want to know about your bi panic. I want to hear more about the man who lassoed Mash Cassidy.”

“Okay, so we met in uni . . .” While I caught Sam up on the history of Bangers and Mash, she tucked into her baked potato and I kept one eye trained on Cian. He seemed to be having a rather animated discussion with Clem, waving a metal scoop around. Sometimes bits of cheese flew about the place.

“He’s gorgeous, by the way,” Sam said. “My boy’s done good. I especially love his glasses. Never seen a werewolf with glasses before, but he looks great.”

A jolt of nerves speared my stomach. She was right, werewolves didn’t wear glasses. Our eyesight was twenty-twenty. Not until we got to Nana’s age did it typically start to deteriorate. Yet, nobody had mentioned the glasses. Maybe everyone assumed they were a style choice.

“He’s the perfect opposite of you,” Sam went on.

“He is,” I said with a sigh.

“There’s a but there.”

I sighed again. How did she know? “It’s why I’ve been putting off moving back for so long. He’s not cut out for this country living. It’s not fair of me to ask him to move here with me. To give up everything.”

Sam held up a finger. “One, he’s your mate. He will follow you wherever you go. And two, looks like he’s getting on fine as it is.”

He did, actually, chatting away to my sister. In fact, I’d seen Ci smile more over the past six weeks in Howling Pines than I think I had during the fifteen years of living in Remy. It gave me pause. Would he be okay here with me? Without the convenience of the city? The anonymity? The diversity, the variation, the pace?

Would he be okay without the job opportunities?

No, of course not. It was selfish of me to entertain that idea for even a second. I couldn’t ask him to give up those things.

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