Page 132 of The Good Boys Club

“No, that’s not what I was going to say.” He made a pained face, and I felt his fingernails transform into claws, digging at the flesh under my chin. “Whatever you do, whatever I ask you to do, no matter how much I beg . . .” He yelled, and the backof his neck erupted in sandy blonde fur, his hackles rose. “Fuck. Whatever I ask you to do, do not—and I mean it—let me bite you.”

“What?!” I said, but Mash was too far into shifting to have heard me. He let go of me and fell to the ground. He twitched and writhed, his arms and legs doubled in length, he grew a snout. A few seconds more and he was standing over me in his massive, intimidating as fuck wolf form.

“Come on, loser, we’re doing werewolf shit,” he said, and bounded towards the exit.

I spared one look around the giant marquee to make sure nobody was watching. I spotted Felix and Juno with the rest of the unshifted cubs. Felix was chatting to a boy with dark brown skin, smiling, looking happier than I’d seen him since I’d arrived in August. I wondered if the other boy was Jacob.

But I had little time to think about it. With a pop, I shifted into my wolf form and bolted out of the tent before any of Mash’s relatives could stick their cold noses into my anus.

“Mash!” I yelled into the darkness.

Wolves darted off in every direction. White and silver and brown blurs against the shadowy trees. I caught a flash of sandy-blonde fur, and I followed it.

“Mash!”

It took me about ten minutes to catch up with him. Any time I got close, he’d fucking run off again, until I thought I’d lost him completely.

Mash appeared beside me as if from nowhere. He closed the gap between us and rubbed the top of his head along the underside of my jowls.

“You look so cute as a wolf,” he said to me.

“You also look very cute,” I said back to him.

“Wrong. I look majestic as fuck.” He sighed. “I wish I’d remember it all, you know? I wish I could do what you do. That Icould shift whenever I felt like it and just . . . be free. I’ve always been jealous of you.”

“Have you?”

“Yes, but not like in anI hate youway, because I could never hate you,” he said.

“I know.”

“Are you hungry?” He turned on his tail and began jogging off in the other direction. I raced to keep by his side. “Want some venison?”

“I don’t want to kill a deer, Mash.”

“No, nugget brain, I’ll do the killing. I need to show you how big and strong and awesome at hunting and providing I am. Me Mash, me kill deer. You Bangers, you eat deer, then fuck me in the ass at the ravine.”

I laughed. “In all seriousness, I’m far too lucid to eat a raw animal. Like, I don’t even know where you start with that.”

“Easy, you start with the guts. Most nutrients there.” He jogged off again, stopped, waited for me to catch up.

I thought about eating deer intestines and all the partially digested leaves and fruits sitting around in their digestive system. My stomach roiled. “No thanks, I’ll pass, but don’t let me stop your fun.”

His tail was still wagging, so I doubted how much I was spoiling his fun. “Wanna go piss on stuff? I’ve been saving up my pee all day, and we could do with reinforcing the southwest border,” he said.

“Sure,” I said, and his tail wagged even faster.

Once our bladders were empty, we padded over to the closest clearing. I could hear distant howling and smell other wolves nearby, but not so near we were at risk of being overheard. Good, because I needed to talk to him.

Mash nuzzled me again, pushing his head under my chin. He didn’t stop at his neck, though. He continued, rubbing his entire back against my throat until his tail tickled my ears.

“The tragedy of being a wolf is I can’t kiss you,” he said. “I really love human kissing you.”

“Yeah?” I pushed my nose into the fur around his scruff. He still smelled of our bond. “Tell me more.”

“No, because if I think about it too much, I’ll want it more.” Mash hopped up onto a flat rock in the middle of a clearing. I recognised this spot as the one we’d sat on ten years ago tying sunflowers to a metal arch. “But okay. Your lips are so soft. Softer than any girls I’ve ever kissed, and I don’t know how that’s possible because your beard is scratchy as fuck. Especially after I’ve just shaved. You always taste like mint and like . . . you taste like you smell. Or you smell like you taste. But after we’ve scented each other.”

I jumped up on the rock and sat next to him. Mash rolled onto his back, his front paws bent up, his bollocks on full display.

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