Page 139 of The Good Boys Club

Cian had made up his mind. He’d obviously been considering leaving me for some time.

“You’re holding me back.”

A sickly sensation swooped in my guts. Was that what we fought about? It felt nauseatingly familiar. But why wouldn’t he leave me a note? He’d know I wouldn’t remember the shift. If he was going to run back home, he could at least have told me he was going, even if he didn’t want to tell me why.

Fifteen years and no note.

My best friend, my soulmate, and now my lover, and no fucking note.

He owed me a proper explanation. I couldn’t bear a third rejection, but I needed to hear the words from his lips. Even after he’d rejected me again, I’d be in no worse a situation than I was right now. At least if he told me he never wanted to seeme again, I’d have an official answer. I’d have closure. I wouldn’t have to live in this awkward bubble of what ifs any longer.

Because . . . fuck. What if . . .

Fated mates? Fated mates was bullshit, we all knew that.

“Go shower,” Nana said. “In ten minutes you might feel differently.”

Nana was right. I took a shower and got dressed, and the entire time I thought of nothing but Cian. I replayed the moment on Howl’s rooftop over and over, my brain intent on hearing those words again.“You’re holding me back.”Like a branding iron into my flesh.

I pushed them from my mind and made an effort to refocus. Fifteen years and all I could think about was one drunken confession.

I forced myself to remember more. Sitting with him in the branches of an oak on Howling Pines land.“Oaks are my favourite trees too.”

Kissing him by the ravine a decade ago.“Fine, kiss me then, and I’ll know for sure.”

Kissing him on the felled beech by Mam’s workshop.“You’re saying . . . I could scratch my itch . . . on your post?”

Tying bald sunflowers to Zach and Kai’s mating arch.“That’s us, that is. Me and you. Even if everything falls apart around us . . .”

Our twentieth birthdays.“We should get matching tattoos.”

I let my hand fall to my chest. Watched the dirt slide from the pawprint.

I’d made up my mind. I couldn’t let him leave without hearing his reason why.

When I went back into the kitchen, both Nana and Mam were still there. Nana was doing her newspaper’s crossword, and Mam was drying dishes and stacking them up. Dee-Dee hadjoined them and was standing at the counter, scrolling through her phone.

“I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna go after him,” I said to everyone, but mostly myself. I needed to hear those words out loud.

“Good lad,” Nana said. She beckoned me over for a hug. I obliged, bent my neck so she could pat my head.

Dee looked up from her phone. “Alright, Mash? Good shift?”

“Eh, coulda been better,” I said with a wince.

There was a crashing sound in the hall and Clem burst through the kitchen door. Her hair stuck out at odd angles, her pinafore dress was crumpled.

“We gotta get you guys proper service down here. I’ve been trying to ring you for the last half an hour.” She turned to me. “I know technically I’m not paying your mate, but I really need him today. We’re so understaffed, and the big brunch is in a few hours. I’m up against it right now.” She glanced around the space. “Where is he? In the shower?”

Mam looked at Nana, made aneekface, then looked at me.

I hesitated. “We . . . may have had a fight last night. I . . . don’t remember, but he’s gone. Bags, clothes, everything, gone.”

“What? Oh my gods,” Clem said, wrapping her arms around me the same way Mam had.

“I’m going to Remy to try and convince him to come back,” I said, though my voice betrayed my doubt.

Was that what I was planning on doing? Trying to convince him to come back? My heart shot into my throat at the idea. Fuck, I wanted that so badly.

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