Page 141 of The Good Boys Club

“What about it?” Nana got up from her seat. “I’ve got cereal—enough boxes of Sprite Pops to last an entire winter—and I can get milk here in no time. Those greedy bastards can make do with kiddie breakfast. Every year we put them up, they eat all our scran and bugger off again. These events might be important to our species, but this—” She waved a hand towards me. “Is imperative to our pack. We’ll be fine with cereal for once.”

Mam drove fast, like stupidly fast, and her speed didn’t change once we’d left the Howling Pines estate and hit the main roads of Lykos.

“Where would he go?” Mam asked as she skidded around the corner onto the high street. The wheels on my side of the car rose off the ground, and chunks of untreated wood slid about in the bed of her truck. Clem fell onto Dee-Dee in the back seat.

“Pack Bean,” I said.

Lykos’s only coffee shop. It also sold books. The place was so Cian coded it practically had a neon sign and an arrow. If he’d stopped anywhere in Lykos to make use of the Wi-Fi before heading home to Remy, it would be there.

Mam pulled up outside the cafe, and I threw myself out the passenger door. Clem and Dee climbed out after me, not even bothering to fold the seat forward.

I recognised the barista. “Hey, Jock.”

“Mash, hey, how are you? Good shift last night? You look how I feel.” He laughed.

I laughed too, if only to keep the conversation moving. “There was a guy in here earlier. Did you see him? Probably bought a double-shot black coffee, extra hot. He’s got dark hair, blue eyes, glasses, neck tattoos.”

Jock frowned at me. To be fair, the morning after a shift was always exhausting. Why they were even open this early was beyond me.

“He’ll have asked for the Wi-Fi password, maybe wearing a yellow beanie.” Of course he’d be wearing his beanie. He wouldn’t have had his werewolf ears any more.

“Ah, yeah. Yeah, I remember him. He was here. Sat over there, typing on a laptop.”

My heart rose. I glanced around the shop as Clem and Dee-Dee piled in. Mam loitered by the door. Beyond her, both truck doors were wide open, and three of the wheels were on the pavement.

“Yeah, he left.” Jock gathered air in his cheeks. Tapped his fingers on the counter. “’Bout twenty minutes ago.”

“Which way?” I asked. I didn’t need to ask, though. I already knew.

“South, towards Borderlands.”

“Thanks, Jock.” I turned and faced the women. “Remy. He’s already heading back to Remy.”

“Let’s go, then,” Mam said.

A Howl Lot of Trouble

Twenty Minutes Earlier

Cian

I’d been an idiot. I’d spent the last decade and a half of my life completely blinded to everything because I was obsessed with another idiot.

I did my master’s at RU because it meant living with him for two years longer.

I stayed in Remy, took a job at a shitty tech start-up because he wanted to study for a doctorate.

I stayed at that shitty tech job until I’d exhausted every last ounce of joy from it because he was nearby.

I never entered into a real relationship. Always held myself back on the off chance he fancied experimenting more. On the snowball’s chance in hell he might want me the same way I wanted him . . . that he could ever see me as more than a friend.

I never allowed myself to fall in love with anyone else. Never gave anyone else a proper shot.

I let this boy—this tall, unscrupulously handsome, funny, carefree, sunshine boy—shape everything in my life. With his dimples, and his perfect smile, and his never-ending supply of compliments and cuddles.

His love language was touching, and until him, I’d been touch starved.

I haven’t been able to move on with anything in my life because I made himeverything.

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