Page 142 of The Good Boys Club

Mash hadn’t held me back. Mash hadn’t blocked me from moving out of Remy, or applying for my dream job. He’d never stopped me from falling for anyone else. I did all those things.

I’d made him the sun and the moon and the very air I breathed. I’d made him everything to me.

Every fucking thing.

I was a shadow, and he was the sunshine.

I made it so I couldn’t function without him.

I’d been such an idiot.

The coffee at Pack Bean was good, though.

I swirled the cup in my hand and knocked back the dregs, tipped the werewolf barista—he was cute but very sleepy for someone who worked at a caffeine dispensary—and headed to my car.

It was time.

Time to . . . move on.

Mash made it very clear last night what his intentions had been. He knew what he was saying. Just because he wouldn’t remember any of it today, didn’t mean he wasn’t in control of his actions. Shifting wasn’t exactly the same as being drunk. I needed to stop making excuses for him.

Like everyone, Mash simply wanted me to not be me. Embody someone else, for someone else. Pretending, always pretending.

Did he really expect me to say yes to every single one of his harebrained ideas? To pretend to be a werewolf for all eternity? Pretend to be his mate so his family wouldn’t harass him? Obviously, only until a more suitable person came along. What was I supposed to do then? Still pretend to be his mate while he was courting them? While he was off fucking whoever he was fucking?

Why did I do this to myself?

I couldn’t any more . . . I can’t . . .

I sat in my car and gave myself five seconds to tilt my head backwards against the leather headrest and close my eyes.

If Dylan West wouldn’t give me a job at Byte Tech, I would hit up every tech company in Remy and Bordalis with my CV.

Hell, I’d even extend that to all major cities. St. Clouds? Sure, I could work in the casinos. Pannor in the Human Realms? Why not? I was human passing if I wanted to be. City of the Undead? . . . Actually, that might be where I drew the line. Too many vampires.

The email I sent Dylan the second I clocked the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi sign may have been a little rash—a little desperate—but fuck it, what did I have to lose?

It was time for me to try new things.

Time to pull myself the fuck together.

I programmed my apartment’s postcode into my car’s navigation system, and because Mash wasn’t here to complainabout it, I Bluetoothed my most miserable, most angsty, most “whiny sad-boi hipster drivel” playlist through the speakers.

Four hundred miles in a straight line until the country border.

Very quickly, the storefronts and houses of Lykos gave way to forests, forests, and more forests. Trees tunnelled over the road, blocking out the early sun, making it feel so much later than it was. I regretted not stocking up on snacks and drinks before leaving, but almost none of the shops had been open this morning. Probably because of the full-moon shift last night. Hopefully the little wagons Mash and I passed on our journey here would be serving food. Not that I was hungry. I could never eat when stressed. Mash on the other hand . . .

I needed to stop thinking about Mash.

But I missed him.

No, I didn’t. I only thought I missed him. I was out of my comfort zone, that was all. It was too easy to confuse those things. The absence of comfort didn’t mean I was making a mistake. It just meant . . I was widening my horizons. Right? Eventually, my comfort zone would expand to something beyond Mash.

Shit, I should have left him a note. I owed him that much. I ran without saying goodbye, though. What the fuck had I been thinking?

“There’s no way you’d’ve been able to say goodbye face to face.”

I had to speak the words out loud. Needed them imprinted—tattooed—on my brain.

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