Page 146 of The Good Boys Club

“Wait there,” I said. He froze. “I need to tell you something too. Everything actually, please. I want to tell you everything. But first . . . can we run to each other? Like they do in my rom coms?”

He didn’t move, just stared at me for a full minute, maybe two. Then he made a choked noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Yes.”

So I did. I ran the rest of the forty feet to him, my lungs no longer burning, my quads no longer feeling any pain. Relief and adrenaline and ecstasy had won the battle. Ci jogged towards me, his dick bouncing adorably, as he held his arms out for the embrace. And I leapt into them, wrapped my legs around his waist, my arms over his shoulders.

“Ooof!” He stumbled back a few paces, but against all odds—against my eight inches of height and twenty to thirty kilograms on him—he stayed upright. And managed to hold me up. “I should’ve expected you to jump,” he huffed.

“Just like the movies,” I said. “I kiss you now?”

He whined into my open mouth as my lips met his—part whimper, part something else—and he buckled, lowering me. I guessed he was trying to place me on my feet in a gentlemanly way, only I didn’t want either of us standing. Instead, I pulled him on top of me, flat on my back in the middle of the muddy forest with my naked best friend lying over me like a blanket.

After a few moments, Cian pushed off me and stood, his bare toes digging into the dirt. It was still squelchy from last night’s rain. He held out a hand for me and helped me upright again.

“I’m sorry. I had all these grand plans of what I might say when I saw you and then I went and ruined it by giving you a hernia,” I said.

“Mash—”

“No, please let me say this first. I’ve been such a shitty friend. Please, I owe you this much. Total unfaltering honesty.”

“Okay.” Cian nodded. Took my hand in his. “You go first.”

I laughed. Gathered all the air into my cheeks. Bit my lip. Laughed again. “You’re naked.”

“Mash.”

I tore my hand from his and caressed his face, thumb tracing along his stubble. “I don’t know what I said or did last night, but I’m so sorry. Fuck. I woke up this morning and you weren’t there and I freaked out. I can’t lose you. I’m being so selfish, but I need you, Ci.”

“I mean,” he said, his voice hitching on the words. “Technically, you did nothing wrong. You were honest last night. You asked me to stay in Howling Pines and be your mate. I was the one who panicked.”

“I asked you to be my mate?”

Cian nodded.

“And you ran?”

He nodded again, and something heavy fell into my gut. “I can’t keep pretending, Mash. I’ve spent my life being everything else, for everyone else. The son I thought my parents wanted. The model student. Model employee. I tried to be everything for the guys I dated, but it was never enough. I was never enough. The only person who’d never asked me to be anyone else was you.”

Cian sucked in a shaky breath and closed his eyes for a moment, like he was holding back the dam. He was still pretending, I realised. Still being strong for everyone but himself.

“Until you did. You wanted me to be someone for you . . . pretend to be your boyfriend, pretend to be a werewolf. I went along with it because it’s you, and I’d do anything for you. But now you’re asking me to keep pretending, keep faking it. Fake werewolf, fake mates. Until when? Until you get bored, or until everyone else finds out the truth and you finally have to face yours?”

His words hurt. Not because it was the truth, but because I’d been hurting my best friend all this time, and I’d been too selfish to see it.

“I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry. I had no idea what I was asking of you. No idea you felt this way. I wish you’d have told me sooner. I would never have asked for so much from you.”

“I guess we’ve both been keeping secrets,” he said.

Wasn’t that the truth? I figured he was talking about the alpha thing, but it was time to bare all my truths. I blew out a breath. “I love you.”

Cian smiled at me. “I know you do. And before you say,‘You always say I know, why can’t you say I love you back?’I love you too.”

“No.” I shook my head, and Cian’s brow creased. “You’re not listening to me, or I’m not explaining things properly. Iloveyou.” I put extra emphasis on the word love. “It’s not ‘love you, man’ or ‘love you, bro’. I. Love. You. I’m in love with you.”

His breath left him all at once.

“Cian, I’m so fucking in love with you sometimes I can barely spare a thought for anything else. I think about you from the second I wake up. I dream about you. And not just like wank-bank thoughts or how amazing and beautiful you are. Ithink about all the different ways I might snatch one more minute in your company because even though we hang out all the time, it’s not enough. I want more. I want all your minutes. Every single one of them. I don’t want you to be my fake mate. I want real. Please.”

“Real?” The word was nothing more than a whisper. His body language was stiff, like he’d been frozen in that moment. “Not pretend?”

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