Page 37 of The Good Boys Club

“I remem—” I started to say, but Mash interrupted me.

“I’ll show you,” he said, and began shunting me—with his bare chest—out of the kitchen.

We were halfway down the hall when Mash turned to me. “Oh my gods, I’m so sorry.”

“Who the fuck is Bane Thornhelm?” I whispered.

“I’ve no fucking clue.” Mash stopped outside his bedroom door. It still bore a hand-carved wooden plaque that readZACHARY & MASHEW,and another more crudely painted sign that readKEEP OUT OR ELSE.“Oh no, wait. Isn’t he the guy with like the minge tunnel?”

“The what?!” I accidentally shouted.

Mash laughed. “You know, he’s got a pergola in his garden leading to his house, but it’s essentially a giant bush trimmed into the shape of a vulva.”

“Oh my gods,” I whimpered. “That’s so much worse than crime lord.”

“Huh?”

I twisted the knob on Mash’s door and sighed. “I’m just glad to be out of that boiling kitchen. Also, bagsy the bottom bunk.”

“Bangers, come on, you know I’m too fucking tall for the top.”

“No way. I’m doing you the favour here.”

“Fight you for . . . it . . .” Mash said. His words died as I opened the door. “Uh . . .” He laughed nervously. “Oh, fuck.”

Gone were his childhood bunk beds. In their place sat a very large, very squishy-looking king-sized bed. It had been made up with a blue and white striped cotton duvet set. At the foot of the bed were two stacks of fluffy laundered towels.HisandHers. Atop theHisstack was a handwritten note.

Mash and mate, welcome home.

Mash looked at me, scratched the back of his head. “So, yeah. We might have to share a bed for two months.”

Fur-ever Young

Fourteen Years Earlier

Mash

“Happy birthday,” Cian said to me, the moment I stepped foot into the living room of our second-year halls. It was our first week there and moving boxes still littered the communal spaces.

This year we’d agreed to stay in a small two-bed townhouse in the suburbs of Remy. It was an hour commute to uni, but they’dturfed us out of our freshers’ apartment, and we couldn’t afford to rent something closer to the centre.

Well, I couldn’t. Cian said he’d pay my half of the bills, but I would feel like I owed him too much. And I didn’t want that hanging over our friendship.

The house was a typical two-up, two-down type, with a galley kitchen and a living slash dining room separated by a big brick arch. It was tiny, yes, but already loads bigger than what we’d had last year. It smelled like onions and garlic and some kind of spices and meat. Further sniffing told me the meat was beef. My mouth watered. Cian had been cooking.

“You remembered?” I said.

“How the fuck was I gonna forget? It’s my birthday tomorrow, and you’ve been nagging me for weeks via text asking what I wanted to do.”

“What are you cooking?” I asked. I chucked my bag into the corner of the micro-porch and followed my nose to the scents. My natural canine instincts were kicking in and I fought the drool threatening to stream down my chin.

“Steak, hassleback potatoes, and creamy cabbage and leek . . . stuff. It’ll be another ten minutes. You want some wine?”

“Sure,” I said, letting Ci pour me a glass of red. He liked to drink wine with dinner—probably something he’d learned from his parents. My pack was never that fancy. We drank juice from the orchards’ fruits with our evening meals, and if you were over a certain age or the grownups weren’t looking, moonshine or cider.

Without being asked, I laid the table, then sat at the head while Cian busied around the oven, stirring pots and sipping wine and wiggling his butt as he danced to his tunes. This was how it’d been every Sunday last year. We’d fallen into a habit. Cian cooked—he loved cooking and was great at it—and I laidthe table and cleared up afterwards. My birthday wasn’t on a Sunday, but the tradition still followed.

I’d already spoken to my pack earlier and had opened my presents from them—clothes and special chocolates because werewolves couldn’t eat regular chocolate. It gave us the shits. My mam had also sent me the pack’s birthday crown, made from a stretchy gold fabric and padded with whatever it was padded with to make it stand up straight. It had a sparkling C, for Cassidy, glued to the front. Everyone wore the crown on their birthday, even Alpha. Nobody questioned it.

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