Page 47 of The Good Boys Club

“Really,” I said, taking a stab at what I assumed was a soothing tone.

Clem winked at me and mouthed, “Thank you.”

I didn’t know what else to say, so I simply smiled back.

“Right kids, grab a box and let’s take these downstairs to Dad. Uncle Zach and Uncle Kai are going to help him hang the lights,” Clem said.

Felix and Juno took a box each and hurried down the stairs, starting—or resuming—an argument about Felix’s ChewTube channel.

Clem leaned in close. “Mash said that your food is so beautiful he would take it to bed and show it a good time if he could.” She picked up a box and followed her kids out of the attic.

“You say these things to your sister?” I said, but I was smiling too much for it to be a real reprimand. I loved it when Mash enjoyed my cooking.

Clem threw her head back and laughed.

“Oh my gods, Bangers, your tail is wagging,” Mash said.

“It is not.” I elbowed Mash.

“Is too. You like it when I say you’re a good cook.”

I shook my head. “Nuh-uh, I don’t care.”

“It’s fucking cute,” Mash said.

My breath caught in my throat. Mash thought I was cute? But the next second he flicked his eyes over to the bottom of the staircase and back to me, and I knew this had all been a show for his sister.

He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and dragged me closer to him. He whispered in my ear in a voice so quiet only I could hear. “I mean it, though. It’s nice to see when you’re happy.”

I smiled at him, and tried not to lean in too closely or drink in too much of our scent. I made to grab a box from the side and follow Clem down the steps, but Mash held me firm.

“Can I try something?” he said, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He placed his nose next to my werewolf ears, and I heard—and felt—him taking a soft breath. Then he opened his mouth. “Who’s a good boy?”

Thump, thump, thump, went my traitorous tail against the boxes of decorations.

Fur Better or Fur Worse

Ten Years Earlier

Cian

Both grooms wore brown suit trousers, blue shirts, blue dickie bows, and no jackets. The only difference was that Zach wore a brown leather belt and Chelsea boots, and Kai wore pink suspenders and shiny brown brogues.

I had accompanied Mash as his plus one to his brother’s mating ceremony. A marquee had been erected in the grounds of the Howling Pines estate, and in a large clearing of the eastern woods, hundreds of ribbon-adorned chairs pointed towards a half-naked archway.

It was the middle of the day in the middle of July and the sun beat down heavily on our backs. Mash and I had been roped into decorating for the ceremony, which was due to happen in approximately four hours and thirty-seven minutes.

We were securing the floral arrangements to the arch to make things prettier. Mash sat cross-legged beside the left-hand column, I knelt next to the right one, and we tied sunflowers and bunches of leaves to the metal structure. Every time Zach or Kai tried to help us, we waved them away. They were already in their fancy mating attire, and I was sweating through my second T-shirt of the day. Mash was shirtless. His shoulders had freckled under the sun’s caress, but he never burned.

“Clem’s looking into a place in town,” he said. “For her B&B.”

“That’s cool.” I snipped the excess stem away from a sunflower. “Will Kai become a beta now?”

“He already is. They’ve already given each other the mating bite in private. This is the formal ceremony to show everyone he’s been accepted into our pack.”

“How come Kai joins your pack and not the other way? Why doesn’t Zach join Kai’s pack?”

Mash shrugged, scratched his chin with the handle of his secateurs. “Well, he kinda does. They join each other’s pack, I guess. But the wolf with more . . . um . . .”

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