Page 81 of The Good Boys Club

It was half past ten, and I’d already changed into my PJs. I’d raided the fridge for the leftover salmon, and was on my way back to my bedroom to try calling Mash’s phone one last time, when my parents’ voices drifted out of Mum’s office. Something told me to stop. Their chatter was hushed, like they were trying to be quiet, but their discussion had obviously become heated and they were unable to keep the volume down.

“He’ll come around, Carl,” Mum said.

I paused outside the open door, flattening myself against the wall, hidden from their view. I knew, at a gut level, they were talking about me.

Dad didn’t say anything. I imagined him doing that thing where he scrunched up his face and shook his head from side to side, making his cheeks and jowls wobble.

Mum spoke again. “Give him a break, will you? He’s twenty-one, and he’s in love.”

“He thinks he’s in love,” Dad corrected. “It’s nothing more than a childish infatuation. They’re not even in a relationship. From what we’ve heard, it’s not reciprocal.”

My heart hammered heavily against my ribcage. My palms were sweating.

“Call the dean tomorrow,” Mum said. “Surely we can work something out between us.”

Dadhmmed. “A werewolf, Liv. My only son is in love with a fucking werewolf.”

“Carl—”

“No, Liv, I won’t stand for it.”

I didn’t need to hear any more. I took myself back to my room and immediately opened the email from Remy University.

Conditional offer accepted.

I rang Mash, but the line was still dead, so I texted him.

Me:

Hey, wanna be my roommate for another two years?

Gone with the Woof

Present Day

Cian

I’d spent the past two weeks toggling between wanting to confess everything to him and keeping quiet. Tell Mash I knew there was an expiry date onus, but I didn’t know when that’d be, or . . . just not say anything. Keep my mouth shut.

The last thing I wanted to do was burst this bubble we were currently existing in.

We’d settled into a routine, and life at Howling Pines had become comfortable. Enjoyable even. And everything felt so . . . dreamlike. A fairy tale. Or something from one of his rom-com movies.

I couldn’t do any work for Howl because of the dearth of Wi-Fi and generally any connection to the outside world, but James didn’t seem to mind. The few emails I had been able to send and receive told me my boss was enjoying his Harvest Fest break as much as I was, and whenever I’d managed to get a message through to Gideon asking how everything was going there, he’d fire one back saying,super.I always read it in Giddy’s deadpan drawl.

We’d flipped the calendar page on August. September was upon us, but every time I asked Mash about uni or whether he needed to make arrangements, he’d point to something on the horizon only he could see. I put two and two together.

Either he’d lost his job during the summer holidays, or he had already decided to start his new life as the alpha of Pack Cassidy, and he wasn’t planning on returning. Or only returning to sort shit out, and then he’d head back here.

Or perhaps it was a bit of both.

It hurt, but at least I now had a reasonable idea of how much longer we had left together.

On a typical day, I’d wake up in Mash’s arms. The pillow we’d tucked between our hips would have been mysteriously discarded on the floor during the night. We would both be hard, of course, the scent of us impossible to ignore. It drew things from within our nature, our very DNA, like a primal instinct. Though after a few days, the smell faded, and Mash and I had to reapply. The mornings after the reapplications were always the hardest—the most difficult to ignore. I’d have to “sort out” mysituation in the shower before starting my day, or in the bed if Mash was already using the shower to “sort out” his.

“This is a new record for you,” I’d said one morning. “Three weeks without sex.”

“I’ve gone longer, but my wrist is fucking killing me. This is what yours must be like all the time,” he’d replied.

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