Page 82 of The Good Boys Club

I’d shrugged because I had nothing to counter with.

After our wanks, we’d have breakfast in the kitchen. Sometimes Rita was there doing the crossword puzzle in her newspaper. Sometimes Kimmy was there in her overalls, getting ready for a day in the workshop. Sometimes Dylan and Riley were there munching on marmalade on toast. It would have been a great opportunity to talk shop, but I didn’t because the reality was, one, I couldn’t figure out a way to bring the job opening into conversation, and two, I spent most of my time ensuring Dylan did not linger her touch on Mash, and that Mash did not make dreamy sex eyes at her.

It was irrational. I knew it was fucking irrational. But I could not stop the angry wolf inside me seething with envy any time the pair got too close. And I wasn’t the only one. I’d heard Riley’s throaty growls when Dylan greeted Mash with a kiss on the cheek.

Mash had told me about Dylan and Riley’s secret relationship, but it still did nothing to dampen the flames of envy.

“You and I need to form some kind of alliance,” Riley said to me one morning.

“We should take turns making sure they keep their hands off each other.”

“Is he like this with everyone?”

I’d nodded. “Unfortunately. He’s always been like this.”

“Well, that makes me feel a little better, but until we’re official, I can’t scent her. So nobody yet knows she’s not to be messed with.”

During the day, Mash and I would go for hikes on the Howling Pines reserve, or fish at the lake, or Mash would nap in the field while I sat on a blanket and read. I helped in Clem’s kitchen almost daily. There were a lot of wolves staying with her who needed feeding, although meal times there were less formal and a lot more spread out than the official moon feasts.

I started becoming very accustomed to holding my tail and ears out, and on occasion had even forgotten I was doing it, only remembering when Mash pointed it out later. I’d also been working on partially shifting another part of my anatomy ready for the next full moon, but the results were mixed. It was very taxing, morphing my foreskin back and not getting a chub. I don’t know why those things went hand in hand. There was something about the sensation and the cool air that seemed to excite me. Perhaps if I emptied my tanks before we all headed into the marquee to strip off, I might get away with it.

Sometimes we’d meet up with the different members of Mash’s pack and have lunch or walk around the tiny town of Lykos. I got to know each of them a little better. We’d met up with Clem and Sean and the kids and went to the local movie theatre.

Felix was quiet and reserved. He had that whole contemplative, mopey “fourteen-year-old with the weight of the world on his shoulders” vibe to him. I felt that on a soul-deep level. I’d ridden that train. Probably never left the station to be fair.

Juno was a typical preteen younger sister. She acted like it was her personal life’s mission to embarrass her brother. Mash realised quickly the way to resolve this was to buy Juno candy, and even though she was twelve going on nineteen, cuddly toys. He bought her an—admittedly very cute—stuffed mothman which he’d named Giddy. Juno was smitten, with both the toy and her uncle.

One time we met up with Mash’s sister Alba and her partner, Jade, in a charming cafe in town. They lived farther north in the city of Gwindur, which boasted the largest werewolf population of anywhere. When they asked where I was from, Bordalis slipped out without any brain engagement from me, and when Mash couldn’t remember the name of my fake alpha, Alba slapped her hand down onto the table.

“I knew it. You’re not really were, are you?” she said.

Mashsshedher.

“Oh, we don’t care, do we?” Alba said to Jade. “That’s why we left. They’re so claustrophobic sometimes. It’ll be good to diversify the pack. It’s outdated to think werewolves these days won’t fall in love with other species.”

“So, you’re shifter then?” Jade had asked excitedly.

Mash lowered his voice to barely a whisper, glancing over at the other tables to make sure there were no eavesdroppers. “Yes he is, and no, he’s not showing you his foreskin.”

Which made Alba snort peppermint tea from her nostrils.

Another time we hung out with Mika and her partner Atlas. Mash and I had practiced my backstory before we left Howling Pines, just in case. My alpha’s name was Bane Thornhill, and my pack was Thorn Shadow, and I hailed from the fictional werewolf town of Ruffsford, and if anyone were to ask any further questions, Mash gave me strict instructions to be “vague as fuck.”

Turned out Mika was pregnant, and Atlas was diligently nest building. They had a one-bedroom cottage on the Howling Pines estate, which was in the process of becoming a three-bedroom cottage.

And then we met up with Zach and Kai at Lykos’s Saturday Harvest Fest market, where we stuffed our faces with stone-baked bread, and artisanal jams, and home-brewed craft ales, and eighteen-month cave-matured Cheddar, andharissa-smoked mackerel, and mortadella, and salted-caramel butter fudge, and the most perfect full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon I’d ever had wrapped around my tongue.

I’d had it in my head that Zach would be the most difficult of Mash’s pack to win over, but the pair were hilarious, and all four of us had not stopped laughing.

For most of the day, Mash draped his arm over my shoulder. I assumed he was play-acting the part of my doting mate, but the times when we weren’t hip to hip, I often caught him staring over at me, a sleepy stoner kind of smile on his face, before he’d whip his gaze away.

Originally, at uni, Mash had told me he’d left this town because Lykos was a wasteland for bumpkins and tumbleweeds. But I was beginning to realise he’d been lying to both of us . . . probably to spare his own feelings. The town was so much more than that.

No, Mash had left to buy himself more time, and to run from his responsibilities.

But he belonged here. The townsfolk loved him. The town itself seemed to love him. He was great with everyone, old folk and kids alike, and his entire family seemed to relish his return.

“Hey, will you boys take Felix fishing or somewhere, anywhere, and maybe just . . . have a chat with him?” Clem had asked one day when Mash came to pick me up from my cheffing duties at the B&B. “He’s at that age where he won’t speak with me or his father, and he really looks up to you.”

---