Page 87 of The Good Boys Club

“It’s just . . . It’s safe and guaranteed, and the pay is great, and my boss is amazing, but it’s the job itself. It’s . . .”

“Slowly killing you from the inside out?”

Cian sucked in a lungful of smoke, held it there for an eternity, and blew it out again. “I don’t wanna be here any more. I hate these people. I hate the job. The other week, James shredded my proposals on market-share growth. He’s not interested in making money, and I get that. That’s not who he is, and that’s not even who I am, but I’m so fucking bored, Mash. Every day is the same.”

“Where will you go?” I asked.

I asked every time, but Cian never knew. Never had an answer. As expected, he shot me down with his deadpan glare.

The joint passed between us a few more times. A few more chocolate bars were consumed. The motion sensor gave up illuminating the space, and we were shrouded in darkness—or at least, as dark as it ever got in the city, which was never really that dark. Below us, a siren wailed.

Cian began closing his eyes and tilting his face up to the stars. This was his “the drugs are working” expression. In a few hours, the cocktail of weed and booze and sugar would likely have him spewing, but right now he was so serene.

After a few moments, he turned to me. “What will you do?”

“Me?”

“If I leave Remy, will you stay at RU?”

No. Of course I won’t. I’ll go wherever you go. “Why would you leave Remy? Aren’t there any other big tech companies for you to work for? Or small ones? Maybe you could work for a start-up again.”

He shrugged, turned his attention away from me.

For weeks, months, I’d been planning on tonight being the night I told him everything, confessed all my secrets. All of them. The alpha thing, having to move back to Howling Pines at somepoint, probably sooner than I’d like . . . my feelings for him . . . I was gonna tell him, even though all of those things weren’t clear in my own mind.

When would I move back home? No idea.

How did I feel about him? I wasn’t one hundred percent sure.

All I knew was that I needed him. Didn’t know how I was going to make this alpha thing work if I couldn’t see him every day.

I had planned on telling him everything, but I hadn’t expected the caterers to fuck up so astronomically that everyone would get too shitfaced to function. Tomorrow, Cian wouldn’t remember what we were talking about now. It was a big gamble. I didn’t want to pour my heart out if he was gonna turn around and paint my fancy brogues with three bottles of red wine and six candy bars.

“I think I’m tired of Remy,” he finally said, still looking out over the twinkling city. “I’ve been working for a fucking dating app for like . . . a decade . . . you’d reckon it’d help me find a fucking boyfriend.”

Oh. This again. I had nothing to add to this discussion that we hadn’t already been over a thousand times.

“At least if I left Remy, went somewhere else—Bordalis, I don’t give a fuck—there’d be new guys there. Not the same old . . .” He puffed out a sigh, and brushed his hair backwards off his forehead, but still didn’t spare me a glance.

I let my eyes travel over his face. The glow from the building opposite, a fae video-games company, whitened the lenses of his glasses and illuminated the soft lines of his features. Along the straight of his nose, his brow, the curve of his cheek, those lips . . .

“Don’t go to Bordalis. Don’t leave Remy,” I said.

He turned to me. “Why not, Mash?” His voice was quiet, but accusatory, like he knew I was hiding something. “Why shouldn’t I leave this city?”

I swallowed the rising guilt. Why couldn’t I tell him? Why couldn’t I be honest with him? I’d known him for fourteen years. We did everything together. Why couldn’t I just get the words out . . .

Because I’m in love with you. Probably. Maybe. At least I think I might be. And because I think we should give “us” a shot. It was a long shot. The longest fucking shot in the entire history of long shots.

I wasn’t sure I was prepared to lose him.

“Fine, leave Remy, but I’m coming with you,” I said instead. “Where are we going? Not Bordalis, I . . . don’t want to trade one shitty city for an even bigger, shittier one.”

He didn’t answer my question, he just narrowed his eyes at me. “You’d come with me?”

“Of course I’m coming. I’m not letting you escape that easy.”

Cian made a sound like a horse’s blow and rolled his eyes, evidently concluding I’d been taking the piss.

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