Page 92 of The Good Boys Club

Please don’t reject me again. Please.

Cian said nothing. Or if he did, I didn’t hear him over my pounding heartbeat.

“You were my best friend,” I said, filling the silence because it was becoming painful. A dagger to my heart. “I wasn’t prepared to destroy what we had because I was . . . curious. Ci, you’re my favourite person in the whole Eight and a Half Kingdoms, and I almost ruined what we had once before. I’m not doing that again.”

“Are you talking about the time we kissed at your brother’s mating ceremony? Because you didn’t almost ruin anything. I’m always going to be your friend. No matter what happened—happens.”

I wasn’t referring to that moment, but it fit, so I rolled with it. “If that owl hadn’t interrupted us, we’d have . . . done other things, and when I do other things with girls, that’s typically the last time I see them.”

Cian placed his hand on my shoulder, pushing my torso around to face him more. He was quiet for a while before he spoke. “Were. You said ‘youweremy best friend.’ What do you mean?”

“I don’t do relationships. Everything I touch falls to shit. I’m not gonna let that happen to you.”

“Nothing’s changed,” he said.

I shook my head. Turned my body an extra degree away from his. “Everything has changed. Everything.”

Cian swung his leg over the trunk so he was straddling it, facing me. “Mash, I know about the alpha thing.”

My vision whited out. The surrounding trees vanished. I thought, though I couldn’t be sure, Cian said he knew about the alpha thing.

I was gonna be sick, or pass out. I put my head between my knees and tried to remember how to breathe.

The warmth of his hand pressed against my back between my shoulder blades. “I understand why you didn’t say anything before. About the alpha thing, not the bi thing.”

Damn, we were really just going to lay out all my secrets like that.

“It’s a lot of responsibility to expect a twenty-five year old to take on. There’s what, eight hundred acres?” Cian said. I nodded. Eight hundred and fifty, actually. “Plus the actual pack itself. Twelve, thirteen wolves?”

“Yes, but it’s more, because we’re a figurehead pack, meaning that a lot of other packs consider our pack the . . . like, the main one. That’s why we have such big Harvest Fest events, so that we can provide for all the smaller packs and lone wolves who are somehow connected to us. And sometimes when troubled teenagers leave home, if they’ve got nowhere else to turn, they’ll come here. That’s how my mam and dad met. She was a runaway. He was the pack successor. It was kinda controversial at the time.” I was over explaining. Sharing details that didn’t matter right now. Deflecting.

Cian smiled, soft and warm. My smile, I realised. The one only I got to see. “It sounds like a beautiful story. You’ll have to tell me sometime. But going back to your alpha situation, it’s too much pressure to put an eleven-year-old child under. To grow up knowing you aren’t truly free to live the way you want to. It’s not surprising you ran from it for so many years.” Ci placed his hand on my shoulder again, gently pivoting me to face him.

“I’ve promised Nana I’ll accept the call of the alpha during the Hunter’s Moon in October. A pack shouldn’t have an alpha who’s too old to shift, they should be someone who leads from the front. And if I wait too long, and she . . .” I couldn’t finish my sentence, my breath caught in my throat.

“You don’t need to explain it to me,” he said, his thumb stroking softly over my shoulder. His eyes were glassy, tearsbalanced along his waterline but never fell. “I might not be a werewolf, but I understand some things can’t be fought indefinitely.” He took a deep, wobbly inhalation. “I’m gonna really fucking miss you, though.”

“You’ll make me cry.” I didn’t want to think about what would happen in six weeks’ time. It wasn’t a forever goodbye, but it fucking felt like one.

“What are you going to tell your alpha—your entire pack—when I go back to Remy at the end of October? Also, what happened with your uni job?” Ci said. I pulled a face. “You got fired?”

“Technically not fired, but they’re not renewing my contract.”

“Is this because of that student you slept with in May?”

“Marnie?” I had totally forgotten about her. “No, three members of staff put in complaints about me. Not sure if I fucked them, or they’re pissed off on behalf of their colleagues, or . . .” Whatever, it didn’t matter any more. “Anyway, I’ll be alpha then so I can just order the other wolves to stop nagging me about finding a mate, and they’ll have to do it because an alpha’s orders must be followed.”

“Simple as that?”

No, it wasn’t. I cocked a shoulder, pretended like I knew for certain. “Have to be some benefits to this gig, right?” Gig, prison, whatever.

“What are you going to do for the rest of forever with only a handful of women to choose from?”

I shrugged again. “I dunno, maybe I’ll be alright. I haven’t had sex in ages, and I haven’t thought about it much either.” Sex with a woman, that was. I’d thought about it plenty with another very specific person. “Eventually, I’ll have to find someone willing to put up with me—I’ll need kids, I expect, to pass down the legacy.”

“Maybe you’ll be so busy as an alpha you won’t have time to miss it. Maybe you’ll be able to make do with a quick wank in the mornings to set you up for the day,” he said, a teasing smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“It’s always worked for you,” I said back.

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