Page 23 of Wolf Found

“Or we could,” Ash offered.

Instead of responding, Graham ducked his head in a tiny nod and smiled, then darted past Ash to start collecting ingredients. “Could you get the cookie sheets?”

Half an hour later, they put the bowl of dough into the fridge, and Ash felt like a kid on Solstice morning. He turned to Graham, who took one look at him and giggled. Probably his mishap with the flour had left a mess.

He ran a hand through his hair, and sure enough, a puff of flour came off him. He frowned.

“Sorry,” Graham said before Ash had even had a chance to consider his next move, and stared at the floor, eyes round and lip pressed between his teeth.

Ash snorted. “I’m sorry I made a mess too, but you don’t need to be.”

“But I,” Graham cut off and motioned to his face as a whole. “Laughed. At, um, at you.”

Ash started to make a dismissive comment, but that wouldn’t help. Enclave life had taught Graham that laughing at the alpha was bad, regardless of what that alpha looked like. Telling him it was fine wasn’t going to fix anything.

So what should he do? Make a joke? Laugh at himself?

Instead, Ash decided to do what he’d been thinking about doing half the day, whether it was appropriate or not. He reached out to put a finger under Graham’s chin, tipped it up so they were looking at each other, and pressed a gentle kiss to Graham’s lips. Then he dropped his hands and pulled back, so Graham wouldn’t think he expected anything else.

“I like when you laugh,” he said simply. “You should do it whenever you want. And no one, alpha or not, should ever tell you not to.”

“You’re very sweet,” Graham said on a sigh, looking back down at the floor. “You were always like that.”

Ash suspected if Graham knew the inappropriate things he’d been thinking at the diner that morning, and even a moment ago, he wouldn’t be using the word sweet. There was no way for Ash to say that without pointing out his attraction to Graham, though, and he couldn’t be the one to do that. He couldn’t risk putting Graham in a situation where he felt like he needed to reciprocate attraction in order to have a place in the pack.

So instead, Ash shook his head and turned toward the stairs. “You want to come downstairs and play some games while we wait for the dough to chill? I’m sure they still don’t have them at the enclave, so you’re about to have a whole new world opened up.”

Without a second of hesitation, eyes sparkling with happiness, Graham nodded and followed him to the game room.

13

Call Me Maybe

Graham fell asleep on the sofa in Ash’s game room, and that was where he woke up. It was so much better than the green bedroom.

Not that there was anything wrong with the green room. The green room was fine. It just smelled only vaguely of pack, and mostly of new things and the wood of Paige’s crib.

Ash’s game room was permeated with the scent of pack, and of course, even more with Ash himself. Ash smelled perfect. He was wolf and alpha, but also home, the kitchen, chocolate, coffee, and sugar.

Graham woke with a smile on his face.

The smell of chocolate chip cookies had reached throughout the house, and it not only fit with the rest of the pack scents, it seemed like the perfect addition. He had done that.

He opened his eyes, expecting to be alone, but found Ash sitting in front of him on the floor, leafing through his recipes. His heart twisted to look at it, someone looking at his work. Someone was acknowledging a thing he’d done.

“You have amazing handwriting,” Ash told him as he picked up a cookie from a plate in front of himself and held it out.

Graham could have flown away. Ash was feeding him. Food of his own creation, fine, but also, he was complimenting him. “Do I?” he asked, trying to pretend it wasn’t important. “I just tried to make it as much like the practice worksheets as I could.”

Ash stopped and cocked his head, then his eyes lit. “I remember those. Trace the letters?”

Graham nodded as he took a bite of cookie. They had turned out incredibly well. Maybe happiness was a secret ingredient.

“Funny, I did those too, but my handwriting is still awful.” Ash stared off into space for a moment, as though considering the deep importance of handwriting, then shrugged it off and went back to reading. “I think Gavin could scan this into his computer and make sure we have a backup, just in case anything happens to it.”

“Scan?”

Ash nodded and looked up at him. “Like, making pictures of all the pages to store in there.”

---