Page 25 of Wolf Found

So slowly, as slowly as he could make himself move, Ash pressed the cold spoon against Graham’s tongue and slid it into his mouth. Graham closed his lips around it, green eyes dilated wide. He still looked like a startled rabbit, considering bolting, but he didn’t look away until Ash pulled the spoon out of his mouth.

The second it was free, he took a deep breath and turned his head down to stare at his plate, looking stunned. Part of Ash thought he should end it there, but it wasn’t like he was making demands, was it?

So he dipped the spoon back into the ice cream, and instead of offering it to Graham, he brought it to his own lips. Graham’s gaze followed it as it disappeared into Ash’s mouth, his own open and pulling in heavy breaths.

Ash finally put the spoon back on the plate, meeting Graham’s eye one last time before swallowing his ice cream. “You should finish that so we can get going.”

Graham nodded and picked up his spoon mechanically, eating the last few bites of his dessert as they looked at each other across the table. Maybe Ash had been overthinking it.

Sure, Graham was sheltered and hadn’t been allowed to make his own decisions before, but he was an adult. Between his travel and his time in Kismet so far, he was three weeks free of the Martingale pack’s influence.

Frankly, he seemed to be handling it better than Ash had. Ash had fallen apart, homeless and having just lost his first love, with no direction and no friends on the outside. It had been sheer luck that had led him past the office of an army recruiter. She’d gone so far above and beyond with him, offering him a place on her couch and setting him up to take his GED; he owed her everything.

On the other hand, he was quite glad Graham hadn’t joined the army. His cooking skills would have been wasted there, and no one would have appreciated his nimble fingers or his ethereal pale green eyes. Plus even with his wolfen ability to heal, Ash had almost died in Afghanistan. He didn’t want anything like that for Graham.

He was signing the credit card slip for lunch a few minutes later when his phone rang; Gavin’s tone.

“What’s up, boss?” he answered it. Gavin didn’t respond with his usual put-upon sigh and claim not to be the boss of Ash, so he set the pen down and leaned back in the chair. “Gavin?”

“Sorry, Ash,” Gavin finally said, sounding breathless. “I don’t want to bother you on your day off, but could you come to the shop? We need an extra hand, and one of the baristas called in sick.”

“Sure, be right there.”

Gavin hung up before he could say anything else, so Ash figured they werereallybusy. Gavin was usually the first guy to be worried about good manners and that kind of thing.

He glanced up at Graham, who was giving him a sweet concerned look, brows drawn together and his lip between his teeth as though holding himself back from speaking.

“They need help at the shop,” he explained. “Would you mind coming down and waiting while I help out?”

“No, not at all. I keep meaning to ask you to take me to the shop.” Graham blushed and looked away. “I mean, if you don’t mind. I’d understand if you didn’t want Hannah and I around the shop until...”

As Ash stood, he put a hand on Graham’s. “Until’s come and gone. You and Hannah have been practically a part of the pack since the day you arrived. If you want to be, you’re in. You have to know that by now.”

“And Joseph?” Graham asked. Ash couldn’t help his wince at that, and Graham’s eyes went round. “I’m sure he’s only spending all his time in the guest house because he’s nervous. I mean, I don’t know if you were friends, or, um, anything—”

“Joey’s place in the pack isn’t my business. If you guys want him, that’s fine.”

“But you don’t?” Graham sounded both bothered and hopeful, and Ash wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear.

He decided on absolute honesty. “I don’t. Me and Joey are never gonna be friends or anything else. But it’s also not my place to tell anyone else how to feel about him.”

“Didn’t you like each other before?” Graham pressed.

Ash smiled at him. “Do I seem like the same guy I was back then?”

Graham shook his head vehemently. “You’re so different. You smile less, but”—he ducked his head and turned slightly away from Ash as he answered—“it means more, I think. When you do.”

Ash didn’t think his whole personality had ever been summed up quite so definitively. He smiled less. He wasn’t a complete innocent, convinced that the world was his and life was going to be perfect. But the good in his life was so much more than it had been when he was young. He didn’t have mere packmates; he had family. There was no doing what he was supposed to just because he was supposed to do it.

He turned a grin on Graham, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and drawing him in. “That’s good. I like that.”

“But Joseph is the same as then?”

The grin dried up, and he scrunched up his nose. “I don’t know. Maybe he has changed. He’s here and not following my father around. But it doesn’t matter. I’m different. I’m not the Ash he knew. Not the Ash who thought he knew Joey.”

Graham got a faraway look on his face and nodded. “I think I understand, at least a little. But I’m getting to know you now. That’s... that’s different?”

“So different,” Ash agreed. “I didn’t know you before, not really. So I don’t expect you to be a certain person.”

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