Cam yawns. “Couldn’t be on account of the alphas you deliberately sandwiched yourself between, could it?”
She reaches back blindly and swats him in the general direction of his ego.
“Ow,” Cam says flatly. “That was a deeply targeted elbow.”
“Your face is deeply targetable,” she croaks.
Wes finally manages to unzip the tent and immediately sticks his head out. “Oh, thankfuck. Air. Oxygen.The sky.” He inhales then exhales audibly. “I’m never going inside again.”
“You’re very dramatic in the mornings,” I call out.
“You’re very obnoxious in the mornings,” he fires back.
“Thank you,” I grin.
Aimee groans and stretches with all the grace of a possessed cat, bonking her forehead into my chin.
“How is it morning? I’m still emotionally hungover from your pack song.”
“It slapped,” I defend, because itdid.
“You rhymed ‘bonded’ with ‘haunted,’” Wes scoffs from outside.
“Poetic license.”
“It was alot,” Aimee adds.
Cam sits up and rubs his eyes. “I’ll make breakfast,” he announces.
Wes pokes his head back in. “Please don’t.”
“Hey! I brought protein pancakes.”
“You also brought a dangerous sense of optimism,” Aimee comments dryly.
“Exactly,” Cam beams. “Let me live.”
They eventually all spill out of the tent one by one, disheveled and bickering like the most dysfunctional sitcom family you’ve ever seen. I hang back for a second, watching Aimee with a fond smile.
It hits me, then. The fact that this is it. This is the real thing. No apps, no articles, no bullshit; just her and us, together as a pack.
And god help me:I love it.
Mosquito bites and all.
*
Breakfast is…?a disaster. A loud, sticky, fruit-throwing, pancake-flipping disaster—and, weirdly, one of the best mornings of my life.
Cam is hunched over the tiny portable griddle, tongue between his teeth.
“I just think you should’ve maybe read the instructionsbeforemixing the batter with atwig,” Wes says, standing behind him with his arms crossed.
“It was a whisk-shaped twig,” Cam says, not looking up. “Nature provides.”
“Nature is not FDA approved,” Wes sighs.
“You’renot FDA approved,” Cam mutters.