Page 7 of All Foxed Up

“Said you’ll get a stitch swimming and drown? Yeah, not a thing.” She grinned as Lars’ eyes narrowed. “It’s not. I talked to the kiddie swim instructor.”

“The young bloke with all of the muscles?” Lars growled. “That kid is still wet behind the ears—”

“I assume so, seeing as he’s a swimming instructor,” she replied, shooting him a meaningful look.

“He seemed to like the look of you in your swimmers.” His eyes grew heated and ew, ew, ew, the big, bad bear shifter was having horny thoughts about my bestie.

Like did I like to think that Nat was getting the most stupendous dick from her four mates? Fuck yeah, otherwise what was the point? Having four dudes who forgot to put the toilet seat down after they pissed and then performing the bare minimum of foreplay before pumping away on top of you, making their Goofy face as they came, while you thought about the shopping list. What would be the point? I knew Nat had it good, but did I want to be confronted by the reality of that in any way? Yeah nah.

“Maybe we might head out and leave Mum and Dad to talk this out,” I said to the boys in a bright tone.

“Why was someone looking at Mummy in her bathers?” Kai asked, looking at me, then his mother quizzically.

“He wasn’t—” Nat replied with a sigh.

“Damn straight he wasn’t. I had a quick word with him,” Lars growled.

“You didn’t…” Nat gasped, but even I could see through that. Under the horror was something else.

Lars was possessive. Outside of the other guys in the sleuth, he got all growly when other men looked at his girl. Her fuckface ex gave her a hard time for not shagging his mates, because then he would’ve been justified in doing the same. And when Lars was like this, Nat always reacted the same. Her cheeks got all pink and she couldn’t seem to work out where to look and then she’d lock eyes with Lars. They’d stare at each other like they were the only people left in the world and then…

A sharp rap on the window let us know the others had arrived.

“So what do we do once I open the doors?” I asked the boys.

“Hold your hand, don’t run off, be good,” they replied in chorus.

There was no way they came up with that themselves, but I was eternally grateful to whoever had coached them. I opened my door, then started to undo Sven’s car seat, and that’s when he began to squirm. Some irrepressible energy seemed to swell up at the least bit of provocation.

“Sven…” I said, trying to get him to calm down, to chill, but the kid kept wriggling, then Thorn opened the other door.

“Hey, little man,” he said to Kai, reaching over to do the same.

“Boys…” I said, trying to contain them, keep them calm. If they got too hyped, there was no bringing them down. I thanked the bear gods they couldn’t shift right now, because damn… These two taking fur? They’d rampage through the park adjoining the beach, tearing the place down in seconds.

“Boys, chill.”

Koda stuck his head in, fixing both children with his cool, even gaze. He didn’t respond, didn’t show any other emotion other than a quiet strength. It was exactly what they needed. They both went still at those two words and we were able to get them out of the car in one piece.

“What the fu— um, frig is that?” Thorn whispered hoarsely. “Like how do you do that?”

“Bring the right energy to any situation and people will match it,” was all Koda would say, before hoisting Sven up in his arms.

“If you mean magic, just say magic,” Thorn complained before grabbing Sven’s hand and tugging him after his brother. “Daddy’s a magician, isn’t he?”

“Magician!” Sven agreed, trotting forward.

The kids were under control for the moment, which only meant the eskies full of drinks, the food, the utensils and plates, the chairs and condiments and the beach stuff needed to be moved. I let out a small sigh and then opened the back of Lars’ car, but not before the cavalry arrived.

“Lars having a moment with his mate?” Joe, one of Lars’ dads said and where there was one bear dad, there were more. Suddenly I had an army of muscly Daddies at my disposal.

Just not in the fun way.

“We’ve got this, love,” Jack said, another dad.

“But Nat said—” I started to say.

“Natalie’s a good girl,” he replied, “but she has trouble accepting help.” His smile faded. “Like she is scared to.” Then he brightened. “But not from you. You stick by our girl, help her out when she needs it, so we’ll help you.”

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