The Good Boys Club (Mythical Mishaps #2)

32. Snout and About

Snout and About

Present Day

Cian

“Good morning sunbeam of my eternal love,” Mash said, pulling himself into the big spoon against the curve of my back. He buried his nose in the crook of my neck and his erection against my ass. We were both naked.

The early breeze flitted through the open window, flapping the curtain softly against the stone wall. Beyond it, birds chattered—blackbirds, and robins, and finches—their songs now so familiar they bled into the background of my consciousness and I could only hear them if I paused and listened.

It had been over a week since Mash and I took our friendship and tore it to shreds by kissing each other on a fallen tree trunk, then tore it into teenier shreds by swapping cum in Mash’s shower, and the BJ by the lake, and then of course every BJ and frot and mutual wank since.

We were taking things slowly-ish and hadn’t fucked. Had done everything but fuck. Somehow, it felt as though not fucking was the last thing stopping this friendship from collapsing. Like it was a tiny thread, and if we had sex, there would be nothing new left for Mash to discover. His curiosities would have been quenched, and why would he need me around after that?

But also . . . I needed to. Needed to feel myself inside him on almost a cell-deep level.

I wanted to pin my best friend down, hook his legs over my shoulders and fuck him until he wept, my name on his lips as he decorated his own stomach.

“Happy birthday, Mash.” I rocked my ass upwards just so I could hear him moan in my ear.

“Naw, you remembered,” he said. “Did you get me a gift?”

“I did actually, but I didn’t wrap it. So, the other day at The Full Moon, I met Jason. You know Jason?”

Mash pushed a gap between us and flattened me to the mattress so he could look at my face. “You’re not allowed to speak to Jason.”

I fought a grin. This moment right now was an ultimate fantasy come true.

“Are you jealous?” I teased.

“Yes.” He didn’t even bother to hide it. It was adorable, and hot, and wonderfully caveman. “Jason is gay, and objectively very good looking.”

“He’s also mated. I saw his mate bite, and I could smell his mate-smell thing, whatever that’s called.” I was getting better at werewolf-scenting nuances.

Since Mash and I had become friends who frot, we had swapped out piss for cum because, well, it was altogether a lot more fun. It didn’t change the scent of us, but it wasn’t as potent and didn’t seem to linger as long. During one highly mortifying discussion with Clem in her kitchens, she compared the two scenting methods to the differences between eau de toilette and eau de parfum.

“If you want it to last longer, and you want other people choking on your love for each other, it has to be . . . well, you know, I’ve told you a few thousand times already. And if you want extrait de parfum, that’s your mate bite right there.”

“Anyway, I spoke to Jason, and he’s agreed to play the Moonlight trilogy on the smallest screen of his cinema. All three movies, back to back. Unlimited popcorn and frozen soda, and those strawberry cables you like, and then afterwards we’re having a barbeque with the entire Cassidy pack. Apparently, your mum’s been smoking ribs for a few days.”

“Fuck, that’s amazing.” He kissed me on the mouth, not a care in the world for morning breath. “I love you. What do you want for your birthday?”

I want you to say those three words again, but mean them the way I need you to mean them. “Nothing. I don’t want anything.”

“You sound like my mam.”

I laughed. “I just wanna hang out with you, that’s all.”

“When’s the full moon?”

“Not tomorrow, next day.”

Mash pushed away from me a little. “Oh, it’s the hunt on your birthday. That’s unfortunate—oh no, wait. I’ve got the perfect present idea for you.” He kissed me again. “It’s Harvest Moon, that means it’s all veggies, so it’s not really a hunt. Don’t know why we still call it that. You like honeycomb, right?”

None of Mash’s sentences made any sense. Standard. “Uh . . . sure?”

“Ooh,” he said, obviously remembering something different. “Did you ever figure out what to do with the whole turtleneck issue?”

From sweets to foreskin, because why not? “Yes. I’ve been practicing shifting half into my wolf dick. I’ll show you, but I can’t be hard when I do it.” Which I was, thanks to his kisses.

“Okay.” Mash cupped my knot and stroked up my cock. Squeezed the head. Kissed me on the mouth again. “I can help with that.”

Seven minutes later, I was lying flat on my back wearing the biggest, cheesiest, happiest smile on my face, with both Mash’s and my cum all over my stomach.

I checked my watch. “In about half an hour, there’s a tractor arriving with a load of pumpkins from the gardens down the road. We need to unload them and put them in the Harvest Moon display. Rita said you’d know what to do. And apparently there are some more decorations in the loft we have to get out.”

Mash scratched the base of his ear. “I should know this stuff, shouldn’t I?”

“Probably. As successor, you’ll need to learn it all soon. Or you can just make sure you surround yourself with people who can remind you.”

Mash sucked at his teeth but said nothing. He ran a finger through our combined mess and rubbed it into his throat, then he stood and tossed the roll of toilet paper towards me.

After I’d showered and dressed—Mash didn’t bother showering, he simply slung on a T-shirt, pair of shorts and sliders, and his pack’s birthday crown—I went into the loft to fetch the boxes for the second full moon. Mash bounded out to the drive to wait for the pumpkin farmer guy. Felix, Sean, Zach, and Kai chucked a ball between them as they waited under the shade of a large horse chestnut. Apparently, they were expecting a bumper crop of pumpkins, and had been tasked with arranging them in an artful display inside the marquee.

Mash had told me there should only be a couple of boxes in the attic, that they were clearly marked HARVEST MOON DECS , and I couldn’t miss them. But I had been searching for over twenty minutes already and still they evaded my notice, even with my phone on torch mode.

From somewhere outside, an unmistakable sound of enormous tyres crunched and popped over gravel. I balanced a sturdy wooden box under the attic’s only dormer window, climbed on top of it, and peered out. A tractor pulling the Eight and a Half Kingdoms’ largest trailer rolled into view, rolled right by the house, and disappeared towards the marquee. Muffled male voices and laughter drifted through the gaps in the roof tiles, Mash’s and Felix’s amongst the loudest.

Okay, I needed to find these boxes. I shone the light from my phone around, using the wooden crate as a lookout post. My gaze snagged on something. Not Harvest Moon decs, but a box with MASH’S SHIT scribbled on the side.

Heart racing, feeling kinda like I was snooping and could get busted at any moment, I jumped down from the crate and crossed the dusty space to Mash’s box. Gingerly, I opened the flaps, my pulse now thumping against my windpipe. I glanced over at the loft hatch—good, still alone—and directed my phone’s torch into the container.

A sob caught in my throat. “Oh my gods.”

A pair of dried, bald sunflowers, tied together with yellow ribbon.

He’d kept them. All this time. I rifled through the rest of the stuff—some paperwork from uni, movie-ticket stubs, the sketch I’d made of our tattoo on the back of a scrap of gift wrap, recipes I’d scribbled down for him, birthday cards, a commemorative enamel pin from the Swoonfest rom-com convention I took him to, a fossil we found at my parents’ beach house one year, and a bunch of sticks and skeleton leaves. Because it wouldn’t be “Mash’s shit” without sticks and bits of old nature he’d collected.

There was a sound at the bottom of the ladder. Someone was coming. I slammed the sides of the box down and cast my eyes around the space for the decorations or something—anything—that would make me look less guilty.

“Hellooo?” a voice called up the stairs. A head appeared in the gap.

My heart leapt into my throat, relaxing a millisecond later when I saw it wasn’t Mash, and then immediately panicking again when I realised who it was.

“Oh, hi, Dyl—Dee-Dee.”

“Rita sent me to find out what’s taking so long.”

“I, uh, can’t locate the boxes.”

“That them?” She pointed to a stack of two boxes right next to the one with Mash’s shit. On the side, in huge all-cap letters, it said HARVEST MOON DECS.

“I’d hazard a guess and say yes,” I said, trying to hide the nervous edge to my laugh.

I’d been avoiding talking to Dylan beyond the usual “Good morning, how did you sleep?” breakfast conversations.

Partly because she intimidated me. In a male-dominated world, she was phenomenally successful and unapologetically brilliant.

Partly because she held the key to a better life for me. She had the ability to say yes or no to my dream job. A chance to put my masters to good use, and to have some sway in a company not stunted by the CEO’s own romanticism.

And also partly because I could not shake the idea that Mash would be happy with her as a mate. The sensible part of my brain was screaming at me. It knew they weren’t a feasible couple, that Dylan was in love with someone else and neither of them wanted this, but underneath all of Mash’s philandering he was the most loyal person I’d ever known.

Nobody in the history of forever was more loyal than Mash.

He didn’t believe in fated mates or one true loves. Or so he said.

He did. I knew he did. Deep down.

He could be happy settled down. He would be happy with whoever he eventually mated and continued the Cassidy legacy with. Content with his perfect little family life. Surrounded by nature—trees, and lichen, and beautiful but freezing lakes, and all the fishing and hunting he could hope for. Burgers cooked by his famous burger-chef sister, and monthly shifts where he could run wild, with pack all around. Pack who loved him, and respected him for who he was, and never tried to change anything about his nature except to give him the power he deserved.

And his kids . . . his kids would be adorable. And Mash would be an exceptional dad. I’d only had to see him with Felix and Juno a handful of times to know that he’d be incredible. The kind of dad every kid could only dream of.

Mash would be happy here. I was certain of it.

And I would be happy in Remy. Because ultimately, the only thing I ever needed was to know Mash was thriving.

But I’d come here, to Howling Pines, for more than one reason, and that was to secure a better life for myself as well.

I seized my opportunity. “Hey Dee-Dee, I’ve been meaning to have a chat with you. Is now a good time?”

She smiled. “Sure. Is this about you working for Byte Tech?” I must have made a how did you know face because she added, “Mash might have mentioned it.”

Damn him, of course he would have. We’d chatted about how I’d approach this job application and he’d always maintained Dylan would appreciate the direct, no-pussyfooting path.

“So, what did he say, then?”

“That you work for James Bradshaw. That you’re incredible. You pulled the entire business up by the bootstraps, and I’d be a fool if I didn’t hire you. Sound about right?”

I bit back my smile. Yes, it did sound about right. That sounded exactly like something he’d say.

Screw it, I was going all in. “James mentioned you might have a position available.”

“Ah,” she said. My stomach dropped at that one syllable. “Did he by any chance read the article in Fur and Fortune ?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, sure. Well, I do have a job going at the moment, but I’m not really sure it’s right for you,” she said.

I said nothing, tried to hide my disappointment.

“It’s head of women’s development.”

“Oh,” I said, realising my disappointment had been misplaced. “I’m assuming you want a woman for that role?”

“I created it specifically for Riley. Her passion is getting more women and girls into STEM careers, and that’s what we’re going to do. She’ll be managing a series of apprenticeships and training programs aimed at addressing the gender gap. Not just helping women to find jobs, but ensuring employers can facilitate the sustainability of women in their workplace. Like for instance, did you know most office thermostats are set to twenty-one, which is the optimum comfort temperature for men? Most women require it to be three degrees warmer. It’s little things like that which tend to disparage women that Riley will address.”

“Wow, okay, I didn’t know about the temperature thing.” A million thoughts raced through my mind, and I tried not to focus them on myself. I couldn’t begrudge Riley’s mission, even if it meant staying at Howl with the new CEOs.

“But that’s not to say there’s nothing we can do for you at Byte Tech. Why don’t we take these decorations over to the marquee and chat about what it is you do at Howl and how we might utilise your skills?”

“Thank you,” I said, nodding vigorously and picking up the larger of the two boxes. Not that I was being chivalrous or gentlemanly or anything like that, I just needed Dylan to see I was willing to do more than my share to help out.

We walked from the house to the marquee. Dylan let me chat uninterrupted about what I did at Howl, how my ideas and execution took it from a grassroots company to the most profitable canine dating app around, and how I loved my job but no longer felt challenged.

Inside the tent, the guys, who were supposed to be stacking up the bounty into a pleasing autumnal display, were busy playing who could lift the largest pumpkin by themselves. Unsurprisingly, it appeared Mash was winning. He spotted Dylan and me walking in.

“Hey, sexy,” he said, and I was met with another ridiculous pang of misplaced jealousy. He’d been talking to me, of course he’d been talking to me. Not Dylan.

Mash placed his elephantine fruit on the ground, jogged over to me, and planted an achingly soft kiss against my lips.

The lines between performance and what we did in private with each other had become so blurred I didn’t know if this kiss was real. Was Mash putting on a show, or did he actually have the urgency to feel my lips against his?

He took the box from my hands and scooted it onto a nearby table. “Right, I’m going to the cinema now, so I’ll see you bunch of pricks later,” he said to no one in particular. “Not you, Dee, you’re not a prick, you’re a diva and a goddess.” He slung an arm over my shoulder and guided me out of the marquee entrance.

“You’re not going to help with the pumpkin stack?” Felix whined.

“See this crown?” Mash pointed to his head. “This is my get out of gaol free card. No worky on my birthday, as the famous rhyme goes.”

“What famous rhyme?” Felix asked, but Mash was already marching me out of there.

Eight and a half hours we were in that movie theatre. Mash munched his way through four hot dogs, two bags of Peanut Goobers, a caravan-sized box of popcorn, and practically a bathtub’s worth of frozen soda. The armrests between the seats folded upwards, so I spent most of the time with Mash’s arm over my shoulder, or his head in my lap, or my feet in his. Occasionally I caught him looking at me instead of watching the screen, but I was used to that. He’d seen them a thousand times before, and would often observe my reactions to his favourite parts. I did the same to him. I knew when to expect smiles and sometimes tears, especially at the love declarations, but this time when the love confessions happened, Mash stared steadfastly forward, his face impassive, his lip pulled between his teeth as though his mind were elsewhere.

As the credits rolled on the final instalment of the Moonlight trilogy, Mash tugged on my arm until we fell through the fire escape.

We crashed through the doors, the darkness and the chill of the September evening taking us by complete surprise. I blinked in my surroundings. The waxing gibbous moon and one very flickery exit sign illuminated the exterior facade of the cinema and a couple of dumpsters. To the other side of us, the never-ending Lykos forests stretched into nothing but eerie shadows.

“I lost my virginity here,” Mash said. Then without warning, he crowded me against the wall, pinned my back to the brick, and kissed the exposed skin at my collar. He dropped to his knees and fiddled with my belt until he had my knot in his palm and my cock in his mouth.

“It’s your birthday. This should be the other way around.”

But Mash didn’t respond, at least not with words.

I knew that each of these moments was precious. That there was only a finite number of times Mash and I could be intimate, and I needed to savour every single one of them.

He didn’t release me, and I made no effort to stop him. Not until I was coming down his throat, and Mash was coming all over the steel-toe caps of my boots.

“Hey, happy birthday,” Mash said at the stroke of midnight, removing the crown from his head and drunkenly slapping it onto mine.

We were sitting on deck chairs in the garden area next to his house with his entire pack and a few random taggers-on, beers in one hand, blunts in the other, fire crackling in the pit. At one point, we’d had marshmallows on sticks, but the kids had polished off the bag over an hour ago.

“Ooh, I have a gift for you,” Kimmy said. She bustled into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a package wrapped in brown paper and string.

“Get Ci a present, but not your own son,” Mash said in mock indignation.

“He is my son now,” Kimmy said to Mash. She handed the parcel to me. “It’s a chopping board.” Apparently Kimmy was as good at keeping surprises as her son. “You know, because you love cooking.”

The chopping board was beautiful. Almost two-inch-thick golden wood, though I wasn’t sure what kind of tree it came from. I made a mental note to ask Mash later. It had the same diameter as a dinner plate—a werewolf dinner plate, not a human one—and a sturdy, paddle-like handle. Into the grip Kimmy had etched C.C. with a pyrography pen.

“CC?” Mash asked.

“Cian Cassidy. You’re pack now,” Kimmy clarified.

“Mam.” Mash’s tone was a warning.

“No, it’s perfect. I love it.” I had to turn my face away and swallow the lump building in my throat. “Thank you.”

“Right, I’m going to get the kids to bed,” Clem said to everyone. She spoke to me, “Still okay to help in the kitchens tomorrow? Feast prep all day ready for the big party. It’s Harvest Moon, so that means lots of veg. No meat. You ever worked in a food truck before?”

I shook my head. Words still felt too sharp against my windpipe.

“No problem. I’ll show you the ropes. You can man the jackets with me.”

“Ooh, the jacket-potatoes truck is the best one,” Mash said, without clarifying what any of it meant.

Over the next hour, people excused themselves back to their rooms—Zach and Kai, and Mika and Atlas to their little cottages on Howling Pines land, Alba and Jade to their room at The Full Moon, and random party crashers to their trailers or tents. Mash and I went inside to his room and immediately stripped off our clothes. We didn’t make out or try to hump each other—too drunk for that, the furniture and the switched-off ceiling fan spinning too much. I placed my new chopping board on the dresser and climbed into bed.

Mash was swaying, alcoholic fumes gushing from his pores. “I love you,” he said, pulling me to his chest and wrapping his arms around me.

“I know,” I replied.

“You always say ‘I know.’ You could say, ‘I love you too.’ ”

But I could only say it inside my head. The painful lump in my throat from earlier had returned.