The Good Boys Club (Mythical Mishaps #2)

34. Sniffing Out Trouble

Sniffing Out Trouble

Present Day

Cian

Tomorrow was the Harvest Moon shift, which meant I’d spent the entirety of today, my birthday, in Clem’s kitchen preparing vegetables. There was butternut squash and peanut curry, baked potatoes with all sorts of beans—pinto, kidney, butter—in a smoky tomato sauce, and cauliflower shawarmas with red cabbage, tahini, date syrup, and pomegranate seeds. And pumpkin pie. So much pie. No meat, since the focus was on the harvest part.

Clem told me next month was the Hunter’s Moon, where we basically eat nothing but flesh, and if I wanted to help in the kitchens, I’d need to learn butchery. Which she would teach me. I just nodded along. Something deep in my gut doubted I’d be around for the following full moon.

At some point Mash was going to have to tell his family I wasn’t his one true love, that we’d broken up, or at the very least pretend I had returned to Remy and that we were on a break. “My mate has a job he can’t get out of in the city, so we’ll do the long-distance thing for a while.”

Would they buy that? And if so, for how long?

Around six p.m. we loaded all the food into the mobile kitchens—essentially converted campervans—and drove to Howling Pines. The trucks were parked in an arc of three just outside the marquee, each one serving a different main. We also set up a table inside the tent with all the sweets and deserts on.

One of the attendees owned a local orchard and had brought over several barrels of cider. Each was labelled with the various apple varieties used and the date the juice was transferred to the fermentation barrels. I guessed tonight we were getting cider-pissed. He’d also brought non-alcoholic fruit juice for the kids, though Mash told me anyone over the age of fourteen would be sneaking the hard stuff.

The chefs milled about, chatting at the entrance until party guests began returning from their hunt, then we split into three groups and sequestered ourselves into one of the trucks. Clem pulled me into the baked-potato van with her.

“You still have to have your ears and tail, but we’ll have fun together. I can tell you all about what Mash was like as a kid. And then at about nine, or whenever we run out of food, we’ll join the party.”

My heart flipped over. Okay, hearing stories about Mash’s youth was exactly what I needed right now.

“Mash’ll be one of the last wolves to arrive, though,” Clem said, opening a bottle of soda for me and then one for herself. “He loves the Harvest shift because they don’t fish or hunt, they forage, and he gets to show off his vast knowledge of nature and mushrooms.”

“Oh.”

Nobody told me they were foraging. I could have gone . . . but on second thoughts, I would have missed out on the cooking, which I enjoyed. Like, super amounts. And I would have let Clem down. I was really going to miss her and her kitchen and the one-hundred-strong gaggle of hungry wolves.

I would return to Remy and I wouldn’t even have Mash to cook for any more. Just me. How sad was that?

We spent the next hour and twenty dishing out potatoes. Popping one in a cardboard tray, slicing it open and pulling the flesh apart, scooping the bean mixture into the centre, and asking “Cheese?”

We started to get repeat customers, yet still no Mash. All the while Clem told me stories from their youths. Like the time the Cassidy clan were playing hide and seek and Mash climbed the giant oak in the grounds—pretty sure the one we kissed in the other week—and nobody could find him all night. The next day they had to send out a search party, and the fire brigade had to haul his three-year-old butt from the tallest of branches. Or the time Mash ate an entire cake after coming home drunk and high. He hadn’t been able to focus his eyes long enough to read the Happy 70th birthday Alpha iced onto the top. Or the time Mash and Zach had a full-on punch up in the car park of the local supermarket.

“It was because of you, actually,” Clem said. “Zach wouldn’t stop singing Mash and Cian sitting in a tree. Mind you, he was about twenty-eight.”

A wolf approached the hatch. She was in her thirties, very pretty, lots of eyeliner.

“Cheese?” I said, now out of habit.

“Has anyone said no to cheese?” she asked.

“Not y—”

“Oh my gods, Sam! How are you?” Clem said to the newcomer. “When did you get back?” Before Sam could answer, Clem turned to me. “Sam moved to Gwindur. She’s Mash’s first ever—no scrap that—his only girlfriend.”

I dropped the scoop into the cheese, sending a confetti of cheddar flying in every direction. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Well,” Sam laughed. “We were never really like that. I got back Tuesday. This’ll be my first big Harvest Fest in about six years. Have you seen Mash by any chance? It’d be nice to catch up with him.”

“This is Cian,” Clem said, instead of answering Sam’s question. “Mash’s mate.”

“Holy shit!” she said, slapping her hands down to her sides.

“Right?” Clem said.

“Mash mated? I never thought I’d see the day.” Sam turned to me. “How did you do it? How did you pin him down?”

I didn’t know how to answer her, so I shrugged and laughed in a way which I hoped sounded less dumbstruck and nervous than I felt.

“Oh, look, there he is,” Clem said, pointing to a gap in the trees where Mash was emerging with Sean, Felix, and Juno.

Sam raised her eyebrows. “Thanks. Hey, nice to meet you, Cian.” She picked up her baked potato and walked over to him.

I could do nothing but watch this gorgeous creature totter over to my best friend. My best friend, who I was totally obsessed with and pretending not to be, whilst also pretending to be his boyfriend, whilst also pretending every time we fucked each other’s mouths wasn’t the single greatest moment of my life and simultaneously tearing me apart inside.

Sam wore a sheer black blouse, her bra straps visible between the long silky strands of her dark hair, a knee-length fishtail leather skirt, and black heels. Those iconic, slutty ones with red soles.

My stomach churned. Dee-Dee no longer occupied any space in my thoughts for jealousy. That camp had been firmly claimed by Sam.

“Mash’s girlfriend?” I said, staring at Sam’s stupidly perfect ass as it swayed from side to side.

What I wanted to do was shake Clem by the shoulders and ask her why she’d sent this total baddie towards my fake mate. Yet again, I was being irrationally envious, but I couldn’t help it. The whole encounter had awoken the wolf inside me, the one I’d spent so long repressing.

Clem slapped the back of her hand against my bicep. “Naw, you’ve got nothing to worry about. They weren’t really boyfriend and girlfriend. More like . . . friends with benefits . . . only they were never friends.” How was each sentence out of Clem’s mouth worse than the last?

“So, they just hooked up all the time?”

“Pretty much.” Clem scratched at the spot between her brows, clearly realising she’d said too much. “But you’ve scented each other. She’ll know by sniffing him he’s yours.”

Mash looked over at the food wagons, his face pulled into a frown, his eyes travelling across all three until they fell on the jacket-potato truck and me standing in the opening with his sister. A smile cracked his face, splitting it wide. He waved, then blew a kiss at us.

My heart soared . . . and came crashing down the very next second, as Mash spotted the woman in leather wiggling a path towards him.

“Sam!” he yelled, and she was instantly in his arms. Mash’s big hairy muscular body wrapped around her and lifted her from the ground. He spun her around the same way guys did to the tiny women in his rom coms, while she held her baked potato awkwardly to the side. Not that Sam was tiny. In her heels, she was no doubt taller than me. Fuck’s sake.

Mash put her down and they began chatting animatedly, like two old biddies reuniting to gossip about that one person they both intensely hated. They were too far away to hear what was being said, but there was altogether too much touching for my preference. I tried to ignore it. Tried to push the fire in my belly down. The wolf in me growled, “Mine.”

I served the next potato patron in an attempt to shove the thoughts from my mind. “Cheese?”

“Duh,” they said.

“You have to trust him,” Clem said after the customer had left.

I realised I didn’t even know who I’d served. I’d had one eye on Mash and the closest thing to an ex Mash had ever had for the entire encounter.

“I do,” I lied. Hard to trust someone who owed you no loyalty.

Mash and I were in an unofficial agreement not to sleep with other people whilst at Howling Pines because the other wolves would smell it on us. But technically, Mash was single. He was free to window shop.

Would make sense. If I was heading back to Remy and he’d eventually have to find a mate who would bear his children, why not get his ducks all in a row? Why not line up the one and only person who Clem had ever considered his “girlfriend.”

“Hey, Clem, can I ask you something?” I said, tearing my eyes away from Mash and Sam before they could start snogging.

Urgh, Mash and Sam even sounded better than Mash and Cian.

“Sure thing,” Clem said. She was making a point of not watching them either. Plausible deniability, I understood.

“How does an alpha get chosen?”

What I’d wanted to ask was why Mash? Why not you, or any of the other three siblings who were born between you and your baby brother.

Clem seemed to understand my unspoken questions anyway. “Oh, honey.” She cupped my shoulders. “There’s not a pattern to it. Some people think it’s the cub who shows potential for being the strongest physically. Some think it’s the strongest mentally. Alpha is a tough role. Overnight you become mother and father to your siblings, cousins, even your parents. All decisions go through you. You must guide the pack, keep it safe from danger, but also create an environment for it to thrive. Mash is definitely physically stronger than the rest of us. I’m not sure about mentally, though, so I don’t think that theory holds.”

She seemed to realise she’d said something potentially offensive. “Not that he’s not mentally strong, it’s just . . . emotionally . . . ah, fuck.”

“I agree,” I said. “Mash has held himself back for so long. Stopped himself from growing up. In the fifteen years I’ve known him, he’s never told me about the alpha thing. To be fair, that’s a pretty impressive feat. Mash can’t keep his mouth shut about anything, so keeping this secret must have taken a lot out of him. I think he just wanted things to stay exactly as they were.”

Clem rolled her thumb over my deltoid, reminding me how much the Cassidy pack, and werewolves in general, enjoyed physical touch. “He was protecting you and himself. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to discover your mate is not only living four hundred miles away from your pack—a pack which you are destined to lead—but is also non-were. He wanted to stay with you at whatever cost.”

Her words echoed around in my mind. “He wanted to stay with you at whatever cost.”

At whatever cost.

The price was his pack and his responsibilities. And the prize was . . . me?

Was she right? Was he really doing it all to stay with me, or was he simply being Mash and avoiding growing up?

I had to find out. “But we only got together at Winter Fest. Before that, we were just friends or roommates.”

Clem shrugged. “You both may have been sleeping with other people, but as far as love goes, you’re the only person Mash has ever shown any real interest in. You were practically in an open relationship all along and never realised.”

I opened my mouth to counter, but no sound came out. I rewound the moments in my Mash memory bank—cooking for him, travelling together, going on holiday, going to the cinema or festivals or restaurants. But these were things normal friends did, didn’t they? Snuggling on the sofa, watching kissing movies, foot rubs, washing him when he’d been too wasted to do it himself. Were those standard?

“Anyway,” Clem said after a few moments of silence from me. “Do you want to hear my theory about why successors are chosen?”

My attention snapped back to Clem, then drifted over to Mash again, who was still chatting to Sam. Still too much touching.

The wolf in me snarled. Stop fucking touching her.

“I think it’s based on whichever cub shows the biggest capacity for love,” she said.

“But you’re a mother.” The instant I said it, I wanted to reel it back in.

Clem laughed, though, so I obviously didn’t offend her. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids—most of the time—and I love my pack, but Mash has a love . . . for life, for everything, that none of us has ever had. Mash loves with his whole heart. We always knew one day he’d make the best mate for someone. And this is gonna sound super cheesy, but I’m so glad it’s you and not some old lesbian classmate of mine.”

She ruffled my hair, big sisterly. “I know you’re worrying about uprooting your life, I get it. I wish there could be another way, but you’ll learn to love it h—”

“Uh,” I made to interrupt, but immediately thought better of it, and shook my head.

“We’re a lovely bunch. Best friends you could ask for. You’ll find your place in the pack, but most importantly, you’ll have Mash, and home is anywhere your mate is. I promise. After all, Mash spent however many years in Remy just to be near you. We all knew he hated university, and labs, and written assignments, and whatnot, but he stayed because you were there. Because on some level, he must have known you were meant for each other. Fated.”

“Fated,” I repeated in a whisper. Fated.

How much I wished Clem’s words were true.

I glanced over at Mash again, and my heart flopped against my windpipe like a fish out of water. At first glance, it appeared as though Mash and Sam were kissing.

I gripped the handle of the cheese scoop so hard my knuckles turned white.

“You are properly scenting each other, right?” Clem asked, the same panic evident in her features too.

“Sort of,” I replied, my eyes fixed on my fake mate.

Clem looked at her watch. “There’s only half an hour left of this gig, and only a few potatoes too. You’re excused from the rest of the shift. I’ll tidy up. Don’t worry about me, you go get your man. Save him from Sam.”

At that moment, Sam leaned forward and whispered something into Mash’s ear, which made him throw his head back and laugh. Then she buried her face in the crook of his neck.

“What’s she doing now?”

“Looks like she’s trying to smell you on him,” Clem said.

I didn’t need Clem to dismiss me twice. I put down the cheese scoop, took my pinny off, and stepped out of the trailer.