Cassidy #4
“You seemed full,” Harlan says with a shrug. “And I wanted to try it. You were a fat cunt not sharing like the rest of us.”
“We don’t order food to share. This isn’t a fucking potluck,” Evander says, sounding just as horrified as he was this morning.
I burst into laughter, my shoulders shaking so hard, and when Isaac asks what’s so funny, I try to explain through my sputters.
Evander’s pout can’t be ignored, and every time I look at it, he sends me off again. It’s hilarious.
By the time we pay the bill, nobody seems particularly interested in going home.
It’s still early enough—even if it’s darker than it was when I got here—and we’ve got nowhere to be tomorrow.
The city is alive around us as we wander without any real destination, shoulders brushing every few steps.
I don’t even realise I’ve spoken aloud until four heads swivel towards me.
“I’ve never actually played mini golf.”
“What?” Evander says, turning around on the street to look at me. “Why does that matter?”
I shrug, motioning to the place across the street. “I’ve never played before. I just… I don’t know, realised when I saw it.”
“You’ve never played mini golf before?” Harlan repeats, sounding personally offended.
I shrug. “It just… never happened.”
Isaac blinks slowly. “Shortcake.”
“What?” I ask.
“Were you raised indoors?”
“I went outside!” I say, laughing at him.
Someone barges past Evander, and I gape at him in surprise.
“Fucking selfish asshole,” the beta snarls, flipping us all off as he strides through us.
Evander huffs out a breath and shrugs. “Well, clearly I need to have some spatial awareness.”
“Well done for not pummelling the cheeky asshole,” Isaac says, reaching out for a fist bump that Evander eagerly returns.
Silas pinches the bridge of his nose and looks at me determinedly. “Well, we’ve got nothing else to do. We’re going mini golfing.”
“Really?” Evander asks, practically bouncing in place.
Silas nods, taking my hand as he carefully takes me across the road.
I love how naturally he falls into protecting me, even if I’m more than capable of crossing a road.
Twenty minutes later, I’m standing beneath neon lights inside an indoor mini golf course, holding a pink putter and matching pink golf ball.
“I feel like this is an overreaction,” I say carefully, as Silas writes our names on the little scorecard he was given.
I think we’re having a competition, but I honestly don’t mind coming last.
“It isn’t,” all four of them reply together, and I know the competition is genuinely something I don’t want to be part of.
The first hole winds around fake rocks and bright green felt, telling me everything I need to know about my skills and theirs.
Isaac sinks his ball cleanly into the hole in one shot, even though it needs to bend around a corner and down a hill. He simply nods once, as though this was always the expected outcome.
Harlan narrows his eyes, launches his ball, and gets angry when it rebounds off the wall and goes further past the start. It takes him four tries to put the ball in the hole—or whatever the right terminology is—and is pointing.
Evander immediately announces the course is uneven when it takes him four tries, too. They’re drawing, and neither are happy about it.
Silas spends almost a full minute lining up his shot. It bounces off two walls before somehow going off the course entirely.
“Good strategy,” Isaac says diplomatically.
“It wasn’t,” Harlan says, nudging Evander as the two of them laugh at Silas.
“I’m trying to be supportive,” Isaac says.
“Don’t.”
I bite my lip so hard it hurts. They’re ridiculous.
Absolutely ridiculous.
It took Silas nine attempts, and he endured a lot of ridicule. I’m not sure whether I helped or not by getting it done in seven.
By the fourth hole, the scorecards have become less important than the increasingly dramatic accusations being thrown around between them all.
“Harlan moved my ball.”
“You kicked my fucking golf club.”
“Neither of you did that,” Isaac says with an eye roll.
“You’re siding with him because you’re winning,” Evander snaps. “We’re battling for second. Shut up.”
Meanwhile, Silas plants his feet shoulder-width apart before every shot, approaching each one with the concentration of a man defusing a bomb.
He misses.
Repeatedly.
“I don’t understand,” he mutters after another spectacular failure. I’m the only one worse than him, but the others are giving me a pass because I’ve never played before.
Silas is not so lucky.
He grumbles, and when I stand for my next turn, I look at him hopefully.
“Can you help me?” I ask softly. “I don’t stand properly, not like you do.”
The others groan in unison.
“Shortcake,” Isaac says, sounding deeply wounded. “You’re asking the man currently in last place? I’m the one who should be helping you.”
“He has potential,” I say, smiling up at my alpha.
“I have potential?” Silas echoes, not looking anywhere as impressed as I am.
“You absolutely do.” I pat his solid upper arm and stand next to my ball. “So, what do I do?”
Evander throws both hands into the air. “She’s pity coaching!”
“I am not!” I argue.
“You’ve chosen the only person losing to help,” Harlan says sceptically. “If you’re not playing a joke on him, then you’ve got some other motive. Nobody chooses the worst player to get advice from.”
“Don’t be mean to him,” I say, wiggling my hips impatiently. “I believe in him. Now, show me what to do, boss man.”
“She believes in me,” Silas repeats smugly. “Now, crouch a little lower, move your hand up, and perfect.”
I tap the ball and cheer as it rattles through the little cave before popping out the other side.
“You’ve had six strokes, mate, and you’re still not even halfway through,” Harlan reminds him.
“Irrelevant.” Silas presses a kiss to my temple. “Cassie is clearly an amazing student.”
I’m having so much fun watching the people I love have fun.
It’s nice to feel appreciated, to feel like I’m part of the group, without doing a single thing.
I’m not helping anyone or fixing anything.
I’m terrible at this.
Yet, not one of them seems disappointed with me. My pack doesn’t need me to be useful.
They just… want me here regardless.
Maybe I’ve had it wrong all this time. Maybe happiness was never something I was supposed to earn.
Maybe it was always meant to feel like this.