10. Pack Introductions
Chapter Ten
Pack Introductions
MILES
The Jenga tower crashed with the roar of a thousand suns exploding all at once.
I held up a single piece as everyone sitting around me in the living room burst into claps and laughter.
I’d never been good at this game, but it didn’t matter, not when I was having this much fun with a group of people I’d really only just met.
Driving over to Emmy’s house had me tapping anxiously on the steering wheel in silence, my brain buzzing so loudly that I couldn’t even play music.
I was nervous about meeting the rest of the pack.
Sure, I was Emmy’s friend and quickly becoming Dylan’s, but that didn’t mean the others had to accept me.
And what if they didn’t? What would that mean for my established friendship with their alpha and my budding relationship with another one of their pack members?
Shifters had all kinds of hierarchies at play, depending on the type of species they were.
Some were loners, like tigers. Some were matriarchal and family-led, like elephants.
And some were pack animals. With wolf packs, hierarchy mattered but so did the opinions of everyone who ran together.
I’d never been part of a pack, always on my own even when I’d been asked to join one in the past. That time, meeting the pack had felt very low stakes. I hadn’t been nervous at all.
This time, it was like showing up at a big Hollywood audition with a headshot hastily printed at CVS, a wispy hope, and a dream.
Plus, I’d be seeing Dyl again. That bit made me more giddy and anxious than the idea of meeting an entire pack.
“So what do I win?” I jokingly asked the group as I got down to help clean up the scattered pieces. Soren and Gabe knelt to help me.
“A chug of your beer,” Emmy said from the couch.
“Cheers.” I grabbed my third beer and took some big chugs, nearly emptying the can.
Dylan sat on the loveseat, his arm resting casually on the back of it, his legs crossed underneath him.
He wore a slightly oversized black and yellow concert T-shirt from some band I’d never heard of, the sleeves rolled up to show off a tantalizing set of muscular arms.
I can’t believe Soren almost saw us kissing.
I turned my focus back to picking up the pieces, trying not to let my cheeks turn firehouse red.
Soren walking up on us like that was just more proof as to why pursuing things with Dyl was a bad idea.
Soren was on the team, and he wasn’t like Emmy, who had been a close friend of mine for years.
He may not have been as understanding about my feelings toward one of his teammates and pack members.
Things could have turned awkward and even possibly hostile if Soren was the type of guy who was uncomfortable around gay or bi men.
I’d worked with a lot of those types through my years of being an athletic trainer.
It’s why I didn’t really make my sexuality known at work—as depressing as that sounded.
It was no issue for my hetero colleagues to talk about dates or partners or hookups, but with me it always felt like I walked on rainbow-colored eggshells.
Clearly Soren wouldn’t have cared too much considering Eli and Gabe were pack members and teammates. But still, I preferred to live a cautious life.
And making out with Dyl behind the house where a party was being hosted was not considered cautious. Neither was checking him out every chance I got—but, alas, I never said I was perfect, as hard as I tried to be.
“Thanks,” I said to the guys as we placed the last pieces in the box.
The rest of the group started to migrate toward the kitchen, where Raquel had baked some fresh cookies for us.
The smell of melted chocolate chips and sweet cookie dough made my mouth water.
I followed the procession into the brightly lit kitchen, Dyl finding his way to my side.
“Having a good time?” he asked me as he leaned against the kitchen counter. The cookies were stacked in a neat tower on a silver platter resting on the kitchen island. Emmy had already inhaled about half of them.
“A great time,” I replied, offering him a genuine smile.
He wore a subtle cologne tonight that mixed perfectly with his natural scent.
It was an equal mix of spice and sweetness.
I fought the urge to lean in and press my nose against his neck, as if I were in my wolf form wanting to bury my snout in his fur. “What are you drinking?” I asked.
“Vodka Sprite. It’s my go-to drink.”
“Really?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“A lot of things about you surprise me.”
He cocked his head at that. “Like what?”
Like how attracted I am to you, unlike any sort of attraction I’ve felt with anyone else. “Like your sense of fashion,” I said instead. “You strike me more as a tank top and athletic shorts kind of guy.”
“Wow, just cuz I’m a hockey bro? Way to stereotype.” He gave me a friendly wink. I tried not to admire the way his eyebrow dipped and how his birthmark made him a thousand times more interesting. “Are you saying you don’t like it?”
“No, I do. I don’t think I could ever pull off your style. My closet has about five neutral-colored shirts, two pairs of jeans, and tons of gym clothes.”
“Well,” he said, looking me up and down. “You’re very handsome in your neutrals and gym shorts.”
“Thanks,” I said, suddenly realizing we were flirting right in earshot of everyone in the kitchen. Thankfully they were all too busy gorging themselves on freshly baked cookies to notice that Dyl was staring at me the way a wolf would stare at a bloody piece of meat. He wanted to devour me.
And I wanted to let him, yet I knew I couldn’t.
“I think I’m going to grab myself another beer.” It was the first thing I could think of to distract from the rising heat that swirled between us.
“Want me to save you a cookie?”
I glanced at the near-empty platter. “I’ll grab one to go,” I said and reached over. I took a bite, the cookie practically melting in my mouth with how soft it was. I closed my eyes and let out a low moan. “Damn, these are great. Maybe I’ll take two.”
“Go for it,” Dyl said. His eyes fell to my lips. He raised his hand and gently pressed a thumb to the corner of my mouth. “You’ve got some chocolate there.”
“Ah, thanks.”
“Got it,” Dylan said and put his finger up to his own lips and licked it clean. “Tasty.”
I could have melted as easily as one of the chocolate chip cookies. I glanced over my shoulder and could have sworn I saw Chris smiling in our direction, but he quickly turned and fell back into an animated conversation with Eli and Gabe.
I walked through the kitchen and out through the living room, back through the sliding doors, heading directly for the cooler.
The ghost of Dylan’s thumb against my lips followed me all the way there.
I could have kissed him right there and then.
I wanted it so fucking bad, but what message would that send to everyone around?
I sighed as I cracked open another beer.
The buzz of all the alcohol I’d drunk began to tingle and spread through me.
My inhibitions were definitely lowering.
Maybe it was best for me to head home. It was getting late and the game night seemed to be winding down anyway.
Removing myself from this island of temptation felt like a good idea at this point.
But first, I needed to find the bathroom.
I went back inside the living room. A couple people were sitting on the couch chatting, and another handful were at the round table near the window playing a round of cards.
Gabe waved me over. “I think I might be heading out soon,” I said as he pulled out a chair for me. “Where’s the bathroom again?”
“Down the hall to the left. And you should stay a little longer, I think Soren got some fireworks to throw later. It’s a bit of a Bobcat tradition. We do it at the start of every season.”
That did sound fun and I enjoyed being included in a tradition, especially being so new to the team.
It also meant spending more time around Dyl…
“Sure, why not,” I said.
“Hell yeah.” Gabe lifted his beer and clinked it against mine.
I excused myself and followed the directions toward the bathroom. Emmy had a couple photos hanging up on the walls. Some of them were cool art prints and others were some great action shots of him and the team on the ice. There was one toward the end that made me pause.
It was a photo of us. Taken on his twenty-second birthday.
We’d gone out to a wreck-it room so we could break some stuff and have a good time doing it.
The photo had been taken in the middle of our wreckage.
We stood with our arms over each other’s shoulders, helmets off and smiling wide.
He loved that birthday. We went out afterward and had the time of our lives barhopping and meeting random people.
I still laughed at some of the bright memories. I had no idea he kept that photo.
Smiling, I continued toward the bathroom. I opened the door just as it was being pulled from the opposite end.
“Oh shit, sorry,” I said before realizing Dyl was the one who’d been on the other side.
His eyes went wide before they quickly narrowed, his smile quirking. “You following me now? Thought I could use some help? It is a two-handed job sometimes.”
Heat flushed through me, as if I’d swallowed gasoline and paired it with a lit match.
“You’re a big boy, you can handle it yourself.”
“Emphasis on big.” He winked at me.
The flames crackled and roared.
I should turn and go. Or push past him and close the door and let him go back to the party. It was the correct thing to do. The good boy thing to do. The no consequences to deal with later thing to do.
I swallowed down my doubts and worries, put a hand on Dylan’s muscular chest, and pushed him into the bathroom without a second thought.
Fuck it. Tonight I’d let the fire consume me until I was left a pile of ash at Dyl’s feet.