Chapter Sixteen
The sound of low voices brushed her ears and Tru stretched under the covers. She felt on the other side of the air mattress, but Tabian wasn’t there. With a frown, she eased her eyes open and blearily looked around the tent.
Outside, Bay and Tabian were talking about what to text a girl.
She propped up on her elbow and listened closer. Tabian was giving Bay advice for asking out the girl whose number he’d gotten.
Even through the tent, she could smell bacon and sausage and was pretty sure that was hashbrowns she heard sizzling on the cast iron skillet. Tabian could cook and good gah, there was just something even more delicious about eating camp-food.
Her stomach growled as she got dressed, and when she opened the flap of the tent, she nearly stepped on a trio of tiny yellow flowers tied together with twine.
Tru put her hand over her heart with the sweet memory. When Bay was in seventh grade, he’d brought her a dandelion flower.
She dragged her attention up to where the boys were sitting at the fire. Tabian wore a soft smile, and Bay was looking anywhere but at her.
“You already know I’m going to press these and keep them forever, just like the one you gave me when I first met you.”
“I know,” Bay said, hiding a smile. “You’re weird like that.”
“Um, you mispronounced ‘awesome’,” she teased as she picked up the tiny bouquet of dandelions. They had been her favorite flower ever since he’d given her the first one. Sweet boy was still in there.
As long as she lived, she would never forget this camping trip. How could this get any better?
Tabian stood with a loaded plate, pulled her into a hug, kissed her neck and said she looked pretty in the mornings.
And that’s how she knew Tabian was delusional. She didn’t even want to imagine what her hair looked like right now.
He handed her a plate, and they sat down for breakfast. Tabian once again pulled her legs into his lap, and Bayen asked, “So what if she’s not ready to be asked out?”
“Ask, but don’t push. If she says no, you’re going to have to give her some more time to get to know you before you ask again.”
“Right. And do we go to the movies? Or the mall? What do humans like to do?”
Tabian shrugged. “That I can’t help you with. I took Tru camping to try and win her over.”
Bay laughed and took a plate piled high with breakfast from Tabian’s offered hand. “Yeah, but Tru is easy. She dated my dad. If you give her a compliment it’s like the best thing that ever happened to her.”
“Hey,” she complained half-heartedly around a bite of hashbrowns. “I have standards.”
“Dude, my dad set the bar, and he didn’t set it high. He basically dug a hole and buried the bar in the ground.”
“Lucky for me,” Tabian said, but before the last word got out, he and Bay both jerked their attention to the same spot in the woods.
“Hear that?” Bay asked.
“Yep.” Tabian and Bay stood as one and set their food down.
“What’s happening?” Tru said, straining to hear anything. The woods were quiet to her ears though.
“Bayen, stay with Tru in the truck.”
But Bay wasn’t listening to directions very well, because the second Tru climbed in the passenger’s seat of Tabian’s pickup truck, Bay shut the door on her and sauntered after Tabian, who stood a few yards away.
Both of their bodies hummed with tension. Who would be out here? This was a wilderness camping site that Tabian had gotten special permission to use.
Tru sat on the edge of the chair, her heart pounding against her ribs as she watched the frozen forms of Tabian and Bay.
And then suddenly, Tabian relaxed. He threw a grin behind him at Bay and said something that relaxed Bay as well.
Loosely they walked up the path together and met a big, jacked up charcoal gray truck. There were two more behind it, but she couldn’t see them very well.
The vehicles pulled to a stop and parked, and out of the driver’s side of the firs truck stepped Tabian’s scar-faced friend, Vic.
“Oh my gosh,” she murmured, shoving the door open to join them.
They’d scared the hell out of her.
Tabian glanced behind him and offered his arm for her to settle under. “Dude what are you doing here?” he asked Vic.
“Camping,” Vic said with a smirk. “Some famous guy on the internet said it’s a great spot.”
Tabian narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about.”
“Wolf Outdoors has been super fun to watch,” Dodger said from where he was getting out of the back seat of Vic’s truck.
Tru hadn’t met all of the boys yet, but she’d researched the Pack before she’d seen Tabian in that coffee shop.
Dodger was even bigger than he looked in his pictures. Holy shit, that was a barn of a man.
“How did you even find me?” Tabian demanded.
“I put an air tag in your truck the second I found out you had a secret life.”
“What in the ball sack is an air tag?” Tabian demanded.
Vic ignored him.
Lyric came around the front of the truck and gave Tru a hug, and gah, it felt so good. She grinned at her and said, “The boys had a Wolf Outdoors watching party all last night.”
“Oh my God, this is the worst day of my life,” Tabian deadpanned.
“Where’s the Cameras?” Liam asked. “I have to know the set up.” He walked past them toward the campsite, pulling his mate Nory by the hand.
Nory reached out and squeezed Tru’s arm as she passed.
“You don’t have to worry about feeding us.
Yes, we are crashing your party, but the boys brought four coolers of food. ”
“Wait, you’re staying?” Tabian gritted out.
“We brought tents!” Vic said through a baiting grin as he walked past holding a giant blue cooler that had seen better days.
Nathan and Delta passed them hauling supplies, and so did Dodger and his mate Destiny, each saying hi to Tru and Bayen as they made their way toward camp.
Bayen’s eyes were wide as saucers. “Is this okay?” he asked Tabian.
Tabian drew Tru in tighter against his ribs. “Boy, it’ll probably actually be good for you to be around these idiots for a while. I just didn’t want them finding out about the channel.”
“Why not?” Bay asked quietly.
“Oh Wolf Outdoors,” Vic sang in a high-pitched voice. “Come teach us how to camp.” He added vibrato at the end, and it echoed through the woods and returned to them in a musical canon.
Tabian’s lips tightened into a thin line. “That’s why.”
Bay was trying to fight a smile. “Do you want me to turn the cameras off?”
“No, let ‘em roll,” Tabian mumbled. “If they suck at this, I want video proof for a rainy day.”
“Blackmail. I like it,” Bayen whispered. “I’ll get the drone into the air.”
She and Tabian chuckled as he jogged off to find the drone.
He pulled her in closer and wrapped both arms around her. Tru closed her eyes and settled into the steady sound of his heartbeat against her cheek.
“Are you happy?” he asked.
“I really am,” she said easily.
“So am I,” he murmured, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“Thank you for helping me with Bay,” she murmured.
Tabian’s eyes softened. “He’s a fun kid. I like being around him.”
Relief washed through her. She’d seen Bayen’s heart from the get-go, and knew there was so much good in him, but she’d been having to defend him for the last year, in school, with peers, in public when people stared at him or said rude things to him.
Having someone see the good in him with her was top tier.
Tabian patted her butt and told her, “Come on. Let’s help these idiots.”
She belted out a laugh and followed him back to camp, where it was a flurry of slightly organized chaos.
She jumped in where she could. Bridger had shown up, but he was across the whole river making his own camp.
No worries though, because Vic had apparently brought a bullhorn to converse with him and was currently using it to tell dad jokes.
From here, Bridger looked like he was already regretting staking his tent into the ground.
Dodger got bored halfway through setting up his and Destiny’s tent, tossed Bayen a hacky sack, and suddenly everyone was done making camp.
Tabian, Vic and Liam joined them within thirty seconds.
Nathan stood to the side eating a sandwich and coaching.
Delta jumped in and immediately dropped the hacky sack, absorbed a few good-natured jabs, and then started them off again.
Tru even tried it. She’d never done this in her life, but she kicked it into the air a few times with their encouragement.
She was pretty bad the first few times, but werewolves were fast, and they bailed her out of bad maneuvers.
She found herself cracking up with them and counting how many times they all kept it in the air with the others.
After they wound down, Vic, Dodger and Tabian made what they called “breakfast dessert” which was just an exorbitant amount of bacon that everyone chowed down on.
The camp was a flurry of motion as the boys finished building their tents, and the ladies drifted one by one toward the fire with Tru.
Vic was inflating a blow-up doll and calling it a water floatie, Tabian was reaming him for being inappropriate in front of Bayen while he organized a box of fireworks, Bayen was cracking up as he inflated a giant watermelon floatie Nory had brought him.
Lyric, Nory, Destiny and Delta were sitting around Tru at the fire with steaming cups of coffee, giggling at the guys antics while they chatted.
Liam and Nathan were currently swimming across the river to visit Bridger, who looked annoyed that other living creatures even existed in these woods with him.
She was beginning to see their personalities, and they were all so different, but meshed well. She could understand why Liam had decided to keep their Pack together.
“Was it like this in your ex’s Pack?” Nory asked from the camp chair beside her.