Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“I will grab you beer,” Soren’s gruff voice sounded from around the corner of the house.
Miles and I separated, getting back to our feet just as Soren turned the corner.
“Oh sorry. You two need privacy?”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose as Miles shook his head—a little too vigorously. The answer was, of course, yes, please. Fuck yes, I needed to be alone with this man for longer than five minutes. But I kept that to myself and instead asked, “Want to see if they’ve started playing any games?”
He nodded, his gaze still pinned to my lips. “Yeah, let’s go play.”
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.