The curtains were still drawn, but bright sunlight shone through the gap in the middle.
He frowned, a little disoriented. Mid-morning? Maybe lunchtime?
Judging from the way his stomach growled—and the fact he was ravenous—Jason had expected it to be later.
Sitting up, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and took a good look around.
Daryl’s bed was empty, but the bathroom door was closed.
He couldn’t hear anything due to the soundproofing, but instinct told him Daryl was in there.
A few minutes later he was proved right when the door opened and Daryl came out amid a billow of steam. He stopped, halfway through towel-drying his hair, when he noticed Jason was awake. “Hey.” He grinned. “I thought you’d never wake up.”
Jason yawned so hard his jaw cracked. “Time is it?” His phone was all the way over on the table and he couldn’t be arsed to move.
Daryl walked over to it and pressed the Home button. “Just gone half-twelve.”
“Really?” They couldn’t have got in until three or four in the morning, and he’d lain awake for a long while after that. “Huh. I thought I’d slept longer.”
Rolling his eyes, Daryl laughed. “Half-twelve on Wednesday.” He looked at Jason expectantly until the words registered.
“Bollocks. I slept the whole day?”
“And then some.”
Wow. No wonder he was hungry. “Have you been up long? You should’ve woken me.”
Daryl scooped up a piece of paper and moved to sit on the end of Jason’s bed. “I woke up a few hours ago. And I was going to wake you, but you were so deeply asleep, I figured you needed it.”
“What have you been up to?” The idea of Daryl leaving him in bed while he went off and did other stuff made him feel . . . left out. Which was ridiculous, but then so were a lot of his feelings where Daryl was concerned.
Gesturing to the phone, he said. “I called Cam. Told him about what happened.” At the look of surprise Jason knew must be on his face, Daryl added, “I figured as soon as we step foot out of this room, people will start talking. You know how he hates finding shit out second-hand.” He shrugged.
“So I told him.”
Fully awake now, Jason leant against the headboard, covers pooled in his lap. “What did you say exactly?”
Daryl waved a hand about as he spoke. “That we’d fooled around during the full-moon run but nothing had triggered.”
It still stung this morning, but Jason ignored it. “And what did he say?”
“Plenty.” The wry smile was unexpected and Jason focused on Daryl’s mouth for far too long, so when Daryl answered, he jumped, startled. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Jason smoothed out the quilt to occupy his hands and give himself something else to look at. “You going to elaborate?”
The answering grimace told him he was probably better off not knowing, but he was far too curious to stay in the dark.
“Well?” he prompted.
Scooting round on the bed to face him, Daryl met his gaze. “He told me it wasn’t an ideal situation for two of his betas to be involved, but he also wasn’t about to tell his pack who they could and couldn’t fuck.”
Jason’s eyebrows shot up. “He said that?”
“Not exactly.” Daryl’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “His version was far more tactful and longwinded. I’m paraphrasing.” He sighed again. “Basically he wasn’t over the moon—especially when I pointed out these two weeks were all about bringing the pack closer.” Jason laughed out loud as he pictured Cam’s face. “But he thanked me for keeping him informed and trusted that we’d handle telling the others appropriately.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have no clue. I’m guessing something other than walking down to breakfast smelling of sex.”
