“They’re a whole lot of fun. I do them sometimes to raise money for Children’s Hospitals. It's exactly what it sounds like–you line up the babies and let them race. The winning babies get prizes and the organization gets money,” he told me.
“That sounds like so much fun,” Hale added.
“I love that.” At some point we’d need to figure out what charities we supported as a pack. But that could wait until after we got situated. Though supporting Children’s Hospitals was pretty much a requirement.
Me
That tracks.
“All right, here’s our stop,” Carlos announced. We got off and we walked towards the bar.
Tito’s had a tropical theme going on inside, with the servers wearing floral shirts and there being lots of tropical decor, though there was also a nod to the holidays. I saw a server walk by with food on a tray. Good. They had food. I was hungry.
A server waved. “You’re back! Some of the others are here, too.”
“Why cook when we can eat here?” Carlos laughed.
I knew they went to Tito’s all the time anyway, because he told me, and I was very curious about his friends, because he’d mentioned so much about them.
There was a table with three guys. One of them waved.
“We’re meeting Clark, Anders, and Dimitri. They’re all on the Knights with me,” Carlos explained, waving back. “Gwen is with her team and Tenzin is in Portland, but he’ll be back.” He led us over to the table.
“Allow me to present my pack. This is my omega, Fiona, and our alpha, Hale, and this is my bestie, Dusty, and his amazing mate, Saoirse, who’s also mated to Fiona,” he introduced.
“It’s so nice to meet you. He was telling us about your adventures, and we’re all so happy for you. I’m Clark.” Clark was the one with the slutty little glasses. His glasses were different from Dusty’s slutty little glasses. Clark’s were black plastic and looked like the kind a superhero’s nerdy alter-ego would wear.
“Clark Edwards, forward. He is on a line with me and Grif, who is Hale’s brother-in-law,” Carlos introduced. “This is Dimitri Belikov, defender.”
Dimitri was a big Russian with broad shoulders and was handsome in that Russian spy way, with dark hair and an intense gaze. Saoirse watched him intently.
“Carlos is one of the nicest guys I know, you made a good choice,” Dimitri said.
“Anders is also a forward,” Carlos added.
The other guy, Anders, looked Swedish with long blond hair and just absolutely screamed fuckboy. All three were alphas.
“Hi. We didn’t even know Carlos had a secret girlfriend,” Anders replied.
“I told you, I was going to introduce her tomorrow at Dimitri’s party.” Carlos rolled his eyes and pulled out a stool for me.
The server came over and took our orders. I was glad that everyone was ordering food and drinks. Yes, I absolutely wanted some French fries and a club sandwich.
“It's too bad Gwen’s not here. She’s my girlfriend. She’s playing a game tonight,” Clark added.
I texted the group chat.
Me
No war yet. Slutty glasses guy is with Gwen (formerly Little Gabs).
Ninon and Timmy knew her when we were kids, too.
Clark turned to Carlos. “I’m so glad you’re safe. We all got really worried, you usually just don’t go missing like that. Nobody knew you were skiing in Europe. Jorge was just like,Oh, he goes missing sometimes,but it felt weird that no one was doing anything. I wasn’t sure if we should contact your family.”
“Sorry. I thought I’d told Jorge about me going with Dusty to the music festival and my family all being on a cruise,” Carlos added. “I didn’t really tell you guys I was going, because I was afraid that if Verity knew Hale and I were actually friends that she would revoke my cake pop privileges. Though she was very clear in the locker room today that my cake pop privileges have been suspended.”
“She'll still make us cake pops,” Hale assured, squeezing his hand.
