Page 105 of All Packed Up

“There’s my girl,” Griffith cooed, and Arlo watched Wendy’s cheeks flush.

He had to hide a laugh in his shoulder. Wendy liked the sound of being Griffith’s girl, huh? For some reason that didn’t surprise him at all.

“So who’s ready for yoga?” Tate asked.

Wendy groaned, bumped her side into Tate in a playful way, and a lightbulb clicked in Arlo’s head.

Suddenly the heightened smells made sense. They’d totally fucked around early this morning.

Lucky bastard, he thought affectionately.

Tate must have sensed the burst of emotion because his gaze flicked to Arlo, surveying him for a second.

Arlo wondered if Tate would tell him what happened. They’d most certainly imagined enough when they’d been working through Wendy’s heightened scent the other night. What parts of their fantasies had come true?

Tate winked, the alpha still able to get a rise out of Arlo even after all this time.

“Are you going to be able to fix the fence?” Nic asked, finally joining them and distracting them all. His hair was wet, clearly having just gotten out of the shower.

Grif shook his head, and Arlo tried not to make his relief obvious. He really didn’t want to play in the mud. “It’s too wet today. The ground needs to dry a little.”

“Lazy day it is,” Tate declared, while Wendy asked, “Uh… so what are we gonna do about food?”

Their gazes all clashed as their brains stuttered like dial-up.

It must have been fate that his landed on Griffith as the alpha cleared his throat. Without power, there weren’t many options, and it wasn’t like they could order food online.

“I can heat soup on the fire?”

Arlo’s head snapped to the alpha as an idea brewed. “Do you have a cast iron skillet?” Arlo asked.

Tate loved embarrassing Arlo, so that was why Arlo wasn’t surprised when he said, “Oh my god, Ar, we go camping one time—”

“Shut up,” Arlo groaned at his mate.

Wendy laughed, bright and fuckin’ lovely. “What are you two on about now?”

“I like to be prepared,” Arlo blurted defensively, lifting his chin in the air. “So before we went on a camping trip, I did some research and wanted to make it like super cool and special and cook like, a real camping meal. I don’t care what you say, my campfire cornbread was a hit.”

“It was phenomenal. But I’ll never let him live it down,” Tate announced. Arlo made a face at him, and the resulting giggle from Wendy made the embarrassment sting less.

“No cornbread for you, roomie,” he announced.

Nothing irritated them more than when they referred to each other as roomies. Because they were so much more than that. They were mates, not just two bros who shared an apartment.

So when Tate gasped dramatically, Arlo’s chest ballooned with affection and popped in a fit of chuckles before he pecked a kiss on the alpha’s cheek.

“So I guess that makes you mine today?” Grif asked. “Wanna help in the kitchen?”

It took Arlo an embarrassing amount of time to realize the alpha was speaking to him, and he found himself searching out his mate for approval.

Tate offered him a wink, and Arlo’s stomach flipped like he’d crested a roller coaster.

“Yeah, sure! I guess we should make sure you even have ingredients for cornbread,” Arlo said aloud, trying to cover his embarrassment up.

Knowing that he and Tate were on the same page, happy together but not discouraging more, somehow made Griffith’s attention so much more effective.

Griffith made him feel like a goddamned freshman again, at a loss for words before the hulking alpha.