Page 20 of Delivered to My Mate’s Best Friend

Her cheeks reddened. She was really taking this to heart. Did she like Birch? I didn’t exactly ask my wife if she was attracted to my best friend, but I could tell.

And her scent told me more than her words ever could.

“I am. Thank you. You two have a beautiful home.”

She nodded and placed the bowl at the table. I plated the various grilled meats and vegetable kabobs and set it on the table next to his sliced sourdough and butter. “We do. Thank you. Did you bake this?” she asked, pulling a slice up to her nose and inhaling deeply. “I understand you are the chef-owner of our new favorite restaurant.”

“I did, and I am. Cooking is my forte but I really want to delve into baking. Sourdough seemed the most complicated so, of course, that was where I started. This is my first loaf with an addition, though. I hope it turned out well.”

Zephyr took a bite and groaned and while the sound always affected me, my wolf let me know it was affecting Birch as well.

He liked her.

This might just work, and we all could be happy together.

Fate worked in crazy ways.

We ate and laughed over old stories. Tattled on each other about the trouble we got into. Things our parents never knew about to this day. Zephyr laughed along with us, and Birch had even brought some old pictures to share.

I mulled over whether or not I would be jealous and found there wasn’t a streak of that inside me. Or my wolf. Birch would be my partner in taking care of our mate if she agreed. Loving her. Sharing a family with her one day if she chose.

I said I didn’t have expectations but I wished. I wanted him in my life. In our life together.

Chapter Nineteen

Zephyr

I’d been holding back panic for most of the evening. Fighting the sense that we belonged together but that it was not anything I’d ever dreamed of. Even the fact that I just served a meal to the city’s hottest new chef, mostly cooked by Cypress who could never remember that kabobs worked better if you put only one kind of veggie on each for even doneness, paled in comparison to the elephant in the room.

But as time passed and the men spoke about the past, giving me opportunities to share my own story if I chose, my tight muscles loosened slowly until I felt comfortable enough to share things I’d never even told Cypress. Not to hide them but because they didn’t come up. Didn’t seem necessary.

A lot like the reverse-harem thing?

Maybe a little.

And after a while, I just leaned back in my chair and listened. Cypress had not told me much about his life before leaving the pack, as if he didn’t remember or didn’t consider it relevant. But now, with his partner in juvenile crime at his side, it spilled out. I ached for the boy he’d been, ripped from a place where someone’s grandma made cinnamon buns for all the kids in the pack every Sunday and where they were allowed to run free and even be wolves whenever they chose.

As I sat there, I felt the rift mending between them. Neither had known if the other tried to reach them or had just forgotten their friendship and their pact. And only one of them had known why Cypress’ family moved away.

His father, the nice man I’d met several times, had lost money on investments and “borrowed” some from the pack without permission in an attempt to regain it. By making more bad investments. I watched Cypress struggle with the knowledge as Birch shared it with him, a hand squeezing his arm.

“Your father was a kind person, I remember,” Birch said. “But I think after your dad died, he was lost and made some mistakes.”

“It must have been that,” I agreed. “And it seems to me he’s lived a pretty blameless life since.” I couldn’t swear to it, because I hadn’t spent a ton of time with him, but all of Cypress’ stories of his life after leaving the pack were about kindness, and I suspected there was healing going on there. “It was a long time ago.”

“But I was so lonely.” His voice broke, and I wanted to go yell at his nice parents and ask them how they had let that happen to their only child. “Why didn’t they tell me? Or let me visit. I had other relatives there. Surely, they wouldn’t have held it against a child.”

“No. Nobody did,” Birch confirmed. “Not even against your parents. Your father repaid the coffers, a little at a time over the years, but even if he hadn’t, they would have found a way to work it out.”

“Did the alpha know where we were, then?”

“To my understanding, no. They were bank transfers with no way to trace an address or anything. Just a memo stating it was repayment for funds taken without permission.”

“Wow.”

“Were your fathers close like you two? Best friends?”

They both nodded.