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“Honestly? I feel the same. Well, the same but better. I thought there’d be, I don’t know, a chime. A notification. ‘Congratulations, your bond has been activated, please rate your experience.’”
His laugh shook us both. “It doesn’t work like that. There’s no lightning bolt. The mark means what it means. The rest is just us, same as anybody. Showing up. Choosing each other every day.”
“That’s suspiciously healthy,” I said. “I was promised supernatural nonsense, and instead, I’m getting functional relationship dynamics. I want to speak to a manager.”
“Manager’s busy.” His lips pressed against my hair. “He’s holding his mate.”
The word landed warm in the middle of me and stayed there. Mate. Mine. His.
My stomach chose that exact moment to growl loudly enough to startle the birds.
Drift’s head lifted. “Was that you?”
“My body has no shame left,” I said. “You removed it all. That’s on you, legally.”
“There’s bacon left.” He was already shifting, untangling himself, reaching for his sweatpants with the energy of a man whose love language was clearly food. “Eggs too. I’ll make fresh coffee.”
I was out of the bed and dressing, eager to share every moment with my mate.
Chapter Fourteen
Drift
Like every Friday, I was manning the grills as the pack chilled in the backyard. The mates were seated at the picnic table, making Phineas feel welcome, laughter drifting toward me.
“Weird,” Reaper said. “You’re mated to a person. Always thought the grill was your mate.”
“Fuck you.” I chuckled then took a swallow of my beer. Damn, it felt good to be teased about being mated.
Sledge didn’t look up from the cooler he was digging through. “Nah, the grill would’ve dumped him by now. Grill has standards.”
“The grill loves me,” I said, turning a row of brats with the tongs. Fat hissed against the coals, and smoke rolled up thick and sweet with hickory. “Unlike present company.”
Across the yard, Phineas sat wedged between Spencer and Ollie at the picnic table, and every few minutes his laugh floated over the grass to me like it had my name on it. He was telling some story with both hands, animated in the loose, unguarded style he used only when he forgot to guard himself, and Ollie was wiping tears from his eyes while Spencer kept saying, “No. No, he did not,” in a tone that begged for confirmation.
Watching him hold court at my pack’s table did something warm and permanent to my insides. Not even a week ago, that man had flinched at raised hands and apologized for living. Tonight he had chip dust on his shirt and Noodles asleep across his feet, and Ollie hanging on his every word.
“He’s telling the moose story,” Merk said, appearing at my elbow to steal a brat straight off the grate. He juggled it between his palms, hissing. “Blade’s gonna be furious he missed this.”
“Blade tells it worse anyway.” I smacked Merk’s hand away from the second brat. “He leaves out the part where he cried.”
“He cried?”
“Like a toddler at bath time. Sat in that blackberry bush and wept about the moose’s feelings.”
Merk cackled and wandered off to spread this new intelligence, and I got back to the serious business of not burning dinner for our growing pack.
Behind me, the horseshoe pit erupted into accusations. Holler swore that Riot had stepped over the line, Riot swore that Holler was legally blind, and Deadeye, who was actually keeping score, announced that both of them were losing to Niles, who had never played horseshoes in his life and kept sassing every time he won a point.
“Stop rubbing it in,” Deadeye told his mate, pressing a kiss to his temple and lowering his voice. “Destroy them. Show no mercy.”
“No mercy,” Niles whispered and then ringed another shoe with a clang that echoed off the back wall of the shop.
Holler threw his shades on the ground.
The evening rolled on the way our Fridays always did, loud and greasy and easy. Preacher manned the second cooler like a bartender, distributing beers and unsolicited advice in equal measure. Trent had brought a pasta salad that vanished in eleven minutes flat, and Crowbar accused three separate people of hoarding it before Spencer confessed to hiding the bowl under the table. Somewhere around the second round of brats, Phineas drifted over to me and leaned his hip against the prep table, watching my hands work.
“Your family is insane,” he said, glowing. “Riot just tried to trade Calvin to Holler for horseshoe points. Calvin negotiated his own price up. He got a back rub and the last brownie out of it.”
