He arched one eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”
Key raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m talking about the fact that he never said more than two words out loud, and you heard all this stuff about how the baby’s omega parent was shot and killed and how his name was Theo and the baby’s name was Gael.” There Keegan’s lips pursed in an amused smile. “You’re bonding with him.”
“What does that even mean?” Liam didn’t get it at all, because “bonding” was like a wolf thing, right? Like he remembered everybody saying that Rory and Fen had needed to have a mate bond, and that they both felt sick when it wasn’t completed. He could remember lots of talking about that with Keegan and his mate John, too, but Liam was just a dude.
He and his brothers had all decided that Rory must have a different dad than them, because that was the only reasonable explanation for him turning out to be a wolf shifter. “I’m not a wolf.”
“Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that, buddy. Because Theoisa wolf.”
“Well, it’s not like the baby is his, and it’s not like I got him pregnant or something.” Liam crossed his arms over his chest, feeling incredibly defensive all of a sudden.
And yet at the same time some little part of his brain was saying Theo was his, and he wanted to growl at Keegan for even mentioning his name because Theo was sick and hurting, and he needed Liam to be there for him, and he couldn’t be in there with Niall and Loyal because they wouldn’t let him.
When Liam came back to his senses, he was standing in the middle of Loyal’s front room with his chest against Keegan’s, his teeth bared.
Liam backed off fast, his whole body denying what he had just been doing, his brain running in circles like a little rabbit in a cage. Or maybe a hamster on an exercise wheel or something.
“Still believe you can’t possibly be mated to a wolf?” Keegan asked.
“It’s not possible.” How could it be?
“You know after all this time that the Calhoun family has been providing provisions for dragons and wolf shifters and other sundry interesting mythical creatures, you would think that you guys would be a little bit more open-minded, but you’re all very determined to think that you’re just regular old folks.” Kee kind of curled his lip at Liam. “I’m hungry. You want something?”
Keegan turned toward the kitchen and wandered off, leaving Liam standing there, staring after him.
Liam shook it off because, yeah, actually he was starving, so he might as well go see what there was to see in the kitchen. Niall made the best cookies and LuAnn almost always had stew or bread on the stove.
He walked into the kitchen behind Keegan, rubbing the center of his chest. “I’m sorry about that chest bumping thing,and I’m happy to eat with you as long as you don’t feed me applesauce.”
“No need. Looks like there’s leftovers—spaghetti and red sauce with some meatballs and some garlic bread.”
“Oh my God, that sounds like heaven.” Liam loved spaghetti and meatballs, and his brothers didn’t particularly love that meal. They were more steak and potatoes kind of guys, so he didn’t get it very often. Frozen pizza, sure, real spaghetti and meatballs, no. “You don’t think they’ll mind us eating it?”
Keegan gave him a look. “When have you ever known Niall and Loyal to begrudge anybody food? If we eat the remnants of their dinner, and they were expecting to have it for leftovers, then we’ll just help them make more before we leave.”
“Fair enough.” He and his brothers felt the same way if someone needed food.
Keegan gave him a grin, and those canines seemed incredibly long. “Do you want some salad? There’s some of that too.”
“That depends on what’s in it. If it’s just lettuce, cheese, and dressing, then yes.”
Keegan rolled his eyes. “You are so white middle America.”
“Hey! How would you even know what that is? You’ve lived your entire life isolated up here on this stupid mountain.”
That got him another round of chuckles. “John has taught me all about American TV and politics and all sorts of shit, and frankly, I’m kind of glad that I didn’t have to grow up that way.”
“Yeah, I grew up on the fringes of it myself.” Liam shrugged, grabbing a couple of plates out of the cabinet. “But I watch a lot of TV and a lot of YouTube when my brothers don’t think I am.”
“Do you wish you could get out there and see it all?” Keegan asked. “I know Loyal wasn’t impressed.”
Keegan’s brother Loyal had actually gone to college in Flagstaff, Arizona as some sort of an experiment in sending wolves out into the human world.
He’d seemed like he was enjoying it during his time away, but by the time he got back and mated with Niall, he had been so excited to be back that he had formed his own little pack even farther up the mountain than the one his brothers ran as co-alphas.
Liam shrugged. “Not really, no. I actually sort of love my life. It’s a little lonely just having my brothers, especially since Rory moved up here, but I don’t think I’d be able to cut it in the human world all the time. It’s like once you know magic like you guys and the dragons exists, you can’t unknow it.”
“Maybe it’s because you have a little bit of that magic in your blood yourself.” Keegan dished out pasta from a pot of water sitting on the stove and then added steaming hot sauce to the top of it to warm it back up. A few meatballs and a spoonful of salad along with a piping hot piece of garlic bread out of some foil resting on the back of the stove completed the meal.
