"If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," Vaughn supplies, not looking up from his phone. "Classic cause and effect story. Very educational. Teaches kids about consequences and chain reactions."
"Right." Jason waves a hand. "What he said. So Robin made chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches. Homemade cookies. Homemade ice cream. Apparently he's been stress-baking again because someone left his best friend high and dry last night."
The implication is clear. Robin stress-baked because of me. Because I left Toby on that couch, aching and desperate, and Robin came home to find him like that.
Good. Robin should know that Toby's mine now.
"We're not going," I say.
"I'm going." Silas, which surprises everyone. He's leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, expression mild. "What? I like ice cream."
"It starts at eleven," Ezra adds. He's appeared from somewhere, wiping his hands on a rag. "We could close for lunch. Take a field trip."
"We don't close for lunch."
"We do when our alpha needs to stake his claim on a librarian who probably has hickeys on his neck," Vaughnmutters, still not looking up from his phone. "Hickeys you put there. Which you then abandoned him with because Ezra can't cook."
"It was an experimental soufflé," Ezra protests. "The smoke was expected."
"The fire department wasn't."
"They were very understanding."
The wrench in my hand bends. I stare at it for a moment—solid steel, now curved at a thirty-degree angle—and set it down carefully.
"I don't need to stake any claim."
"Boss." Ezra's using his reasonable voice, the one that means he's about to say something I don't want to hear. "You've been vibrating with tension all morning. You've destroyed four tools. You growled at a customer. Either go see him or we're going to have to deal with you taking apart the entire garage."
They're all staring at me. Waiting. Four pairs of eyes, various degrees of amusement and concern, unified in their certainty that I'm going to cave.
I hate that they're right.
"Fine," I growl. "But we're not making this a thing."
"Of course not," Jason says, already grabbing his jacket. "Just five giant bikers showing up to children's story hour. Very subtle. No one will notice at all."
The library is busier than I expected.
Kids running up the front steps. Parents with strollers. A teenager skateboarding past with headphones on. It's a whole different world from the garage—bright and loud and full of tiny humans.
We park the bikes in the back of the lot, trying to be inconspicuous. It doesn't work. Five Harleys lined up in a row tend to draw attention, and by the time we're walking toward the entrance, people are staring.
"We're definitely subtle," Vaughn says dryly.
"Shut up."
The children's section is in the back corner—I can hear the noise from the entrance, high-pitched voices and laughter and something that sounds like music. We follow the sound through the stacks, past displays of summer reading picks and hand-painted signs directing us to STORY TIME THIS WAY!!!
And then I see him.
Toby's sitting in a rocking chair at the center of a circle of tiny humans, book open in his lap, completely in his element. He's animated in a way I haven't seen before—hands moving as he talks, voice shifting to match different characters, face expressive and alive.
He's wearing a turtleneck. In July. It's burgundy and soft-looking, and it covers every inch of his neck, hiding the marks I left there.
Hiding the evidence that he's mine.
Something possessive and hungry curls in my chest. I want to walk over there and pull that collar down. Show everyone what's underneath. Mark him up again right here in front of the children and the parents and the spectacular drag queen in the pink wig who's acting out the story beside him.
