“Balsamic vinegar, red onion, and vegan red wine, mainly,” Jason said.
“Can I get the recipe later? It’ssublime,” Dave repeated, rocking to one side as Christian elbowed him.
Dave liked to cook—just not anything the pack liked to eat. They’d tried going vegan once, for Dave’s sake, and lasted almost a week before Christian declared he was going full carnivore and slapped half a cow on the grill. Typical Christian.
Typical Dave, too, quietly eating his own meals and never commenting on what anyone else was eating. When Jason had first joined the pack, Dave had sat down with him and asked whether he’d prefer Dave to continue making his own food, or if that wouldannoy him more than the extra work of producing a different dish each mealtime. That was Dave, always thoughtful.
If not for Dave’s relationship with Christian, Jason thought he and Dave might have become closer. They were more similar to one another than to anyone else in the pack.
But Dave’s mate was Christian, who… he didn’tscareJason, precisely, but his wolf was never far from the surface, and he was shorter-tempered than an angry yellowjacket. Jason, whose wolf liked to slumber peacefully most of the time, found him too volatile for comfort.
He glanced around the table at the members of his pack. He was part of them. He felt it deep inside whenever he was with them. The laughter, the teasing, and the warmth were real. But so was the way every conversation that involved him came back to food. To what he did. He couldn’t stop hearing Riley’s voice, about only being worth what you could offer. He swallowed around the tightness in his throat.
Maybe there was a good reason they kept circling back to food, like the fact he never started a conversation so they were looking for common ground with him. But his past experience—of being barely tolerated, until he wasn’t any longer—made it hard for him to believe that.
As he watched them, Matt was grinning at Bryce, a smile lighting his face in a way Jason had never seen before Jesse came along. He was happy for Matt and Jesse.Reallyhappy. It just awoke wistful feelings inside him when he saw them together.
At the bottom of the table, Karl’s place was empty. Tristan followed his gaze.
“He never takes a night off,” Tristan remarked. Clearly, with no half-chewed food evident. “Maybe one of us should offer to cover the graveyard shift more often.”
“For Karl to do what, exactly?” Bryce said.
Bryce didn’t mean it unkindly, but it was true Karl only left the ranch if he had an errand to run that couldn’t be avoided. Dave and Christian often went to one of the bars in town, Tristan hung out with his college friends, and Bryce spent a lot of time in other people’s beds. Karl, though, was like Jason—when he wasn’t working, he stayed quietly in his bunkhouse or, occasionally, joined the rest of the pack, where he kept his own counsel most of the time.
Jason glanced around once more at the gathered pack. He was part of the pack. Sort of. He knew how everyone took their coffee, he’d learned which of Jesse’s insults were jokes and which meant Jesse was getting overwhelmed by something. But when he was justhim,when he wasn’t doing something for the pack, what was his place?
You’re pack,Matt had told him early on, more than once, as if realizing that Jason needed to hear it. But it still felt sometimes as if he were on the outside. Maybe it was all in his head, but he couldn’t shake the feeling.
“I, um, I’m going to take tomorrow off.”
Jason might as well have said he was going to turn into a unicorn from the stunned expressions that everyone turned on him. He couldn’t blame them. He’d surprised himself. Hadn’t known he was going to say it until he did.
He licked his lips nervously, waiting for someone to say something. The silence stretched out. Even Tristan had stopped eating.
“Everything okay, Jase?” Bryce asked quietly.
He nodded, denying whatever was filling his chest and making his throat ache. Maybe he needed to know once and for all if he really was only valued for his skill in the kitchen.
“Well, I’m not cooking,” Christian said. “Not unless I’m allowed to barbecue Betsy.”
The table devolved into, basically, a race to declarenot itwhen it came to cooking, with Tristan digging out his phone to look uptake-out places, and Dave, ever reasonable, pointing out that he could cook and it wouldn’t kill anyone to go vegan for one meal.
Amid all the noise, Jason was aware of Matt’s eyes on him. When he nervously looked at Matt, wondering if he’d be mad that Jason was taking time out, Matt’s gaze was penetrating. He looked away again without saying anything.
But later, when the meal was over and Tristan and Bryce were clearing away, Matt fell into step with him as he headed across the yard toward his bunkhouse.
“You know you’re more than entitled to time off,” he said. “But I’m wondering if there’s a reason for it.” He glanced sideways, studying Jason, who kept his eyes firmly on the ground in front of him. “If it’s gotten too much, cooking in the diner and up here as well, we can find another solution.”
Jason’s instant reaction was to protest that it wasn’t too much, that he loved it, but a cold, insidious thought was crawling around in the back of his mind. What if he said yes, he wanted to stop? What would that mean for his place here? If he said it, at least he’d know.
But that would be like testing Matt, and that felt all kinds of wrong.
“I just want a little break,” he said eventually.
“Like I said, you’re more than entitled to it. If you simply want more time to yourself, that’s fine. But if it’s something more, if you need a break from your job, or even need to switch it up completely, just let me know. It’s your call, Jason,” Matt said, placing his hand on Jason’s back. “Though I’d appreciate a bit of warning so the rest of us can master boiling an egg, at least.”
Jason snorted, but the laughter died stillborn.Your call. He should feel reassured. Hewasreassured. Matt hadn’t given him an ultimatum—if you won’t cook, you’renot part of the pack.
