“Absolutely not,” Viggo shot him down, not even thinking about it. He bumped Bjorn with his shoulder.
“Paintball?” Bjorn threw the suggestion out there. It wasn’t the most romantic activity, but there was a part of him that relished the idea of stalking Sebastian through a darkened arena, hunting him.
Viggo laughed. “I meant suggestions for restaurants, Bjorn. I think we should keep it simple for our first date. We don’t want to scare him off, do we?”
Bjorn shook his head. Paintball would be a disaster. Both he and Viggo would let their competitiveness get the better of them and probably scare Sebastian away for good.
“Well, if we’re just going out to eat, we should take him to Olivia’s and get a booth overlooking the water,” Bjorn said. “The food is good, it’s romantic, and the tables are private and have a nice view.”
Viggo sucked his lower lip between his teeth, teasing at it as he thought over Bjorn’s suggestion. “I like that,” he said, grinning. “Let me text Bruce. He’s good at getting last-minute reservations.”
Bjorn leaned against Viggo and looked down at his phone as he sent off a text to his assistant. He closed the messaging app, giving Bjorn a glimpse of his home screen before shutting off his phone.
“What was that?” Bjorn asked, grabbing Viggo’s phone out of his hand and typing in the code to unlock it.
“What?” Viggo asked, sounding confused until he looked down at his screensaver. He let out a cackle and snatched his phone back. “I’m not allowed to keep a picture of my husband as my screensaver?”
Bjorn grabbed the phone back, looking at the picture. It was him, standing in front of the house, sporting a short beard and staring intently out at the trees leading into their territory.
He was wearing the bottom half of his vintage motorcycle racing suit, the leather buttoned up two inches past his belly button, brown hiking boots, and an unzipped puffer jacket that showed off his bare chest.
He looked like an idiot.
“What the fuck is this?” Bjorn growled, holding the phone up for Viggo’s inspection.
Viggo laughed, looking utterly unrepentant.
“Your wolf had a very interesting sense of fashion,” he said, taking the phone back. “Here, have a look.”
Viggo opened his camera roll and handed Bjorn the phone back. Scrolling through the pictures, Bjorn flushed in embarrassment. There weren’t as many candids as he’d half expected, but there were enough to thoroughly document that his wolf had no understanding of what clothes should be worn when, and that its sense of style was completely lacking.
“I like this one,” Viggo said, pointing to a picture of Bjorn wearing a thick wool sweater, compression shorts, and his knee-high boots.
“What the fuck?” Bjorn mumbled, trying to remember what had inspired his wolf to put together such an outfit and coming up blank.
The boots he understood. They protected his feet from getting wet when he was wading through the underbrush in the forest, in addition to providing excellent protection against thorns and insects wanting to bite at his shins.
The sweater also made sense. Bjorn preferred to be on the warmer side, and pulling on a comfortable sweater was an eminently reasonable and comfortable thing to do.
The compression shorts, however, were a mystery. Bjorn knew that some men were happy to walk around in nothing but compression gear, but he was not one of them. No matter what anyone said, they wereunderwear, and walking around in his underwear was not something Bjorn did.
Except apparently his wolf disagreed.
“I knew I wasn’t going to regret taking those,” Viggo said, locking his phone and slipping it back into his pocket. “I should have them enlarged and printed. We could turn one of the spare bedrooms into a gallery.”
“Don’t you dare,” Bjorn said, his indignation and embarrassment draining away as he considered Viggo’s expression.
It was clear that his husband had taken the pictures expressly to tease him, a joke to be shared at his expense, but at the time the pictures were taken, Viggo couldn’t have known that Bjorn was going to be okay.
Seeing Bjorn wading around looking so unlike himself had probably been anything but funny. Rather, it would have been a constant reminder that something was wrong.
“You’re horrible,” Bjorn said, his soft smile belying his words. “I can’t believe that’s your screensaver.”
They sat together, relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. After a few minutes, Viggo turned to him.
“Did you get a start on looking into whoever it was that attacked us?”
Bjorn sighed, dejected. He’d almost managed to forget about his failure. Shaking his head, he walked Viggo through what little he’d found.
