Bjorn scoffed and Viggo punched his arm. “You’rewonderful.”
“What?” Sebastian asked, turning back to look at them. “Did you say something?”
“I just told Bjorn that I’ll drive,” Viggo said, ignoring Bjorn’s outraged glare. “The two of you can get to know each other in the back.”
As Viggo’s second, Bjorn usually did all the driving when they were both in the car. It was both a matter of habit and pack hierarchy.
“Ah…” Sebastian swallowed. “All right. If that’s okay with you, Bjorn?”
Bjorn gritted his teeth and nodded. Driving might be his job, but he wasn’t going to undermine his alpha in front of their newest pack member.
“I’d like that.”
Sebastian gulped, his eyes wide at Bjorn’s growling delivery.
“Don’t be intimidated,” Viggo said, giving Sebastian’s neck a squeeze. His hand lingered, encircling Sebastian’s neck like a collar, and for a moment it was all he could do not to pull the boy in and smother him against his front.
He settled instead for a quick sniff, Sebastian going stiff as he bent down and pressed his nose into the locks of his hair.
“You smell so good,” Viggo confessed, rubbing his thumb under Sebastian’s ear with the rough pad of his thumb. He turned to Bjorn. “Don’t you agree?”
Bjorn looked like a kid in the window of a candy shop, staring at Sebastian like he wanted to eat him up. He nodded, his eyes dark and his face set in what could easily be misinterpreted as a scowl.
“Guys, my mom is watching,” Sebastian complained, mortified.
Turning his face toward the house, Viggo could see that Sebastian was right. His mother was in the window, ducking down and out of sight as soon as she saw that she’d been spotted.
With a sigh, Viggo let go of Sebastian’s neck and stepped away. He walked over to the car and climbed behind the wheel, Bjorn and Sebastian following and taking a seat in the back.
Viggo closed his eyes and enjoyed the scent of the three of them together in the small enclosed space, knowing that it was only going to get more potent as they drove into the city.
Sebastian probably couldn’t smell a thing, Viggo realized. At least nothing that mattered. Both he and Bjorn avoided scented products, and their natural musk wouldn’t register unless Sebastian pushed his nose right up against their skin – and freshly showered, probably not even then.
It was strange to contemplate.
“Seatbelts on?” Viggo asked, looking in the mirror and sighing at how tense both Bjorn and Sebastian looked. They made for quite the picture. Bjorn’s sheer size made the roomy back seat look cramped, his head nearly touching the roof and his shoulder spilling into Sebastian’s space, while Sebastian looked tiny, his shoulders high and tense and his hands folded neatly in his lap.
“Yes,” Bjorn said, still gruff and monosyllabic, Sebastian following with a confirmation of his own.
“Good. I need to focus on the road, so you two should talk.” Viggo caught Bjorn’s eye in the mirror. “You could tell him about that time you made a whole class of first-graders cry. That’s a funny story.”
“It is not,” Bjorn growled, angry. He glanced at Sebastian, his expression worried. “He’s exaggerating.”
“So what happened?” Sebastian prompted.
“Nothing. I was telling them about fire safety – I’m a forest ranger, and during summer, keeping people from starting fires is half my job – and when I told them not to light any fires, the whole first row started crying for no reason.”
Bjorn sounded upset, but Viggo wasn’t bringing up what he knew was an unpleasant memory for his husband for no reason.
“You can imagine it, can’t you?” he asked, catching Sebastian’s eye in the mirror. “Bjorn standing there in his uniform in front of a class full of five-year-olds, arms crossed and trying to look stern, telling them that if they ever start a fire, he’ll take them to jail. It’s no wonder they freaked out.”
“I didn’t tell them I’d take them to jail. I told them that people who start fires go to jail. That’s a totally different thing.”
Bjorn’s voice was raised, his hands clenched on his lap, and Viggo could see that he was upset with him for bringing it up and making it seem like a joke.
He crossed his arms and clenched his jaw,
“See what I mean?” Viggo said, glancing at Sebastian to make sure he wasn’t too freaked out. He smiled at him in the mirror. “He means well, but if you don’t know him, he’s fucking terrifying.”
