There had never been a label on what me and Alesso were. I wouldn’t explicitly call it love, but it was definitelysomething.
Cini shrugged before reaching over me in order to type, her shoulder brushing against mine.
CINI:Not really. I mean, Alesso used to joke that we had the same taste in men. He knew I had a crush on you. On all of you. I think, if he was still alive, we would have all ended up here anyways. I didn’t know it then, but I know now that lots of packs have siblings in them… though those are usually alphas in the group. Even I can admit I don’t know how it would have worked.
I’d always known that Cini had a crush on the four of us. She used to follow us around the estate like a little blue-eyed shadow. But up until her designation had changed and I realized that she was, essentially, my scent match, I had never looked at her like a potential partner.
Cini continued to type.
CINI:Just give me a chance and don’t push me away, Ranieri. I don’t want you just to be a platonic member of our pack. I want you to be my family the same way you would have been if Alesso was still alive.
Apparently, Nico had also told her about our conversation in the kitchen yesterday. The traitor.
Cini shut the laptop and pointed out the windows.
‘Beach,’she signed,‘tomorrow.’
Then she gave my hand a soft squeeze and got up to go and join the alphas in the kitchen, leaving behind the scentof honeydew in her wake and far too many thoughts rattling around inside my head.
Nineteen
My entire body was relaxed for what felt like the first time in a long time. The sun was shining, I was pleasantly buzzed from the heavy-handed margarita Cini had made for me earlier, and I was floating in the water without a care in the world.
Then the floatie I was lounging on was flipped over, sending me careening into the salty, warm ocean water.
I came up sputtering as my packmates cackled like a bunch of hyenas.
“Hey!” I shouted as I held onto the handle of the floatie and wiped water out of my eyes. “What the hell is wrong with you!”
Nico and Ranieri ran away from me, still laughing as they joined Cini and Dante where they were relaxing in the shade.
This morning, when Cini had insisted we all spend some time together, I had been looking forward to a calm day on the water.
Instead, it was like we had returned to being a bunch of little boys, torturing each other with pranks and other ridiculous antics.
Cini seemed to be enjoying it though because her body shook with laughter as Dante seemed to be holding in his own.
All of this was so idyllic that I nearly forgot that there were still two men inside of the house that were meant to watch our every move.
Splashing water in Nico and Ranieri’s general direction, I slipped the round floaty over my head and laid on it, letting the water bob me back and forth as I kept an eye on my wayward pack mates in case they decided to ambush me again.
‘Don’t be such a grump,’Nico’s voice whispered into my mind and I groaned.
It seemed that another side-effect of the double bond was that Nico could now also speak to me with his mind.
I had a hard enough time getting my cousin to shut up as it was and now he had a direct link to my brain.
‘I’m not a grump,’I shot back irritably.‘But I am trying to relax.’
‘Relax when you’re dead,’Nico sang as he jumped on Ranieri’s back and the two alphas dropped below the surface of the water in a wrestling match.
“You two are acting like twelve year olds rather than two men who are almost thirty,” I called when they both came up and continued to grapple in the shallow water.
“Who’s almost thirty?” Nico squawked as Ranieri caught him in a headlock.
I opened my mouth to shoot back some snarky remark, but before I could my eyes were drawn to the dark shape coming down from the house.
It was one of the men Amante Sr. had sent with us and he had a phone to his ear.
