"I missed you," she says into my shoulder.
"I missed you too."
The door chimes and Noah bursts in with Jonah right behind him. Noah makes a beeline for us and throws his arms around both me and Jess.
"Group hug!" he announces unnecessarily.
I laugh into the tangle of arms and hair.
When we finally pull apart, I notice Jonah and Alex shaking hands. Jonah's expression is cautious but polite. Alex is his usual calm self.
"We'll give you some space," Alex says, nodding toward a table across the room. "Take your time."
Jonah follows him without protest.
The three of us settle at our table. A server appears almost immediately and I order a salad and a cocktail. The cocktail feels daring. Normal. Like something a person does when they're having lunch with friends.
"Okay," Jess says the second the server leaves. "Spill. What happened?"
I give them the condensed version about heat and scent matches. Leaving Ragon's pack and staying with Alex and his pack while everything gets sorted out.
Noah's eyes go wide. "Your scent matches? Like,actualscent matches?"
"Yeah."
"That's amazing!" He grabs my hand across the table. "Vee, that's incredible!"
"It's complicated," I say.
"Yeah, but still." Jess leans back in her chair. "Scent matches are rare." She glances across the room at Alex. "Not to be superficial, but holy shit, Vee. He's a hunk."
My face heats. "Jess."
"What? I have eyes." She grins. "Are the others also hunks?"
"There's four of them right?" Noah asks dreamily. "Four hunks. Vee, you're living the dream. I mean, I am too, my guys are also hunks, but I can be happy for you too!"
"One of them is a beta," I say.
Noah waves a hand. "Betas can be hunks too. Equal opportunity hunks."
I think about Rhys, who is currently at the cabin, enormous and scarred and probably staring at the door waiting for me to come back through it, and decide this particular conversation topic has enough complexity to save for another day.
"Rhys though," I say. "He's—a lot to explain."
Noah's eyes light up.
"Later," I say firmly.
The food arrives and we fall into easy conversation.
"So I finally quit that awful call center job," Jess says, spearing a cherry tomato with her fork. "I'm at Bookmark now—you know, that indie place on Maple? The owner lets me read during slow shifts."
"She's already reorganized their entire romance section," Noah adds.
"Someone had to! They had historical and paranormal all mixed together. It was chaos."
I laugh. "You should meet Finn, he color-codes the refrigerator. Even the leftovers have to go in specific containers."
