The kitchen smelled of beef stew and fresh bread. Ren was the last to enter, his hair still damp from the shower and Brody’s t-shirt covering him down to mid-thigh. Brody was already seated at the head of the table, with Zev to his left scrolling through something on his tablet and Rocco on the other side serving himself an obscene amount of bread.
Ren sat down next to Brody. Their knees brushed under the table, and the contact sent a small, warm jolt down his leg.
Jax was the last to show up. He was coming from the gym, with a towel around his neck and a smile that Ren recognized as a prelude to disaster.
He sat down across from Ren. He served himself some stew. He chewed a piece of bread. He looked at him.
“Well.”
“No.”
“I haven’t even said anything.”
“You don’t have to. I know that look.”
Jax raised his hands in surrender, but the smile didn’t budge a millimeter from his mouth. Next to him, Rocco set his fork down on his plate with a soft clink and turned to Brody.
“Congratulations, boss.”
He said it casually. Without ceremony. Like someone congratulating someone else for fixing a leak. But Ren saw something genuine in his dark eyes, something he hadn’t seen before in Rocco, whose usual expression oscillated between professional indifference and sharp irony.
Brody nodded.
“Thanks.”
Zev didn’t look up from his tablet. His fingers paused over the screen for a moment, just a moment, and then he said without looking at anyone:
“I’ve calculated the probability of conception during a first shared heat between fated mates without suppressants or contraceptives.”
Silence at the table.
“Ninety-four percent.”
Ren closed his eyes.
“Thanks, Zev. Very helpful.”
“You’re welcome.”
Brody exhaled through his nose. Not exactly a laugh, but almost. Zev kept typing as if he had said nothing out of the ordinary, and perhaps to him it wasn’t. Ren was understanding that Zev’s brain processed information from the world as pure data, without the filter of social awkwardness.
Rocco passed the bread to Ren.
“Eat. Now you have to feed two.”
Ren took a piece and broke it between his fingers. The crumbs fell onto his plate. He felt the heat rising up his neck and into his ears. He wasn’t used to this. His life had been characterized by negative attention, so he didn’t seek it out.
“Congratulations, Ren.”
Rocco said it, looking him straight in the eye, and Ren felt something tighten in his throat. He nodded. The words wouldn’t come.
Jax chewed with the patience of a predator waiting for his turn. Ren could see it. He could see how the alpha held back whatever was churning inside him with the discipline of someone who trains his body to know exactly when to strike.
The blow came between the second and third bites of stew.
“You know what the best part of all this is?”
No one answered. No one needed to.
