A couple of kids stared openly at him before deciding he seemed safe enough to interrogate about human things.
“You play Shadowfall: Requiem?” one of the kids asked seriously.
Seth blinked. “Moderately.”
The kid looked deeply impressed. Meanwhile, my family watched the whole thing unfold with expressions ranging from delighted to outright entertained. Traitors.
I ended up beside the grill at one point while Seth sat at a picnic table talking to Zack and Jaime like he’d known them for years.
“That’s going suspiciously well,” Chris remarked beside me.
I grunted.
“You worried he’d hate us?” Chris asked.
“No,” I said.
“You’re making the face.”
“I don’t have a face,” I pointed out.
“You absolutely have a face.”
I ignored him. Across the clearing, Seth laughed again at something Jaime said. Zack leaned over to tell him something quieter, and Seth smiled warmly in response.
My wolf puffed up proudly. Even my mom had adopted Seth almost immediately.
I’d caught her earlier asking him questions about the café while pressing extra food onto his plate like she was trying to carb-load him for no apparent reason.
Seth, annoyingly, handled it perfectly. He was polite without being stiff, funny without trying too hard. He was genuinely interested in people when they talked.
Watching him with everyone should’ve made me feel relieved. Instead, something uncomfortable flickered under my ribs.
It wasn’t anger or jealousy, but something stranger.
Because Seth fit here too easily. Pack members gravitated toward him naturally. He made people comfortable, and he could even make them laugh.
He could probably walk into any room and end up belonging there within an hour. The thought landed badly. Why would someone like that stay with me?
On the heels of that thought came another. Seth wasn’t really with me. We were just pretend dates. I frowned slightly at the grill.
“That’s a concerning expression,” Mark said, appearing beside me with a drink.
“I’m thinking.”
“That explains it,” Mark said.
“Go away.”
Mark leaned against the table instead. “Mom likes him.”
“I noticed,” I replied.
“She already asked me if you two are serious,” Mark pointed out casually.
I nearly dropped the spatula. “What?”
“She used the phrase ‘promising energy.’”
