He was irritable and swatted Dustin’s hand away when he tried to grip his shoulder. “Don’t touch me.”
“You can touch me,” Emma said to her mate, waggling her eyebrows from where she sat in an eye-scorching purple bag chair Dustin had probably bought just to burn Beast’s retinas out.
When Dustin leaned over her and started loudly sucking her neck, Beast hated everything. He checked the ribs, slathered on another layer of barbecue sauce, then closed the lid to the grill.
“Why the fuck is that ugly RV sitting here?” Beast asked grumpily. “This place was actually looking decent.”
“You have a neon orange No Trespassing sign on your fence,” Logan said in a judgmental voice.
Failing to see his point, Beast stopped chugging his beer and growled, “So?”
“So you might as well put some pink flamingos in the yard, too. Plus, you have a dick trophy in your window!” Logan’s eyes were blazing silver. Fine with Beast, he could use a fight, and Logan’s bear was a good match for his lion.
“Dude, chill,” Dustin murmured. “She’ll be here.”
“What?” Beast wanted to clip his legs out from under him for assuming he knew his mind. The wolf had gotten it right, but still. “I don’t care about her.”
Kane lifted the grill lid and said blandly, “Lie. Big lie. It wasn’t even close to the truth.”
“You know,” Dustin said, “when I’m super grumpy, Emma gives me a hand job, and all is right with the world again.”
“It’s true,” Emma said. “Maybe you need to get laid, Beast.” Smartass was smiling like she was hilarious.
The high five Dustin gave Emma made Beast want to rip his sweater down the middle and roar until everyone stopped talking. He needed moonshine to get through tonight, not beer, but alas, Dustin had gone in and stolen his whole fucking stash and left him with only empty mason jars.
He would need to go to the shooting range again soon and blow off steam. He was going to draw Dustin’s face on his target. Logan’s, too.
“The RV is for Kiera,” Kane said from beside Beast.
Beast stopped pulling the ribs off the grill and stared dumbfounded at the alpha. “She’s staying here? In the park?” He gauged the distance between his trailer and her RV. “Just fifty yards from my den?”
“Well,” Kane drawled out, “she’s putting off an answer, and I don’t have a good feeling since she didn’t show tonight. I thought if she saw it, she would be more likely to say yes.”
“Oh, she’s showing,” Dustin said confidently.
“How do you know?” Beast asked.
“Because I stole all her clothes, her bras, shampoo, and make-up, and left a note that said if she wants them back, she needs to make like a cow and moooove her ass on over to Kane’s Mountains tonight. Told her I’d burn her shit if she stood you up.” Dustin smiled brightly at Beast. “Because friends do stuff like this for each other. I’ll actually burn them, too. I wasn’t bluffing.”
Emma snuggled up to the kleptomaniac like he was cute. Beast was totally without words. A sharp headache was forming right behind his eyes, and he pinched the bridge of his nose to relieve it.
The soft hum of an engine sounded, and everyone straightened up immediately. Everyone except Emma, who couldn’t hear well in her human form and was looking around with confusion in her big green eyes.
Beast hurried to remove the rest of the food from the grill, set it on the long wooden buffet table Kane had bought for the park, bolted for the switch for the outdoor lights, flipped them on to immerse the sprawling covered gazebo in sparkling illumination, and then ran his hand over his short hair a few times…like that would do anything. Fuck, maybe he should change his shirt. He was wearing white today and had a barbecue stain on the hip. Frantically, he scrubbed at it with a napkin. He glanced up, got a flash of the D-Team staring at him, scrubbed some more, then slowed and stopped. He looked back up at the crew. They were all frozen, their eyes trained on him like he’d morphed into a four-headed octopus.
“What?” he asked, too loud. The question echoed through the trailer park.
“Did you just primp?” Logan asked.
Heat flared into his cheeks like he was a damn prepubescent teenage girl at a boy-band concert. Hell and balls. “No. Everyone shut up.”
Looking totally mushy, Winter stood and meandered to him, then hugged him as if he’d invited her to do so. “You look great, Beast.”
“No touching.”
When Dustin made his stupid sign for how much he loved him again, Beast wanted to kick everything.
For a moment he thought he was going to have to pry the weepy little barnacle off of him, but thankfully Winter unhanded him before Kiera drove under the Blackwing Mobile Park sign. Friggin’ D-Team.
He cast the RV one more look and quickly tried to process his feelings about her living so close. He waited for the lion to revolt, but the snarly horn-ball thought it was a great idea. Pussy every night, his inner lion cheered. Fantastic. He should put himself into a cage now.
Beast gave his attention to Kiera’s headlights and picked up the present he’d gotten her. As he walked by, Dustin tried to hug him like Winter had, but Beast swatted his hands away. “Don’t ruin this,” he snarled at the D-Team, cast them a last fiery glare, then strode to meet Kiera.
Down to his bones, Beast knew there was a 100% chance those idiots would absolutely chase her away.