Pack, page 26
part #3 of Five Fangs Series
"Nice," we all agreed.
"Now we're down to Cole and Ash." I looked from one to the other. "I can give you ideas, or do you have your own?"
"Well, I was looking on Pinterest," Ash started - and that's all he had to say to get the yapping started again.
"Pinterest?" Cole guffawed. "I didn't know there was an old lady hiding inside your giant body."
"I'm not going to lower myself to your level of ignorance. You'd just beat me down with your years of experience."
"Let me guess. You found that shitty comeback on Pinterest," Cole sneered.
"Enough!" Mason barked. "Pay your fine and quit teasing, Cole! Where were you thinking of taking our girl, Ash?"
"On Pinterest," he emphasized with a glare at Cole, "I saw a Choose Your Own Adventure date, but I'm going to modify it a bit. I'm going to write some ideas on cards and let her choose which one to do first, then next, and so on. I could do the same with dinner: Write a bunch of restaurants on a different color of cards and let her draw one from the hat. What do you think?"
"I think she will really get excited about that," Jay told him with a broad grin. "As long as you give her good choices, it's going to be a lot of fun."
"What activities did you have in mind?" Mase asked him.
"Mini golf, old-school arcade, Bounce, roller skating, ice skating, bowling. Stuff like that." He shrugged.
Mostly physical, wear-you-out stuff, Dove said, amused.
Are you surprised that Mr. ADHD came up with that list? I replied, then giggled. I don't think she's going to have the energy for things to become 'heated' later.
"I'll help you make the cards," Jay said, which gave me a sense of relief. He'd make sure there were some low-key activities, too.
"Sweet! Thanks!" Ash fist-bumped him.
"Maybe add a nap in the park as one," Mase suggested, obviously on my wavelength. "She might get worn out if you're running from one thing to the next all day."
"Good idea."
"And for Tuesday?" I asked him. "More of the same?"
"Nope! I already linked Spero Bel Aire about taking her horseback riding, and his daughter's going to get us all set up at their farm for a beginner lesson and a short trail ride. Then we'll grab lunch from wherever she wants and come home because she'll want to shower after being on a horse."
"Where are you sleeping on Monday night?" Wyatt asked.
"Oh, I forgot. The guest house at Bel Aire's. Think she'll like that? We should get an awesome view of the stars if the weather's nice."
"She'll love it," Cole said. "It's a pretty little place. Find a stargazing app on your phone, though, so you can at least sound intelligent about the constellations."
"Sound intelligent? I am intelligent."
"Keep telling yourself that," Cole muttered.
"So what did you come up with, big brother?" I asked to prevent another war of the words. "After you pick her up at the alpha house, where are you taking her?"
"To the cabin," he declared. "There's a ton of stuff to do. Canoeing, swimming, hiking, fishing, whatever makes her happy. I just need to figure out dinner. Then we'll eat lunch and come home to clean up and get ready to go to the fair with you guys."
"I think the cabin's a great idea, especially after Ash's busy date," Mase told him. "It'll give her a chance to relax before we hit the fair, too."
"Keep dinner simple, like the rest of your date," Wyatt suggested. "Roast hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire pit."
Looking at each other from the corner of our eyes, Mase and I began to count down.
Five, four, three, two—
"Of course, after putting up with your craptastic personality all day, she'll probably want to roast you over the fire pit."
And Cole's hot temper, all ready on edge after today's events, sparked.
"I swear, if you don't shut your mouth, the next thing coming out of it will be teeth!"
And as usual, Wyatt didn't get the hint that Cole was done playing.
"Chill, dude! What, are you manstruating? Sheesh. Next time Posy wants to give you a nickname, just tell her to call you Oscar, you old grouchy butt."
With a roar, Cole leaped over the table and launched himself at Wyatt, smashing the chair to splinters as they both crashed to the floor.
Thank the Goddess I only spent three dollars per chair at the thrift shop.
"They never change, do they?" I smirked at Jay as Mason dove in to break them up and Ash laughed so hard, he fell on the floor.
"I have to live with this." He closed his eyes and scrubbed his hands over his face. "All day, every day. For the rest of my life."
"They're not this bad around Posy, are they?" I asked, suddenly concerned.
I couldn't see my sweet friend liking the fact that her mates wrecked each other on the regular, and I doubted she'd see their guy banter as playing.
Well, I admitted, it's 'playing' right up until it turns into WrestleMania in the middle of the dining room.
Jay dropped his hands in time to dodge as a tooth did, indeed, go flying past his face.
"Dammit, Wyatt!" Cole roared. "That was a canine! It'll take all night to grow back!"
"It helps that Posy's like a tranquilizer for us," Jay answered me without missing a beat. "The fact that she's, one, not here and, two, mad at them is fraying their tempers. Not to mention how mad they are at themselves right now. They're spoiling for a fight, even Mr. Ice."
He's not really Mr. Ice, though, is he? He just pretends to be.
I kept the thought to myself. Jay was as aware as I was of how much Mase hid under his mask, and saying something wouldn't help anyone right now.
"And Quartz is, too, isn't he?" I asked gently.
"Yeah, but I can't risk giving him control."
"What if you stayed in human form and went to the gym so he could take out some anger on a punching bag or two?" I suggested.
"I don't know if I could keep him from shifting, and if he gets out in wolf form while he's this angry, someone will die - probably several someones - and I'm not chancing that."
Poor Jay. He's always stuck between a rock and a hard place.
"Can I ask you something without him hearing?" After he nodded, I asked, "Would you trade him? If you could, would you swap him for a different wolf?"
His eyes went far away, and he was quiet as Mase got Cole and Wyatt separated. I didn't think he was going to answer, but as our brothers cleaned up the broken chair and Ash picked himself up off the floor, Jay looked at me and smiled brightly.
"Six years ago, I would have said yes in a second. Now? No. I respect Quartz, and I admire him. He has a lot of good qualities that other shifters would never notice, let alone acknowledge. A softer, less mature wolf would have gotten me killed or walked all over, although it took me a long time to recognize that, and even longer to appreciate it. I needed my opposite in a wolf as much as he needed his opposite in a human. I wouldn't trade him for any other wolf, even if he is a pain in the ass more often than not."
"Aww." I went over and hugged him tightly. "You're a good man, Jay Carson. And that's two dollars in the swear jar, please."
He hugged me back while chuckling.
Meanwhile, Mase brought another wooden chair in from the kitchen and pushed a smirking Wyatt in it, sat a sullen Cole down between me and Jay, and took the seat next to Wyatt.
"Now that our dates are sorted, let's do the apology cards," he said, his normally unperturbed expression now perturbed. "If you're still willing to help us, Peri.
"Of course!" I chirped brightly and stopped hugging Jay. "Would you come with me to carry the supplies down? We can work here at the dining room table."
There weren't many furnishings in the rest of the house, other than our bedroom, and that's only because Mom and Dad gifted us with a whole bedroom suite as a mating gift.
Mase agreed and followed me up the stairs. As we headed toward what would become my craft room, he touched my shoulder and I stopped walking to look up at him.
"We'd buy you anything you wanted or needed, yet your new house is nearly bare," he said softly. "Is it your pride or Ty's standing in the way?"
"Neither. We want to furnish it in our own time with our own money." Seeing him scowl, I patted his cheek. "We're not being rude or proud, but we don't want any handouts. We have a plan for our future and we want to build it with our own hands. Ty has a good-paying job and I'm going to start waitressing at Roger's in the afternoons once school starts."
He opened his mouth, and I knew he was going to protest that, but I laid my fingers over his lips.
"Mase, you of all people understand the need to stand on your own two feet," I told him. "Plus, it will give me something to do while he's at football practice so I'm not home alone and can't get roped into free babysitting for Mom."
He smiled at that for a second, but a frown wiped it away pretty fast.
"You have enough food and toiletries and stuff, though, right? I swear, Peri, if you hide something like that from us, we will be so angry with you. And this state of affairs isn't going to continue for long. I'm going to make it my mission to grow Ty's investment portfolio exponentially, since you won't take any help from us."
"We have plenty of everything we need. Mama and Papa gave each of us money for our birthdays, and your mate also offered us any amount we needed to set up house. We told her we'd let her know and now I'm telling you the same. If we get in trouble, we'll tell you, but we're happy and taken care of, Mase. I promise you."
I could see he was surprised to know Posy had offered us money, but he shouldn't have been. She was the sweetest, most generous and practical person I'd ever met.
The perfect mate for our brothers, Dove chortled with glee. Especially now that she's not afraid to put them in their place!
Agreed, I grinned.
30: Crafting with My Bros
Peri
Mason and I carried down all the card-making supplies I had and spread them out on the table. I showed the boys the different papers they could use, and Wyatt immediately grabbed the watercolor paper and asked if I had the paints, too. Fortunately, I did, and I passed them over to him with the few brushes I had.
"Will they work?" I asked hopefully, knowing how fussy he was about his art supplies.
"Yes, these will be fine. I'm going to get water and some paper towels."
And he was off to the kitchen.
"Don't use my good glasses!" I called. "Grab the mismatched coffee mugs. They're only fifty cents at the thrift store!"
"Thrift store?" Ash's head whipped up and his eyes narrowed at me. "Why are you shopping at a thrift store?"
"Don't, Ash," I said softly. "Leave it for now. Please? There's been enough drama for today. Plus, I have Ty in my ear snarling about how his luna is crying because she's worried that her mates won't ever come home since she was mean to them."
"She's crying?" His dark eyes filled up with tears.
"She really thinks we won't come home?" Mase's mouth pulled into a taut line.
"She thought that was being mean to us?" Wyatt shook his head with a frown. "We deserved a lot more."
"Let's get these cards done so you can go home and begin to make up with her," I said with forced enthusiasm.
"You're going to have to walk us through it," Cole said.
"No problem! First, think of a design for the front."
I explained some different things they could do and showed them a couple of cards I'd made for our younger brothers' upcoming birthdays, just so they could see the finished product.
"That's the easy part," I warned them. "The hard part is deciding what you'll write on the inside."
"Okay, so what do you say in an apology?" Ash asked with dead serious eyes.
"Um, what?" I tilted my head. Was he really asking me how to apologize?
"What do you put in an apology?" Wyatt spoke up this time. "Like, specifically?"
"Well, first, say what you're sorry for and ask for forgiveness. Add some love words and promises, and that's it."
While Jay - who didn't even need to make a sorry card - went right to work, the other four sat there and stared at me.
"Uh, can you get us started?" Cole asked, tapping a pencil on a piece of scrap paper. "An outline or something?"
"Dear Posy," I said in a 'I've had it' monotone, "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. Please forgive me. I'll try my best not to do it again, but since I'm a dumbass, I probably will. Have patience with me. I'm almost sure I'm worth it. Love, your name."
They'd been nodding along with me until I hit the 'dumbass' part, then their earnest faces screwed up into scowls.
"Thanks, sister," Wyatt grumbled. "Two dollars in the swear jar."
"You're welcome, brother, and it's worth it."
It took a good thirty minutes before they all had drafted what they wanted on scrap paper before copying it inside their cards. Since I figured it would be the hardest part for them, I wanted that done before I let them decorate the front, which should be simple with all the stickers I had.
And if they screwed up the front too badly, we could always cut their words out and paste them inside a new card, but I knew if they had to keep redoing the words inside because the front turned out bad, their patience wouldn't hold.
"Peri, read this," Cole said and held out his piece of scrap paper.
I took it and looked it over, corrected the spelling on two words, and handed it back.
"Very good," I told him, and he smiled at me before he began copying it into his card.
I can't believe how well this is going, Dove remarked, eyes wide with amazement. I thought for sure there'd be chaos—
"Dammit, Ash!" Wyatt shouted as he jumped up and whaled his card at his brother. "I was almost done!"
"What did I do?" Ash's eyes were wide with bewilderment.
"You bumped the damn table with your freaking knee right as I was filling in the last leaf! You ruined it, shit head!"
"Hey, dude, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, honest!" Ash picked up Wyatt's card and looked at it. "I mean, you could paint over it or something, right?"
"No, I can't paint over it! This shit is watercolors!"
"Language!" Mase snapped and pointed to the swear jar.
"Take a breath and start again, Wyatt." Jay calmly plucked Wyatt's out of Ash's hand and looked it over. "It's a beautiful design and I know you want it to be perfect for our girl, so take your time. We'll be careful not to bump the table anymore, right, brothers?"
"Right," they all said.
"Don't read what I wrote inside." Wyatt lunged across the table, grabbed the card from Jay, and tore it up into little pieces. "Peri, can I have another piece of watercolor paper?"
"You bet."
I handed it to him and he immediately started again, his head bent and all his concentration on his painting.
He was always so cute when he did his artwork.
Looking over at the others, I saw Cole and Mason were making the most of my sticker collection, and Jay had picked a piece of paper that was its own design, making it easy for him. Ash, on the other hand—
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Using this shiny shiiii— Um, stuff to decorate my card. Why?"
"Honey bunny, you have to use glue with glitter. Just dumping glitter on paper won't make it stick."
"Oh. Okay. You got glue?"
"Of course." I handed him a tube of liquid paste and a stick of solid. "Pick your poison."
He grabbed the liquid paste and began squirting it on top of the glitter pile he'd made on his card.
"Whoa! Stop that!" I jumped up and tore the glue tube out of his hand.
"What? You said you needed to use glue with it."
"You put the glue first in the shape you want, then sprinkle - not dump - the glitter on the glue. That way you don't waste the whole container of glitter. When the glue dries, you shake the extra glitter off," I explained, not understanding how he thought what he did was going to work.
"Well, what am I supposed to do with this mess?"
"Take a deep breath and start again," Wyatt mocked, not looking up from his work.
Ash gave him the bird, but he was too focused on his art to notice.
Looking in my paper pile for another piece of what Ash had picked out, I asked him to take his card over to the trash can.
"Ash, I'm done with my card," Jay said. "I'll get this for you so you can work on yours."
"Thanks, bro. I owe you one."
I watched as Jay carefully picked up the card, folded it so the glitter was more securely contained, and slowly began his trek around the table to get to the garbage can.
Maybe I should get him to bring the can over here rather than carry the card over there—
I didn't get any further with the thought before Mase turned his head and sneezed right as Jay walked by him.
"Oh. My. God. Dess." Ash whispered in amazement as glitter flew up in a cloud, then shrieked, "Do it again! Glitter bomb! Do it again! Again!"
"Uh-oh." Cole realized the true problem before the rest of us. "Duck and cover, everyone."
"AAAAHHH!"
Wyatt's angry scream made me cringe and cover my ears, especially as it went on and on. My eyes went right to his card and saw the issue. While the worst of the glitter had splattered up the front of Jay's t-shirt or hit the floor, the line of wet glue landed like a sparkly snake right across Wyatt's perfectly painted pansies.
"You bastards are doing it on purpose now! The flowers were just dry enough for me to start adding the fine details! Now I have to re-write that damn letter for the third time!"
"It was an accident, I swear," Jay told him.
"It was my fault," Mase said at the same time.
Wyatt clearly wasn't listening to either of them. As he stood with clenched fists and steam billowing from his nose and ears, I left to fetch the vacuum from the hall closet. Some might call it cowardice, but I wasn't getting paid to risk my life to calm that monster down.
I wasn't getting paid, period, and not only was I providing all the supplies and intelligence for this project, I now had an almighty mess to clean up. So I took my sweet time to get there, grab the thing, and tow it back.
Good thing Ty talked us into waiting to get a new area rug for under the table, Dove murmured, and I nodded in agreement.
