Page 104 of Pin My Alpha
Shay’s mouth twitches against mine.
“Don’t,” he says, raising his voice.
“Great,” Benji says from somewhere beyond the door. “They’re alive. Tragically.”
“I heard that,” Shay calls.
“You were meant to.”
I laugh, and it comes out rough enough that Shay looks at me like he’s caught me doing something embarrassing.
Which he has.
I haven’t laughed much this week. Not properly. Not without forcing it out for a regular or tossing something dry at Tessa because that’s what I’m supposed to do. The sound of it surprises me, warm and unfamiliar in my own throat.
Shay’s eyes soften.
Then he looks down at the partnership agreement sitting crooked on the coffee table, and his face goes serious again. Not scared. Not shutting down.
Deciding.
“Do you have a pen?” he asks.
I blink. “Yeah.”
“Good. Get it.”
His friends go quiet outside the door. I can practically hear Jude vibrating with the need to burst in and witness something. Benji’s probably holding him back by the collar. Milo is definitely smiling into somebody’s shoulder. Soren is trying not to listen and failing because there’s no way anyone is not listening right now.
I reach into my back pocket and pull out the pen I brought, because apparently some part of me planned for this even while the rest of me expected to walk out of this apartment with a folder still unsigned and my guts hanging out.
Shay takes it.
He doesn’t rush. He flips to the signature page, scans it once more, then presses the pen to the line beside his name.
Shay Thompson.
His handwriting is clean and sharp. Of course it is. Even his signature looks like it would correct your posture.
He hands me the pen.
“Well?” he says. “You gonna make this official, or are you just here to haunt my bedroom smelling like an expensive lumber aisle?”
My throat closes up.
“Smartass.”
“Emotionally compromised smartass. There’s a difference.”
“There is.”
I sign beside him.
Declan Byrne.
The ink is barely dry before Shay catches the front of my Henley and pulls me into another kiss.
This one isn’t desperate. It isn’t wet with panic or grief or the two of us trying to claw our way back from a place neither of us should’ve let things go.
