Page 106 of Pin My Alpha
“I’m being easy,” Jude says, while nearly climbing Shay.
Benji steps in next. He hugs Shay hard, quick, one hand at the back of his neck. Then he turns those sharp eyes on me.
“Don’t fuck this up,” he says.
“I won’t.”
He studies me for a beat, like he’s deciding whether I’m lying.
Then Knox reaches over and claps my shoulder, firm and quiet. “You won’t.”
It shouldn’t matter that much. It does.
Milo comes toward us with that soft, open look of his, Callum standing behind him like a broad wall with a gentle face. “I’m really happy for you,” Milo says to Shay.
Shay’s jaw works once. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Milo smiles. “You deserve somewhere that feels safe.”
Shay looks away fast. “You’re all being disgusting.”
“Deal with it,” Callum says.
Soren hugs Shay next, careful around the mark on his neck even though it’s healed enough now that my thumb has found it a hundred times in my sleep. “I knew you’d figure it out,” he says.
Shay’s expression goes fond in that way he pretends he doesn’t have. “That’s optimistic of you.”
“I’m optimistic. It’s my whole thing.”
“Your whole thing is crying over bird videos.”
“That too.”
“Hey.” Shay catches his sleeve before he can drift toward the stairs. “The apartment’s yours now. Officially. My name comes off the lease next month.”
Soren blinks at him. “You’re really moving out.”
“I’m really moving out.” Something shifts in Shay’s face at how easily Soren takes it—light, unbothered, like he didn’t just become the last one left in an apartment that used to be so loud the neighbors filed complaints. “Sunday dinners,” Shay says. “Every week. I’m putting it in the group chat. Attendance is mandatory.”
“You hate mandatory.”
“I hate empty apartments more.”
Soren’s eyes go shiny, and he ducks his head before anyone can call him on it. “Okay,” he says, soft. “Sunday dinners.”
The hallway dissolves into noise after that. Jude demands to see the contract. Benji says nobody needs to read a legal document in a hallway. Jude says he wants to make sure Shaygot a good deal. Shay tells him he got fifty percent of a bar and a forty-year-old alpha with a terrible sleep schedule.
“I’m thirty-five,” I say.
“Basically forty,” Jude says.
“Jude,” Rhys says.
“What? It’s math.”
“It isn’t.”
It takes another few minutes to get out the door because Shay’s friends apparently need to inspect our faces for signs of emotional damage, but finally Shay has his bag slung over his shoulder and the signed agreement tucked under his arm.
