“You missed me?”
His grin widened, and his cheeks turned a rosy color.
“Oh my gosh, are you blushing?” she asked.
Ryder made an offended sound in his throat. “Aaron, hold on tighter! Don’t let go of your man card.”
Aaron shook his head and bit his bottom lip as his cheeks turned redder. And now the butterflies in her stomach turned to falcons as her own cheeks heated with pleasure. Big, burly tatted-up, feral shifter, and Aaron Keller was blushing for her?
“Next one,” Weston said.
Aaron squeezed Alana’s ass firmly, gave her a wink, and made his way to a pair of dark green shutters that were lying in the grass near 1010. When movement caught her eye, Alana looked up to see Wyatt pacing the road by the gate. His voice echoed through the clearing as he called, “Anything yet?”
“No, Wyatt!” Ryder yelled. “Queen Sky Lizard hasn’t called us, and if she wanted you to know where she was, she would’ve sent you a memo.” Ryder stretched his fingers for a small blue cooler that was just out of his reach and grunted. “Alana,” he whined.
“Are you serious?” she asked, highly amused as he wiggled on his stomach closer to the edge of the white lounge chair.
“I’ll be your best friend.”
“Sorry, man,” Aaron said, holding up another shutter for Weston to screw in on the other side of the front window. “Her best friend card is full.”
“Second best friend,” Ryder amended. He reached half-heartedly again, wiggling his fingers pathetically. “Please,” he rasped.
“Helpless man,” she said through a giggle as she pulled a drink out of the cooler. “A canned margarita? Really?” Whose man card was in danger now?
“And that straw.” Ryder pointed to a green swirly straw resting inside the cooler.
Alana shook her head, opened his margarita, and shoved the straw in, and all the while she lectured him. “Ryder, if you’re trying to tan your pasty skin, maybe don’t do it when it’s forty degrees and cloudy.”
He slurped out of the can and sighed like he’d been parched. “I saved a seat for you.”
“Where?”
He moved his foot over a few inches. “Just there. On the corner. Second best friends only.”
“Don’t touch me with your feet.”
He smiled sweetly around the swirly straw. With his freckles and muscles and bright red hair, she imagined he got whatever he wanted from the ladies. Usually men like him annoyed her, but Ryder was funny, so she pulled out a margarita of her own, shook the ice off the top lip, and sat on the corner of his lounger.
“We can share the straw if you want?” Ryder offered.
“Ew, no.” She swatted his legs to make more room because her ass needed more than the four inches of space he’d made for her.
“Anything?” Wyatt asked from the gate.
Ryder thrashed around dramatically and pushed his torso off the lounger. “No, Wyatt! Harper’s a fucking fire-breathing dragon, and she doesn’t need to be coddled! She’s probably in town getting you a two-month anniversary present or something else equally disgusting.”
Wyatt went quiet, and Ryder settled back to slurp on his straw.
“Our two-month anniversary was last Friday,” Wyatt called.
Ryder’s eyes went dead. “I’m gonna kill him.”
Aaron tossed Alana a grin over his shoulder as though he was as amused as she was.
When he let go of the shutter, it held. Wiping his dusty hands on his pants, he made his way to the back of a jacked-up truck with the tailgate down. There were piles of supplies inside, including yet another pair of green shutters. They didn’t really go with the rustic cabin, though.
“What are you guys doing?” she asked.
“This is what it looks like when shifters go insane,” Ryder explained.
“Not insane, just superstitious,” Aaron murmured, pulling old rusty screws from the cheap plastic.
“When Weston had his first dream about you, he called home and asked for the shutters of an old trailer that got passed around the crews when we were growing up. And if that isn’t crazy enough, we had to stop by the feed store in town to buy this.” Ryder reached behind the lounger and picked up a small plastic cage filled with wood chips. Inside was a little black and white mouse dragging a giant nutsack.
Alana startled and moved to the edge of the seat when Ryder shoved the cage closer to her. “Are you going to eat him?” she cried.
“What? Why would I eat him?” Ryder asked. Realization spread across his face so fast his ears moved back. “Oh, because I’m an owl shifter?” He shook his head like he’d never been so disappointed in all his life. “I eat steak, Alana. Cooked steak.” He shoved the mouse cage in her lap and plopped down. “My own second best friend…”
“I apologize for him,” Weston said. “He was raised by animals.”
Alana laughed and relaxed back onto the seat to better see the little mouse that was eating a pile of seeds in the cage. If she ignored the giant nards, he was pretty dang cute with his little pink ears and teeny tiny whiskers. “What’s his name?”
“Sammy Scrotum.”
“Dammit, Ryder,” Weston growled from around the screws in his mouth. “I told you we aren’t naming him Sammy Scrotum.”
“Fine. Swampnuggets. Timmy Testes. Gary Gonads. Double Truffles. I mean come on, Weston, the little guy has an awesome set of ’em. It’s like dragging a damn trophy everywhere he goes, and you’re going to deprive him of a warrior’s name?”