Page 24 of Help Wanted, Vampires Inquire Within
“Oh, is it cake?” Mason asked. “If it’s cake, you have to share.”
“You can have whatever I don’t eat,” Skyler said, pretending to shield the box with her body.
“Then I guess I get nothing,” Mason retorted. “For someone so small, you can eat a lot of cake!”
She laughed. “Don’t be jealous.”
“It’s not cake, exactly,” Jack said.
Obviously intrigued, Skyler opened the box to reveal some of the fanciest pastries Mason had ever seen. One of them even looked like a real peach!
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Skyler breathed, leaning her face in close to examine the small works of food art.
“Gail said you’d love them,” Jack said. “She and Miller drove all the way up to LA and back today to get them for you.”
“Gail and Miller?” Skyler asked. Before Jack could answer, motion outside drew Mason’s attention. He looked over Jack’s head to see a dozen people peering in through Joy’s front windows. They were all watching the three of them with intense expressions. At first, Mason was deeply disturbed, but then he recognized several faces from the previous night.
This was the Clover Pack. Or at least a good portion of it.
Jack sighed ruefully when he followed Mason’s gaze. “I told them I could do this on my own. Being able to parallel park a car is not indicative of my dating skills!”
“Maybe there's a correlation between parking and dating that none of us are aware of yet,” Skyler commented, deadpan. “We might need to study it.”
After a brief silence, both he and Jack burst into laughter.
It was a very good sign that Skyler was making jokes.
“You guys might need these,” Rissa said, stopping by their table and dropping several forks and napkins next to the empty bags. She hurried away and rushed behind the bar to whisper to Zan. Both of them were beaming at the trio. It seemed everyone was Team Menage!
At Jack’s urging, they sat down and tried bites of each pastry. Mason liked the purple plum flavored miniature cake the best. Skyler was enthusiastic about all of them.
By the time they’d tried half the sweets, all the wolves who’d been watching from the outside had made their way inside and were taking up half the space in the small bar. A few ordered drinks but most of them were whispering to each other and trying not to be too obvious about watching them.
Mason sighed. He was well aware of how packs worked. He considered himself a friend to the Lobos Gris Pack. This type of intrusive behavior was common.
If this worked out, he was going to have to learn to live with a pack.
Skyler didn’t seem to mind. “Do you think we should share with the Clover Pack?” she asked, nibbling a chocolate square she’d plucked from the top of one of the pastries.
“No!”
Skyler jumped at the exclamation, and Mason glared at the wolf who shouted.
“Remy!” Jack admonished. “I can’t stop you from being here, but keep your damn voice down.”
The wolf gave Jack a sheepish look. “Sorry, but Gail was adamant that no one was allowed to touch those pastries except Mason and Skyler.”
“Yeah!” another wolf said. She was a tall woman, with light brown hair and fierce, dark brown eyes. “I had to put up with country music for half the drive. I’m not making that kind of sacrifice for anyone else but Jack’s flock.”
She glared at a wolf sitting at the next table. “You have horrible taste in music.”
She had to be Gail and the male she was annoyed with had to be Miller.
Miller shrugged, unconcerned with Gail’s ire. “Driver gets to pick the tunes. If you didn’t want country, you should’ve asked Jonas or Kayla to share driving duties.”
“Like Kayla’s choices are any better,” someone else grumbled. That led to most of the pack getting involved in a heated discussion about music genres. Mason looked at Skyler, worried that she’d be overwhelmed by this very typical pack interaction.
To his surprise, she looked amused.
