Chapter 12

Thomas

Denying Lily was just as hard on me. I knew my mate wanted me. Nothing would make me happier than taking care of her needs right here, right now. But the safety of our baby trumped both our desires. There would be plenty of time for us later. With only seven weeks left until her due date, we could make it.

In truth, I'd never gone seven whole weeks without Lily. My balls hurt just thinking about it. But there was also nothing I wouldn't do for any of my kids.

Lily wasn't happy with my decision and, of course, since they all knew when I'd turned on the dampener our family expected we were fooling around finishing what I had never intended to start. I was genuinely just helping her clean up, though I quickly realized it didn't appear that way. I hadn't meant to tease her like that.

"Wow, that was a quickie," Patrick joked when I walked back downstairs.

"Nah, Lil looked pissed. Did you cut her off? No sex in her childhood bed or something?" Chase asked.

"Well, I know for a fact that's not the case." Liam shuddered with old memories of walking in on me and his sister in said bedroom.

I just smiled.

"She's already starting to dilate, and it's way too early for that. I'm not taking any chances."

"No wonder she's pissed," Chase said with a laugh. "You cockblocked her."

"I think that means the new kid cockblocked them," Ben argued.

"Regardless, you're an idiot. I was told that sex was not a trigger for labor," Kyle informed us.

"Bullshit. Someone was kissing your Alpha-ass," Liam challenged. "A quick search on the internet will tell you it's in the top five best natural methods to stimulate labor."

"It didn't work with Lilah, but not for a lack of trying," I confessed.

"Why are we fecking talking about this? Guys who talk about sex aren't getting it. I, for one, have nothing to contribute to this conversation," Patrick insisted.

"Liar. Lily and Elise talk about everything. I know you're full of Irish crap."

He scowled at me.

"I may have freaked out a bit at first, but I'm over that. After Micah assured me it was safe for the baby, life has gone back to normal. Hell, better than normal, if you know what I mean."

I groaned. I did know what he meant. Lily was always super horny and ready to go when she was pregnant, and I knew that once the baby arrived, she'd be sore for a few weeks and then exhausted tending to a newborn.

The realization that it could be a lot longer than seven weeks made me want to puke.

"Gentleman, he's turning green," Patrick announced.

"Can we just stop talking about sex? You guys sound like a bunch of freaking women," I complained.

Fortunately, they put me out of my misery and moved on to other topics.

Nightfall came and a new day began much the same as the previous. Mary and Jason doted on the kids. I hung out with the guys, and Lily was off doing who knew what with the women.

As the day progressed, more and more people arrived. With the arrival of the last plane from Collier, we were all together at last.

"You know, I don't really understand what the big deal is about this picnic reunion thing," Chase said.

From yesterday's group, we'd added Cole, Gage, Oliver, and Bran, my other sisters' mates.

"We're all here for the weekend and together. To me, this is the reunion," Cole agreed.

"But we're all here hanging out. The grandparents are busy with the grandkids, and our mates are off who knows where doing who knows what. Tomorrow, the picnic will bring us all together," Kyle explained.

"That's what Kelsey told you, huh?" Cole guessed.

"Oh, absolutely," Kyle admitted.

We all laughed.

It was nice just hanging out, catching up, and ragging on each other. I didn't allow myself time to just relax and enjoy life like this often. I even struggled to fit my Six Pack brothers in lately. The demands of being the Alpha, a mate, a son, a brother, and a father were all I could handle at times.

This was nice, though. I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time, which was super weird given I was in Westin territory and seldom calm enough to enjoy myself when I was here.

We all came together for dinner. It was served buffet style with people crammed everywhere inside and out.

"At this rate, you're going to need a bigger Alpha House," I teased Kyle.

"Just wait. Next year, it's your turn to host."

My face fell. I had no comeback to that.

We didn't always get together every year. We strived for every other year, but the girls were rallying behind an annual event as the kids were getting older. They were forgetting that Lily and I, as well as Elise and Patrick now, were still very much in the baby stages. Still, I didn't mind it. I loved our combined families and was grateful that we were able to spend time together as one. I knew these gatherings would be cherished memories for our children.

With dinner done, all of us were shooed out by the grandparents and kids as they officially announced their sleepover was going to begin. Mom and Mary even volunteered to do all the cleanup from the evening.

I wasn't going to argue with them. I knew Lily and the sisters declared it a ladies' night and were heading over to Shelby and Ben's house. That left us guys on our own.

Normally when Lily attended ladies' night, it meant my girl was going to come home slightly intoxicated, looking to live out some of her wildest fantasies. Needless to say, I always encouraged ladies' night.

But this time, none of that would happen, and I didn't have the girls to watch after. It was truly a night of no obligations.

We all headed over to the bar in town called The Crate. I'd been there before, but never with quite so many of us. We caused quite a scene, yet somehow there was another rowdy group of men in there, even bigger than ours.

"Kyle!" the guys cheered when we walked in.

He went to say hello to them and as I took a closer look, I realized I recognized several of them as members of Westin Force, both Bravo and Delta teams.

Silas Granger stood and shook my hand. He'd been there watching my back the day Lily and I officially became Alpha and Pack Mother. That felt like a lifetime ago.

"Thomas, it's great to see you."

"You too," I told him. "Painter, Walker, wow, all of you are here?"

"We try to get together once a quarter while the girls are having one of their nights," Walker explained. "We just didn't realize it had been marked as the same weekend you guys were having your get together."

"I let Ben off the hook for it," Silas said.

I grabbed Ben by the arm and dragged him into our conversation.

"You mean this Ben? Oh, you can have him," I teased.

"I'm feeling the love in here tonight," Ben dramatically said.

"Can you feel the love tonight?" a few of the guys started to sing.

I laughed. With four Disney-obsessed daughters, I'd recognize those lyrics anywhere.

"You are all insane," Ben said with a laugh.

"Jesse, how about a round of beers for my brothers?"

"Sure thing, boss."

"And do me a favor and cut these guys off. Clearly they've had enough if they're resorting to singing Lion King."

The bar went instantly quiet as they all stared at him with a mix of disbelief and fear.

"Kidding. Geez. You guys take everything I say so seriously."

"Uh, Kyle, you're the Alpha and that's their job," I reminded him.

It wasn't every night people got the chance to roast the Alpha and live to talk about it. But my comment seemed to start a chain reaction that led to just that. At least he was being a good sport about it and no one took things too far.

By the time we left The Crate, I was drunk and ready to call it a night. Instead, we walked, or more like stumbled, over to Ben and Shelby's house. It was a long walk, and we'd caused a bit of a scene on more than one occasion.

Even Kyle seemed to have one drink too many, and I suspected by the reactions from the people we passed that none of them had ever seen their Alpha in quite this state before. I had, but I also knew that I was privy to a different side of Kyle Westin than the one he showed others.

Being Alpha of the largest wolf shifter Pack in the world came with a whole different set of pressures than even I could comprehend. Hell, his weren't even just wolf shifters anymore. Thanks to Westin Force, he'd opened up his territory to welcome shifters of all kinds. Many came and went, but those that chose to stay long term gave him the respect and allegiance the same as any wolf. Personally, I couldn't even imagine how my wolves would react to a gorilla shifter moving in next door or a panther shifter joining my Alpha line. But Kyle had managed it all with the grace and assurance of a natural-born leader.

"We're here," Ben announced, even though we all knew it already.

"I think I'm going to puke," Chase said just before running to a bush and doing just that.

"I need to take a whiz," Bran said. He unzipped his pants and let it fly right there in Ben's front yard.

"Dude, you're marking my territory?" Kyle asked him.

"What? No. I just couldn't hold it anymore. I had to pee."

"I'm just messing with you."

Oliver started laughing and couldn't seem to stop.

Next, Liam began laughing at Oliver.

"I'm really tired," I told them as I laid down in the grass. "This is a nice bed."

I vaguely heard a few protests, but it was so soft and cozy that I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

*****

The sound of giggles and the click of a camera jolted me awake. My throat was dry, and my mouth felt like sticky putty. When I went to sit up, my head throbbed, and I squinted against the sun when I tried to open my eyes.

"What the hell happened last night?" Lily asked.

I groaned and motioned for her to quiet down.

As I struggled to sit up, I peeked around me to discover I wasn't the only one who'd slept on the ground last night. All the others were there, too.

"Dammit, Thomas. You said this was a nice bed. It might have been for the first five minutes, but sleeping on the ground sucks," Cole complained.

Among the groans of pain came several chuckles.

As I fully opened my eyes, I saw Lily standing over me, much like all the sisters were standing over their mates now.

"Did we all sleep out here?"

"Pass out is more like it," Kyle said, holding his head.

I snorted. "Who knew I could be a trendsetter?"

"I can't believe you even remember that," Chase admitted.

"Most of the rest of the night is foggy. If that asshole Silas hadn't kept buying me blow jobs, I'd probably be better off this morning. I'm so sore now."

The pain hit me like a brick to my chest.

I looked around just in time to see my mate's eyes well up with tears as she fled the scene.

"Lily, wait!"

I got up and started to run after her.

"It's a shot, Lil. The name of a drink," Liam yelled, trying to come to my rescue.

"Are you sure about that?" Maddie asked.

I looked down, following her gaze to find my zipper was down.

"Shit!"

My whole body hurt, but especially the pounding in my head. I zipped up my pants and ran after her anyway.

I knew I was going to need to shift and go for a run in my wolf to get over this hangover. I hadn't done much of that lately, always feeling guilty when Lily couldn't shift while pregnant. It had to weigh heavily on her. Not shifting for long periods of time certainly did for me. Then again, I'd never grown another human inside of me before. Maybe it wasn't like that at all.

"Lily!" I yelled as I got closer.

She ignored me and kept running. Of course, her run was more like a slow waddle. If I wasn't feeding off her emotional stress, I would have laughed at our situation.

I easily caught up to her and forced her to turn and face me.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, and my heart ached like she'd just taken a Louisville Slugger baseball bat to it. In the early days of our mating, her rejection had always felt like that, earning her nickname.

"Slugger, it's not what you think. I have never and will never cheat on you. A blow job is a drink, a shot really. We were doing shots at the bar last night and Silas thought it would be cute to see how many I could handle. It was a lot. You know me. I never back down from a challenge. I'm sorry."

"But your pants . . ."

I pulled her into my arms as she sobbed against my shoulder.

"The zipper obviously came down at some point. I didn't even notice until Maddie pointed it out."

"Smell me. You'd know faster than anyone if I was messing around with another she-wolf, which I wasn't because I could never do that to you. You have to know that by now. For me, there's only ever going to be you."

I didn't think she'd actually do it, but she leaned in and sniffed me. It made me feel like a complete fool, but that little gesture instantly turned me on.

Her nose scrunched up in a cute way, and she took a step back.

"You stink."

I bellowed out a laugh. "Not exactly what I wanted to hear but probably accurate."

"Not probably. You're literally churning my stomach. You need a shower ASAP."

Giving her a lopsided grin, I nodded. "Yes, ma'am." But first, I kissed her.

"Ew," she protested without kissing me back. "You taste like I imagine licking the floor of the tavern would taste."

"Now you're just being mean."

"No, I'm not. I'm being honest. Come on. We need to get you back to the house and cleaned up quickly."

The tightness in my chest lifted, and I knew everything was going to be okay.