Page 9 of The Rust in Her Hair

Adrian tries to look annoyed and fails spectacularly. Mack tilts his head up, and Adrian leans down and kisses him softly, like their sister-in-law isn’t sitting four feet away.

"Okay." Renata stands up with the dramatic energy of a woman who has been pushed to her limit. "I'm out. I cannot stomach one more second of this."

"You love it," Mack says against Adrian's mouth.

"I do not love it. I tolerate it. There is a difference."

She grabs her bag off the back of her chair, then slings it over her shoulder. "Before I leave this den of horny lunatics, let me just say that I hope you’re right about Owen and this girl." She looks right at me. "I love you guys, but I don’t have the space for all of you assholes when you get run out of town."

"You don’t have to worry," I say. "Owen would never put us in danger. He likes smiling at a pretty girl."

"It’s your pack," Renata says with a shrug, "All I’m saying is that you four are the sluttiest pack I have ever met in my entire life and one of these days it's going to catch up with you."

"We are not slutty."

"Brother." She picks up her almost empty beer bottle. "You are," she says firmly. "You are a deeply slutty pack."

Mack quickly grabs his own drink and clinks it against hers. "Fuck yeah we are."

Renata laughs, that loud sudden bark of hers that always sounds like it caught her by surprise. Then she tips the bottle back to drain the last sip. She sets the bottle down on the table with a small, satisfied tap.

"All right. I'm out." She hooks her thumb under the strap of her bag. "I've got a 7:00 a.m. consult with some guy who wants his ex-wife's name covered up with a tiger, and then I'm booked straight through till nine at night. No lunch. No break. I haven't had a full day off in three weeks."

"So take one," Mack says.

"I can't take one." She yanks her sketchbook off the table. "If I'm not in that chair, I'm not making money, and if I'm not making money, I don't eat. That's how it works when you don’t have a pack to fall back on." She gives him a pointed look. "It's all me, all the time, forever, until I die at my own station with a needle in my hand."

Mack leans back and folds his arms. "Renata." He levels her with those green eyes. "Just because you aren’t getting any dick doesn’t mean you have to fuck yourself. Take off one damn day, woman."

Renata laughs then chucks her empty beer cap at his head. It bounces off his cheek and he doesn't even flinch.

"You're a pig, Mackenzie."

"And yet." He holds his arms. "You're still laughin'."

Renata flips the alpha off as Adrian moves to her. She pulls him into a tight hug—Adrian is the one she always holds onto the hardest. She’s so protective of the alpha.

We all are.

Mack gets the handshake. The ridiculous one they invented at Christmas two years ago. They do the whole thing: Slap, snap, a fist-bump, with a wiggle of fingers at the end that I think Mack added to humiliate everybody who has to watch.

"Night, hermano." Renata nods at me on her way to the door.

"Night, Ren."

The door closes behind her and the house settles into quiet. The dishwasher hums in the kitchen, the porch light buzzes faintly through the front window, surrounded by the scent of my pack.

"Alright." Mack pushes back from his chair and stands, then slowly bends forward over the dining room table, planting his palms wide and sticking his ass out as he looks right at Adrian. "Fuck me while we still have the energy."

He gives his ass a slow wiggle for emphasis.

Adrian doesn't even look up. He grabs two beer bottles, then heads toward the kitchen.

"Adrian. Baby," Mack says louder. "Come back. Look at what's being offered to you right now."

I shake my head as I pass the long-haired alpha, shooting him a look that tells him it’s too late for his shenanigans.

"Not even a smile?" Mack calls after us. "Tough-fucking-crowd."