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I grin.
"You love me."
Briggs cracks one eye open.
"Unfortunately," he grumbles.
Tripp points at him.
"This is emotional abuse."
"You deserved it."
"I was asleep."
"You were loud."
The argument continues all the way downstairs.
By the time I make coffee, Tripp is still insisting his snoring isn't that bad, and Briggs is threatening to record it for evidence. Clint ignores both of them while he starts pulling things out of the fridge.
A lot of things. Enough things that I narrow my eyes.
"What are you doing?"
Clint glances over his shoulder.
"Making food."
"That's not food."
He shuts the refrigerator door with his hip and wrinkles his nose at me.
"Clint, it looks like we’re feeding the entire state of Montana."
"We've got company coming. It’s important to make a good impression that doesn’t involve murder."
The reminder makes something warm settle in my chest.
After everything that happened yesterday, nobody wanted Gidge, Hunter, or the guys getting right back on a plane. They ended up grabbing hotel rooms in town and pushing their flight back a day.
Which somehow turned into a barbecue. Not that I'm complaining. Hunter is going to spend an entire day with my pack, without somebody being tied up in a shed.
"When are the bikers coming back over?" Tripp asks around a mouthful of toast.
Clint gives him a look. "Pretty sure they're family now, not just bikers."
My chest squeezes unexpectedly.
Family.
Hunter spent years worrying about where I'd end up. Gidge spent months threatening to fight anybody who looked at me wrong. Now, they're both coming back to spend the day with the three men I bonded with.
Part of me is nervous. A bigger part is excited because Hunter has known Briggs, Clint, and Tripp since they were kids. He remembers them as the older boys running around wild with him. Today, he'll get to know them as my alphas.
Not the men he grew up with, but with the men I love.
By lunchtime, the entire ranch smells like smoke and barbecue.