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It all looks absolutely delicious, and it’s one hundred percent down to Rafe.

“Wow, this looks amazing as always. It’s been a while since we’ve had something as elaborate as this,” Rage says with a smile as he takes a seat at the table with the others.

“I’ve got more time than I usually do,” Rafe replies with a smile. “We’re always rushing to the next thing, or something needs to be gone over for a mission, so the time that I actually have to make dinner tends to be too short to do things like this.”

“Fair enough,” Jensen replies simply since Rage has a mouth full of food already and can’t. He adds, “We should make sure that you get more time more often. I love all the meals that you make, but I especially love when you cook like this for us.”

Rafe’s smiles, pleased, and replies, “Thank you.”

Everyone falls silent as we start to eat, but soon conversation picks up again as everyone starts talking about what they’ve been doing today, and Trick lets us know that Elijah and the guys got back safely and they’re all back at their places catching up on some well-needed sleep.

“That’s great, I’m glad they’re home safe,” I reply, relief coursing through me. “Have you had an update from Alaric?”

“Trick nods. “Yes. Everything is going as planned for the meet, nothing has changed, and Liam is behaving himself relatively well so that they don’t decide to cancel the meeting and decide to take him down somewhere else. Alaric wants to make sure that all angles are covered as far as Liam is concerned and ensure that they don’t try to take him out as he walks through the shipping yard to get to the meeting with Hunt. The best place to take Hunt out is while he’s distracted by Liam being, and I quote, his usual pain in the fucking ass self.”

I let out a surprised laugh.

“That’s a pretty accurate way to describe him, to be honest,” I say. “He was a pain in the ass when I knew him when I was a kid.”

“You know, sometimes I forget the way that you’re interlinked with Liam,” Cash says with a slight frown.

“Yeah, me too,” I admit. “Especially since he was nicer to me and looked out for me better than either of my parents actually did.”

“It’s that bit that always makes me question things,” Atlas admits quietly.

Wyn suddenly jumps up, dislodging Runa, who yowls, and then I swear she rolls her eyes as Wyn starts barking and then runs out of the room.

“I guess she must have heard something that caught her attention,” Luc chuckles.

“Her bark is absolutely adorable,” I point out the obvious.

“I wonder what she heard?” Jensen asks with a concerned look.

Suddenly, the front door bangs open, everyone jumps up and takes defensive stances.

Jensen suddenly has two knives in his hands, ones that weren’t already on the table, which, considering he’s still in his PJs, is impressive. I have no idea where the fuck he got them from. Everyone else has picked up a knife from the table apart from me. I’ve for some reason decided to grab one of the huge serving spoons.

Switching it out for a knife, I follow the others as we start to move out of the dining room and through the kitchen.

No one should know where we live, so the threat is fairly minimal, but it’s still unusual, and Wyn did try to warn us.

How the hell she heard it so far before us, I have no bloody idea, but she is getting treats.

Lots of treats.

Pete comes careening around the corner and comes to a dead stop, his arms flailing as he nearly hits the floor, with a more sedate Elijah walking in behind him and looking amused. Tired, but amused.

“Why do you guys all have table knives?” Pete asks, his eyebrow arching curiously. “Why does Jensen have proper ones?”

“We . . .” Trick starts as he lowers his knife, and everyone does the same thing once we realize that there isn’t actually a threat.

Pete holds up his hand and shakes his head. “You know what? I don’t care. We’re getting married!”

We all stare at him in silence, and then the guys all look at me, as if to say, nope, he’s your crazy best friend, you can deal with that one.

I roll my eyes at them and then step toward Pete, my gaze going to Eli, who looks like he’s struggling to hold back his laughter.

“Pete, honey, have you been drinking?” I ask gently.