Page 161 of Final Drive

I can feel every man at the table making a deliberate effort not to look at me.

Reese doesn’t bother.

Last spring, I would have filled the line in myself. I know exactly how I would’ve justified it. I would’ve told myself I was the captain, that I understood the paperwork, that somebody needed to be responsible.

I could’ve made it sound reasonable.

That was usually the problem.

I slide the form across the table to Reese. “It should be you.”

She looks at me, then at the line. “Gray.”

“I’m not trying to make this symbolic.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“I’m saying you’re the person the state should call.” I nod toward the form. “You know the rules better than any of us. You’re the reason most of the institutions involved in this pack have had to rewrite something. And every time there’s been a problem, you’ve been the one in the room dealing with it before the rest of us even knew there was a room.”

“That last part is not a compliment.”

“I know. I’m working on it.”

Her mouth twitches.

I look around the table. “Operationally, it would be stupid for it to be anybody else.”

“That’s your argument?”

“It’s the true one.”

Zane lifts his head from where he’s leaning against Bo’s shoulder. “What’s the romantic one?”

I look at Reese. “You’re the reason there’s a pack.”

Nobody argues with that.

She looks down at the form again. The ring has been on her hand for a week. She’s rigged two fours and pulled a boat off the rack with it, and it hasn’t caught on anything. Bo has mentioned this four times.

“Anybody object?”

“No,” Bo says.

Jackson follows with another quiet, “No.”

Eli shakes his head. Tyler says, “It’s correct,” which from Tyler is practically a blessing. Beckett spreads both hands. Zane says something muffled into his elbow.

Cameron looks at me instead of Reese and gives me one nod.

She picks up the pen and writes Reese Callahan on the line.

Then she sits back. “Well. That’s going to annoy somebody.”

“Enormously,” Tyler says.

I take the form off the table and set it face down on the sideboard, because what I want to do next shouldn’t happen over a state filing.

Then I get a hand under her jaw and kiss her in front of all eight of them.