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“Let’s do the friends’ opinion one, because I have no idea what it’s about,” I said.

He dipped his head. “Love and Tori mentioned that they didn’t think you and I were compatible. I was hoping we could talk about it.”

I blinked.

Damn.

I didn’t know he’d heard that.

“They should never have said that, and I wasn’t a part of the conversations when they did. They only brought it up to me once or twice. Apparently, they thought you were too dominant for me, and not nice enough, which is dumb. You’re dominant, sure, but you don’t try to dominate me. And you’re always nice to me.”

“It doesn’t bother me that they were looking out for you; I just want us to be open about discussing when someone talks negatively about us to each other. In my mind, a mated pair functions as one. If someone insults you, they’ve insulted me, and I’ll deal with it.”

“So I need to stand up for you too,” I finished.

“You don’t have to,” he started, but I cut him off.

“If we’re going to be a team, we’re doing it right. I’ll shut Tori and Love down if they say anything bad about you again. For the record, they haven’t said anything bad since you abducted me.”

“Thank you.” He reached for my hand across the table, and squeezed it lightly. “I appreciate that.”

“You’re a good guy, Beck. Things have been messy since we found out about us, but we’re figuring it out.”

He lifted my hand to his lips, and kissed my knuckles lightly.

When he won the next round, he studied the list the same way I had.

“Let’s do last names,” he finally said.

“I’m not attached to my last name, and I grew up human, so if we’re going to be mated, I’d like to take yours,” I said. “I don’t want a different last name than our baby.”

The satisfaction in his eyes at my words made me smile.

I lost the next hand too, and he picked another topic.

“Work schedules and finances.”

“Why do these need to be combined?” I checked.

“Because the amount of money we have and need should affect how much we work, shouldn’t it?”

Right.

“Well, I don’t love my job at the bakery,” I admitted. “I’ve been slowly growing my cookie-decorating business. In an ideal world, I would decorate cookies full-time so I can stay home and work here. I don’t make enough money from the cookies to pull that off, though, and I don’t like charging people too much. The pack pays you, right?”

“Yes. I was working as a firefighter two days a week before we found out you and Love were in town. Since then, I’ve been running the pack’s security full-time. I make enough money and have enough saved that we could both stop working entirely and live comfortable lives for the next few hundred years.”

Hot damn.

“I’d like to combine our finances,” he added. “If it makes you more comfortable to keep your own account separate from mine, that’s fine. We’ll transfer money into it, and you can use it as a security blanket that I have no access to. But, I’ve already added your name to my account. Your cards are in my wallet. I was trying to figure out a way to give them to you without pissing you off.”

I shook my head, unable to hide my smile. “I should’ve expected that.”

“Yep.” He lifted my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles lightly again. “You will always be taken care of, Si. Always. Whether or not you quit your job is entirely up to you, but I’d like to have the freedom to spend a lot of time together. And with more days off, you could focus on growing your business if that’s what you want.”

My heart soared. “I’ll take a few days to think about it, but I’ll probably quit and focus on the cookies.”

He smiled.