‘This is sooo beautiful.’ Harry stood gazing out over all the green. ‘It’s more beautiful than beautiful. We need to make up a new word. What about booooooootiiiiifulllllll!’

Behind him, Bikey laughed. ‘That’s the same word, just shouted out louder and longer.’

Harry bounced over to where the other man was carefully laying out a checked blanket. He’d set it out and moved it about a hundred times already. Harry couldn’t see the reason for all these micro changes, but he’d never been taken on a picnic before so he wasn’t going to start complaining at his friend’s sudden indecisiveness.

‘You come up with something better than Mr Geniuswordbrain.’

‘Fine, I can do that.’ Bikey gazed directly into his face. ‘I think the only word that is more beautiful than beautiful is…hairy.’

Harry boomed with laughter. ‘Hairy isn’t all these trees and grass and sky, I mean look at all that sky! Hairy is like a raggedy hamster. That’s a useless attempt. Okay. Let me think. I’ll come up with something that’ll blow your mind so much you’ll never use another word ever.’

‘Big boasting from the big man.’ It was just like their usual back and forth, but somehow Bikey sounded generally narked. Harry needed to come up with a super good word to put Bikey back into his normal mood.

He stood tapping his foot as Bikey finally decided that the blanket was in the right place and began to set up the actual food part of the picnic.

‘Urgh if only Aki was here, he knows tonnes of real words, he wouldn’t even have to make one up, he’d immediately know how to describe this scenery perfectly.’

‘Can we go five minutes without you talking about your roommate? Do you even know how weird it is two alphas living together?’

There was no mistaking the anger in Bikey’s tone.

Despite the fact Harry knew it was totally different, it still felt like the fallout from the time when Lindsay pretended she fancied him. And he’d believed her. Despite Aki’s warning. What had happened to him on their first date had all been his fault for being so stupid and so desperate to be liked.

His voice came out sounding very unalpha like. ‘What…what do you mean? On telly there’s always two alphas being best alpha friends together.’

‘Yes, in stories it’s really popular because it’s not something that happens in real life so it makes people laugh. Alphas live in packs. Or they live alone. Your sponsor is awful for not giving you better and separate accommodation. It’s tantamount to torture to expect an alpha to live so cramped up with another one. Two alphas don’t live together unless…’

‘Unless what?’

Bikey shook his head. ‘Nothing. Sorry. Just forget that. Please forget that. I didn’t mean to snap. I spent too long thinking about this. It’s put me on edge. Promise you forgive me.’

He held his hand up to Harry and with relief Harry linked their little fingers in the way Bikey had shown him the first time they met.

‘No worries, mate, I know I’m an annoying person. Like, all the time we’ve spent together, I’m surprised you’ve never shouted at me before. Aki tells me at least a thousand times a day how much I test his temper.’ He grinned at his friend, but Bikey gazed down at the ground.

Harry’s mouth twisted to one side then the other. He rubbed the back of his head and then hunkered down next to Bikey.  

‘I guess I do talk about Aki more than I realise. I’ll try and stop doing that if it annoys you.’

Bikey shrugged. ‘It’d just be nice sometimes if it was only the two of us.’

Harry managed to swallow down the obvious answer that almost every day since they met it had been just the two of them training together; he probably had never spent so much one on one time with anyone in his whole life.

Like so often there was more going on than he understood. The important thing was that Bikey was doing something amazing for him taking him out in the car to have a picnic in this booooooootiiiiifulllllll place, so Harry had to work extra hard to make sure that Bikey was happy and felt appreciated.

He rubbed Bikey’s shoulder. ‘You know I know what you’re up to, right?’

Bikey’s face flushed. ‘You do? I mean, I am not exactly being subtle, but it’s so hard to tell with you.’

‘I am so on to you, matey.’ He tapped Bikey’s nose. ‘You’re trying to distract me from thinking up a word so awesome that you’ll have to admit I’m the reigning Mr Geniuswordbrain of all time.’

'Yeah, let’s say you're right.' Bikey turned away but he chuckled. ‘For now.’