Alan called shotgun before anyone could argue, diving into the passenger seat of Doug’s Mercedes with the satchel clutched like territory he’d already claimed.
Holden folded himself into the back between Phil and Stu the vintage leather smelling like money and regret in roughly equal measure and watched the Strip recede through tinted glass as Doug steered them east toward open desert.
The bachelor party logistics had been settled over breakfast one night, no airport runs, a villa suite at Caesars that Doug’s cousin had comped.
Phil had the itinerary, which as far as Holden could tell consisted of dinner, drinks, and an optimistic assumption that nothing would catch fire.
“So,” Alan said, pivoting in his seat with the satchel balanced on his lap.
“Before we get there, we need to do the thing.”
“What thing?” Stu asked.
“The Wolfpack thing.”
Phil groaned.
“Alan. Buddy. We talked about this.”
“We didn’t finish talking about it,” Alan said.
He had the earnest intensity of a man defending a doctoral thesis, if the thesis involved a leather bag and no legible subject.
“A Wolfpack is a real thing. Wolves travel in packs. They protect each other. They have a hierarchy. We’re a Wolfpack now, which means we need rules.”
“We have a rule,” Phil said.
“The rule is we all come back alive and Doug gets married.”
“That’s a goal, not a rule.” Alan turned fully around now, his gaze landing on Holden.
“And we can’t be a real pack if we don’t know who’s in it.”
Holden had expected this.
Alan’s need to belong was loud enough that even without foreknowledge he’d have clocked it by the end of the first beer.
What he hadn’t expected was the seriousness.
“Holden’s in,” Phil said.
“We settled that.”
“Did we?” Alan’s tone had no hostility in it, just a kind of methodical concern.
“Because a Wolfpack isn’t just who shows up. It’s who you’d trust. Who you’d go back for.”
“Alan,” Doug said from the driver’s seat, his voice carrying the infinite patience of a man who’d been Alan’s brother-in-law for two years.
“Holden drove out here. He’s in.”
“Not yet,” Alan said.
He pulled something from the satchel a folded piece of paper, badly creased.
“I wrote it down. The oath.”
Stu made a small noise that might have been a laugh or a whimper.
“You wrote an oath,” Phil said.
“The Navy SEALs have an oath. We should have an oath.” Alan unfolded the paper.
Cleared his throat.
“Holden Cross. Do you swear to protect the Wolfpack, to never abandon a pack member in danger, and to always answer the call, even if it’s three a.m. and you’re in a different state?”
Holden met Alan’s eyes.
Saw nothing there but absolute sincerity.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you swear to keep Wolfpack business inside the Wolfpack, to never sell out a brother for personal gain, and to split the tab fairly even if you didn’t order the expensive thing?”
Phil was grinning.
Stu had his face in his hands.
“Yes,” Holden said again.
“And do you swear,” Alan continued, his voice dropping half an octave, “that if Doug doesn’t make it to his own wedding, you will personally go back and find him, no matter what?”
The car went quiet.
Doug adjusted the rearview mirror.
“Alan, I’m going to make it to my wedding.”
“But if you don’t.” Alan’s gaze didn’t leave Holden.
“Would you go back for him?”
Holden thought about a roof.
Thought about a man alone under the desert sun while four others tore a city apart looking in the wrong places.
Thought about the fact that this absurd loyalty test was the most important thing Alan had ever asked anyone.
“Yes,” Holden said.
“I’d go back.”
Alan folded the paper.
Held out a hand.
“Then you’re Wolfpack.”
Holden shook it.
Alan’s grip was damp and too tight, and he held on a beat longer than necessary, like he was sealing something he’d been waiting years to seal.
“There,” Alan said, turning back around with visible satisfaction.
“Now it’s official.”
“That was beautiful,” Phil said.
“Genuinely unhinged, but beautiful.”
“I teared up a little,” Stu added.
“I’m not proud of that.”
Doug caught Holden’s eye in the mirror.
Mouthed the words I’m sorry.
Holden shrugged.
It was fine.
He’d signed stranger contracts.
The desert opened up ahead of them, flat and bright, the kind of landscape that looked infinite until you hit the city limits and realized you’d been driving in a very expensive circle.
Doug took the exit toward Caesars.
The villa keys were waiting at the desk.
The wedding was Sunday afternoon, which gave them roughly forty hours to avoid catastrophe.
“One thing,” Doug said as he parked.
He killed the engine.
Turned in his seat.
“Nothing too crazy.”
“Define crazy,” Phil said.
“You know what I mean.”
“I genuinely don’t.”
Doug looked at Holden, then at Phil, then at Alan’s satchel with the weariness of a man who’d seen that satchel produce a live ferret once at Thanksgiving.
“I want to make my own wedding. Intact. With all my teeth. Is that achievable?”
“Completely achievable,” Phil said.
Doug didn’t look convinced.
Holden said, “I’ll make sure you’re there.”
It came out quieter than he’d meant it.
Doug studied him for a second, and Holden wondered if the groom could see it the fact that Holden already knew how this story went, and had decided to rewrite the worst parts.
“Okay,” Doug said.
“Then let’s go have a good time.”
They climbed out.
The heat hit like a opened oven.
Alan hefted the satchel.
Phil checked his phone.
Stu said something about calling Melissa, and Phil told him not to, and the argument started before they’d crossed the parking lot.
Holden stood by the trunk, watching the four of them move toward the lobby in their natural orbit Phil leading, Stu fretting, Alan trailing with the satchel swinging, Doug in the middle trying to keep them all on course.
A Wolfpack, in Alan’s terms.
A disaster with a wedding at the end of it, in Holden’s.
He’d sworn an oath to go back for Doug.
He’d meant it.
The sun glared off windshields.
Holden closed the trunk.
The weekend stretched ahead like a minefield he’d already mapped, and for the first time since he’d woken up in 2009, he felt the weight of the choice settle.
Not the fear of it.
Not the impossibility.
Just the quiet arithmetic of keeping everyone home.
He adjusted his shirt.
Checked that Stella’s card was still in his wallet.
It was.
Friday at six she’d be on call, and by then he’d need her, because the gifts gave him the tools but they didn’t give him certainty, and Doug’s one request intact, at his own wedding was the only deadline that mattered.
Holden started toward the lobby.
Ahead of him, Alan turned back.
“You coming, Wolfpack?”
“Yeah,” Holden said.
“I’m coming.”
The doors slid open.
The recycled air swallowed them.
Somewhere in the next forty hours, Alan would dose them all with something he thought was ecstasy, and a tiger would appear, and Doug would end up on a roof under the sun.
But not this time.
Not if Holden could price it right.
The oath had been absurd.
He was going to honor it anyway.