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“Is it over?” she mumbled, squinting at me. “Did you like it?”
“It was…” I trailed off, trying to find the right word for it. “Musical.”
She gave a sleepy snort of laughter. “You can say it was boring, Leith, I know I won’t win them all.”
She’d spent the past three months trying to convince me that musicals of any kind were a superior art form. It was one of the few tidbits of information I’d managed to pull out of the woman and I was milking it for all it was worth.
“It wasn’t boring, but it certainly was old,” I finally amended, gathering her more closely and inhaling her cinnamon scent deep into my lungs.
She smelled better than anyone I’d ever had the pleasure of smelling before—even the omegas.
Being from a tiny village in the highlands, I didn’t approach many omegas, but they all smelled like some variation of sickly sweet to me. Even the ones training at the camp all reeked like oversaturated perfume whenever they didn’t use their scent blockers.
But Ciara smelled heavenly always, even after a long day of skating. I was finding myself completely addicted to her and I just hoped she was maybe starting to feel the same way.
Ciara yawned, snuggling in close and pressing her nose to the column of my neck. “I’ll show you Les Misérables tomorrow night.”
I grimaced. We were in the middle of what she was calling the ‘historical’ musicals section. It had started off strong with Hamilton, but had very quickly gone downhill from there.
“What if we went out to the pictures instead? I think that Mamma Mia of yours has a second film out,” I offered, holding my breath as I waited for her answer.
Ciara lifted her face so our eyes could meet and I could already tell what she was about to say before she even opened her mouth.
“I like it better here. Besides, we can’t fuck in the cinema now can we?” she asked, cheekily changing the subject as her hand slid down my bare chest and underneath the sheets.
I wanted to argue, but I knew that was a one-way ticket to getting my arse kicked out of her bed forever.
So, instead, I gave in to her kisses and touches. We had time. The training still had another six months before it was over and she didn’t seem interested in anyone or anything else besides that.
I could wait—I was the oldest of five siblings—meaning that patience was already a hard won trait of mine.
But later on that night when I woke up alone in a cold bed with only a hastily scrawled note on the pillow, I realized I’d given my heart away to a woman who had left me high and dry without so much as a verbal goodbye.
I swore then that I would never again let myself be pulled in by Ciara Callaghan.
Four years later…
2022 Winter Olympics in Edinburgh
“All right folks, moving through the men’s singles event, we have our last athlete stepping onto the ice. Ukrainian born skater, Artem Kostyk, is attempting to do what he failed to during the 2018 Olympics. Can he make it past the semifinals and secure his spot on the podium and a gold for Team Great Britain?”
“Well, seeing as he very nearly had it last time, I’m hopeful for the young figure skater who has been relatively quiet in most skating circles since the last Olympics in Nor—”
I switched my phone off of the BBC’s commentary with a shake of my head. I shouldn’t have been listening to it at all, but I wanted to catch Enzo when his segment for the ice hockey games came on.
As if thinking about him conjured him out of thin air, my phone buzzed with a text message from him.
ENZO: Has he gone on yet?
With a sigh, I hurried to reply before my packmate went completely over the edge.
ME: He’s getting ready to. Aren’t you in the middle of commentating?
ENZO: Yeah, so?
ME: Focus on your job, Enz, or Artie is going to kick your arse.
There was a pause, probably due to the fact that he was supposed to be watching the ice hockey match and responding to the plays, before my phone buzzed again.
