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Ciara was standing in the doorway, squinting sleepily out at us as if she’d just rolled out of bed.
“Why’re you banging on my door?” she slurred groggily, shifting from one bare foot to the other.
Enzo and I just stared at her wordlessly.
She was wearing a matching thin blue tank top and shorts, one hand rubbing her belly just underneath the hem of her shirt as she waited for us to answer and the other brushing her wild curls out of her face.
Then there was her scent. I’d always known that our scents swelled when we were asleep, but to smell the spicy cinnamon coming off of her in waves was an altogether mouth-watering experience.
“Hello? Earth to alphas,” Ciara said, more awake now as she snapped her fingers in front of Enzo’s face.
Enzo blinked once, the tops of his cheeks flushing as he remembered why he’d come across the hall in the first place. “Come with me.”
He reached out and grabbed Ciara’s wrist.
“Hey!” she squawked, trying to tug her arm out of his grasp.
“Enzo!” I barked, surprised at his manhandling of her. He was never one to be overly aggressive, so this was completely out of character for him.
Enzo ignored both of us and dragged Ciara across the hall and into our apartment, slamming the door shut behind us as he pulled her into the middle of the living room.
“Did you tell Artie that you would coach him?” Enzo asked as Ciara finally managed to yank her arm from his.
Ciara glanced between the three of us, her brown eyes seeming to take in the scene a lot faster than the average person would—but then again Ciara had always been incredibly observant of her surroundings.
“I did,” Ciara said, all vestiges of drowsiness gone from her face now. “He was having trouble with Eli being an ass, so I figured I’d offer.”
Enzo scoffed, still looking pissed. “Have you ever coached anyone before?”
She nodded, turning so that she was facing him completely. “I used to teach figure skating classes during the off-season when we lived in Minnesota and I do work with the younger figure skaters once a month.”
“Artie is not a child figure skater. He’s an Olympian. I don’t like it,” Enzo muttered as it seemed he was running out of excuses to be angry with her.
“You don’t have to like it,” Artie said, finally speaking up for the first time since Enzo had unceremoniously dragged Ciara into our apartment. “It’s my life and my career, Enz.”
Enzo’s face pinched with pain, and truth be told, I understood where he was coming from. I was just as terrified about Artie falling and hitting his head and potentially exacerbating the pressure on the nerves behind his eyes as Enzo was.
“He is still fully capable of skating, Enzo, even if his eyes don’t work his feet still do.” Ciara’s voice changed from defensive to something softer. It was almost as if she was trying to comfort the man who had been nothing but an asshole to her since we moved across the way from each other.
Enzo’s shoulders stiffened at it too, telling me he’d heard the same shift in her tone.
“Do you actually know what will happen if he hits his head? Or anything about his type of vision loss really?” he asked, holding a hand up to stop Artie before he could minimize it like he always did.
“No, not really,” Ciara admitted, glancing over at Artie with a frown. “But that still doesn’t change what he wants to do, does it?”
Enzo huffed a sardonic laugh. “It does though. If he were to hit his head because he falls while jumping it could mean accelerated loss of sight or even complete blindness if the swelling is bad enough. Do you really want to be responsible for that if he falls?”
“Enzo, I’m not going to fall,” Artie argued, standing and displacing the golden retriever in his lap entirely. “I am careful, just as careful as I was leading up to the Olympics.”
He put a hand on Enzo’s shoulder and I watched the other alpha melt under our omega’s touch. Undoubtedly, Artie was also soothing him through the metaphysical bond the three of us shared, though it was blocked on my end.
“I have nightmares about it, Art. Of you falling and cracking your head open or any other manner of injury you can get while skating because you can’t see everything clearly.”
And thus, like always, the two were at an impasse again.
So when Ciara finally spoke, I think it surprised us all.
“So what if there aren’t any jumps?” she asked, her lips pursing with thought.
