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She skated in a way that made everyone stop and look.
And I so desperately wanted to do that too.
“She’s much nicer to the babies,” Aurelia pointed out cheerfully as she put down the brush. “All right, you’re all ready for practice, now come on let’s go. I’m supposed to meet Kyle for a date after I drop you off.”
The urge to throw a fit rose like bile in my throat but I shoved it down. Aurelia almost never went out with her boyfriend and me refusing to go to practice would definitely ruin that plan.
Even though every time I looked at Kyle something about him scared me… his eyes were so very dead for someone who was only a senior in high school. Da scared me at the best of times with his drinking, but his eyes never looked like that. If anything he had too much emotion in them.
But Aurelia had been my everything ever since I’d woken up to her face in that hospital back in Dublin and she deserved a night to herself.
With a sigh, I stood and grabbed the bright blue duffel bag full of my skate stuff and gestured to the door. “I guess we’d better be off then.”
Aurelia’s smile was wide as she smoothed a hand over the hairstyle she’d just finished.
“If you really hurry you can boot Brynn into the backseat, remember the phrase?”
I nodded, suddenly eager as I ran into the hallway. “Shotgun!”
My voice rang through the little house followed by Brynn’s shout of protest.
“I don’t know why he kissed me either,” I said to Aurelia, blinking away the memory as I stared out over the lit pool.
Aurelia gave my side a gentle pinch. “Oh no you don’t. What I stumbled on didn’t look like a one-sided kiss. So, spill. Was it nice?”
We locked eyes for a moment as I tried my best to keep my expression neutral but it very quickly cracked and I nodded, putting my face in my hands. “Too nice. Mind numbingly nice.”
And with it came the sick feeling of guilt because I hadn’t told Wiz about it yet.
Look at me go, a girlfriend of barely twenty-four hours and I’d already kissed another man.
Even if Wiz seemed open to it, it still sat sourly in my gut.
Remembering the kiss made me want to touch my lips, but doing that in front of Aurelia would really give me away.
“You know I never wanted to do any of this—this whole pack thing. How do I avoid ending up just like her if I dive headlong into something as permanent as a pack?”
My mam hadn’t bonded with my da even though she was an alpha and he was a beta. I always wondered if she knew on some level that her story would end the way it did and never marked him because of it.
That didn’t make much sense, though, as they’d been childhood sweethearts.
“You know how I feel about it, Ceer,” Aurelia cupped my face in her hands so she could make sure I was looking her in the eyes. “Do you think that if I kept my stance on packs and love that I would be as happy as I am now?”
Aurelia had gone through hell, just like my mam had, and had come out the other end of it much stronger and better.
So why the hell was my brain still trying to convince me that a happy ending didn’t exist for me?
“Just give it a chance. Tell Wiz about the kiss, go with him to see his family on Sunday, talk to those three and set some ground rules,” Aurelia said, her blue eyes serious. “But even if all of this doesn’t work out? You still have us—your family—here to catch you.”
My eyes began to sting and I blinked hard. “You’re going to make me cry.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Aurelia told me cheerfully, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Now, I’m going to go back inside and tuck Tobey into bed and hope he goes to sleep after the amount of sugar the dads fed him tonight. You call Wiz before it stews in your head too much.”
I helped her up from the lounge and back into her chair, waiting until she wheeled inside before I pulled out my phone.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Wiz’s voice greeted me cheerfully. “You’ve reached your number one hunky boyfriend fresh off of a gaming session where I completely destroyed the rest of the defensemen on the team at Call of Duty. I really think I earned their respect this time.”
I smiled like an absolute crazy woman as I listened to him, stepping to the edge of the pool and hugging myself with my free hand as I stared out at the water. “Are you sure? I really think winning at Modern Warfare is the true sign of a hockey player who gets respect from his peers.”
