Page 58 of Wynter

“It can’t be.” He shakes his head in denial, eyes pleading, and then drops to his knees.

“He is going to ask for your hand,” Eirwen cries from across the bleachers, and I realize that everyone around is watching, or pulling out their phones to record, what is most definitely not a proposal.

“He is not,” I shout back, then turn to glare at Ghost. “Whatever you’re doing, stop.”

“Wyn, I know I screwed up. But I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

“That definitely sounds like a request for a binding,” Eirwen shouts.

“That’s a proposal if I ever heard one,” a man who’s built like an ancient warrior and barely fits in his seat adds. People around him murmur in agreement.

“It’s not a proposal,” I snap, then glare at Ghost. “Tell everyone it’s not a proposal.”

“It can be, if you take me back.”

“That’s not overly romantic. Promise her amazing beddings—er fucks!” Eirwen says, looking to the crowd for agreement.

“Get her flowers!” a blond man who reminds me of Thor suggests. “I got Magnolia flowers on our first date and it went really well, if you catch my drift.”

“Jewelry works better,” Lupine, who runs the orphanage, calls out. “Does he even have a ring?”

Ghost grimaces and gets to his feet. Guess he doesn’t have a ring—not that I expected one. What I do expect is for him to storm off, since leaving is what Ghost does best, but he reaches for my hand instead.

“Leave me alone, Ghost.”

“I can’t. I messed up, Wyn. Big time. Leaving you was the biggest mistake of my life.”

That earns him a few awwws from the crowd, and a glare from me.

“You have to forgive me, Air.” Because he used to call me that, too. I was his air. Or he made me believe I was. But he never needed me.

“Go away.”

“No. I can’t live without you!”

“I think I’m going to cry,” a beautiful blonde goddess who’s sitting at the edge of the aisle says. I ignore her.

“You lived without me just fine for years,” I snap. “From what I recall, you had no trouble walking away.”

“Don’t fall for it,” a man with blond hair cropped on the side and bright green eyes bellows.

“Take him back. He’s obviously sorry,” Eirlys—who runs Triple E—insists, elbowing the man in the side.

“It wasn’t like that, Wyn. Do you know how hard it was? Leaving you?”

“Couldn’t have been that hard. And after what you did during exams—”

“What did he do?” a man with mystical sea-green eyes shouts.

“Did he break up with you before finals? An ex of mine did that!” a redhead holding a coffee cup cries.

That gets a few sympathetic comments as more people in the audience chime in.

“He knows exactly what he did,” I glare at Ghost.

“Must be a doozy,” an old lady with a pink stripe in her hair clucks.

“I wouldn’t want to be him right now,” a gray-horned unicorn shifter, who looks like he belongs on the ice, and not in the stands, throws in.