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“He’s lucky they didn’t chain him to the stadium,” Wilder called from the back of the group as he held up Birdy, who gave her mom a jaunty wave.
Alexei had begrudgingly accepted a position as one of the coaches for the Team USA ice hockey team after losing a coin toss with his brother. He’d resisted until Nash joined the team before giving in for the sake of his son-in-law.
Normally, they would have been able to watch the events anyway because figure skating and hockey rarely overlapped, but the schedule was different this time. Because Scotland was… lacking in any sort of ski slope, half of the games were going to be hosted in Switzerland once the ice sports finished up.
It made my head swim to think about the logistics of it and there was more than enough grumbling at the UK for bidding for the Olympics in the first place, but they’d somehow made it work.
But it also meant that a lot of ice events were going to be crammed into one, very short week.
“Should we head that way and then off to dinner after?” I asked, still basking in the afterglow of a victory I’d fought hard to win.
Five hours later, and I was deep in the feeling that was only being bolstered by the shot of whiskey still burning its way down my throat.
“Ack!” Nash groaned, wincing as the shot of vodka that Brynn had forced on him made his eyes water. “Why does it always have to be vodka? Why couldn’t it have been whiskey like the rest of you got?”
“Because you lost the bet,” Brynn’s voice was smug as she popped the little glass back onto the bar before pulling Nash in for a drunken kiss.
We’d been celebrating our wins from the day, though everyone else had long gone back to the Olympic Village for the night. That just left me fourth wheeling with some of my favorite people as Brynn and Dutch tag-teamed their packmate.
“But I told you that we weren’t going to make it through to the next round, angelface,” Nash grumbled as he slid his glass right next to hers. “So why did I lose the bet?”
Dutch slapped the alpha hard on the back. “Because you didn’t believe in yourself, laddie,” he said in the worst Scottish accent I’d ever heard.
“Yeah!” Brynn smacked the bar for another round of shots. “So, drink up!”
The three were clearly in a world of their own, enjoying their night off from the twins and letting loose.
It was hard to believe that four years ago Brynn and I had sat in a bar very similar to this on our own.
That was where she’d met the first alpha of her dreams.
And where she’d nearly died.
The memory left a sour taste in my mouth and I waved off another shot, my celebratory mood shifting into something more somber.
Everything had worked out in the end, and yet I still felt a swell of guilt every time I remembered it.
“Ceer, why do you look like you swallowed a lemon?” Brynn slurred as she was suddenly in my face and throwing her arms over my shoulders.
Looking over her head at her alphas, it was clear that they were about fifteen minutes away from heading back to their room in the Olympic village in order to either pass out or get up to something I’d rather not envision.
Giving my best friend a squeeze, I shook off the cobwebs of trauma that always seemed to linger in the back of my mind no matter how happy I was. “Just thinking about how early the start time is tomorrow,” I lied.
Though our events were now over, it just meant we were now free to go and support the rest of the athletes that called the Seattle Sports Complex their home. One of our curling teams made it through the semifinals and Christa, one of Aurelia’s alphas, would be trying her hand at making it through the first round of speed skating tomorrow.
“I don’t know why the finals for curling need to start at the asscrack of dawn,” Nash grumbled as he accepted a beer from Dutch, both clearly done with the hard liquor for the night.
“Nash!” Someone called in the crowd and we turned to find a tall man waving over the heads of people passing in front of him. In the dimness I could make out that he was an Asian man with high cheekbones and dark eyes that seemed to shift in color with the pulsing blue and purple lights of the club. And, I realized much to my delight, that he was also incredibly handsome. The kind of handsome that made people stop and turn as he passed with open mouths and hungry eyes.
“Wiz, I thought you weren’t coming out tonight!” Nash hollered and left us behind to wrap an affectionate arm around the other man’s neck as the two play-wrestled for a moment before rejoining our little group.
“Guys, this is the kickass defenseman I was telling you about—the one Colt’s had his eye on since we got here,” Nash said, gesturing at the man with his beer. “This is Jae-Sun Park, but everyone calls him Wiz because this asshole makes some crazy magic happen on the ice.”
The man’s cheeks dimpled as he grinned at Nash and shook his head. It was obvious that he was sober standing next to the taller, more tipsy alpha that still had him in half of a headlock.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you!” Brynn’s smile was wide as she held her hand out to the man for a handshake. “I’m Brynn, and this is Dutch.”
Dutch gave the man a single nod, his eyes on the handshake and I could almost hear the territorial thoughts rattling around in his head as he watched the man touch his omega.
