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With a shake of my head, I snagged some popcorn out of the bowl. “Did you ever know any peace?”
“Absolutely zero peace,” Wiz said around a mouthful of pretzel. “But it’s always a lot of fun. Now that I’m back I’m able to go to the weekly family dinners for the first time since I was in college—and I’d love to bring you so you can witness the craziness of the McDonald clan.”
I nearly opened my mouth to agree, and then reminded myself that this was one date so that he would stop asking. There wouldn’t be more after this.
Thankfully, a voice came over the loudspeaker announcing that the show would be starting shortly, instructing the audience to silence their phones, cease conversation, and enjoy the show.
Chapter seventeen
Ishould have been watching Alexander Hamilton strut across the stage, discussing the founding of the United States of America.
But I wasn’t.
Instead, I was watching each shift and change in Ciara’s expression as she watched the musical, her brown eyes wide with delight as she mouthed some of the words to songs that she seemed to know by heart.
Drinking in each new expression, I committed them to memory. Each quirk of her lips or crinkle in the corner of her eyes as she smiled at the actors singing was like a drug to my already overwrought system.
Even just being enclosed inside of my car earlier tonight had nearly made my inner alpha lose his shit. Cinnamon laced with the delicate bergamot perfume she was wearing danced along my senses as she laughed at the joke Lafayette just made to the crowd.
I was so damned glad I had the sense to ask Nash and Dutch what she liked to do.
I’d wracked my brain about it for almost two weeks, trying to not only figure out a time to meet with her between my practices and hers, but also what to do that she would enjoy.
It was just supposed to be one date, but as I stared at her now, I already knew I’d be begging for another at the end of the night.
I wanted to be her boyfriend, which sounded juvenile even in my own mind, but I knew it would be hard to even get that title let alone what I really wanted from Ciara.
Scent match, scent match, scent match, my brain kept chanting to me to the beat of Satisfied as the Schuyler sisters danced on stage.
Ciara’s obvious commitment issues aside, there was also the pack that had been sniffing around her for the past couple of weeks.
Everyone in the entire damn Complex knew that Ciara had shifted from singles skating to being a part of a pair with Artem Kostyk.
There was a history there that I knew nothing about and even now I could smell a hint of orange on Ciara’s skin whenever she shifted in her seat. It was nice enough, but it didn’t make my mouth water the way hers did.
A nasty dash of possessiveness I had no business having filled my chest and I lifted her hand from the armrest and threaded our fingers together.
Ciara’s brown eyes shifted away from the stage for a moment, looking down at our joined hands and up at me.
I thought for sure she was about to pull away from me, but instead she offered me a shy smile before turning her attention back to the musical.
Two hours later, we were still holding hands as we exited the theater.
It was a warm night in Seattle and people were out and about enjoying the weather as we strolled together down to the waterfront.
Summer was in full swing now and tourists were flocking in from all over the world to experience the Emerald city when it wasn’t rainy, foggy, or just generally dreary all the time like it usually was.
The warm night didn’t matter much to me though as I thrived in the gloom.
When I moved to Kansas City to play hockey I missed the days of rain and how it made everything so green. It was insane that two such different places could exist in one country.
If given the choice between a warm day on the beach and cuddling up on the couch while it poured outside, I would choose the latter every time.
“Wiz?” Ciara’s voice brought my attention back to the present.
She’d pulled her curls back into a loose ponytail, exposing the long column of her neck to my hungry eyes. I could even see the thrum of her pulse just underneath the warm brown skin there.
Shoving down the urge to press my lips there while we were standing in the middle of a very crowded, very public place, I straightened and turned my face away to clear her cinnamon scent from my nose.
