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I forced myself to swallow and simply nodded. “’Course.”
“What else is there that we plan on doing today?” My mother asked, arching an eyebrow with a new smile stretching her glossed lips.
Over lunch, I considered leading up to the big conversation I knew I had to have at some point today. She even asked me if I had made any new friends recently and it would’ve been the perfect opening to casually bring Leeson or Jacob up, but I hadn’t.
“I was thinking,” I proposed, trying to sound confident. “If you wanted to, we could go see the hockey game on campus. Usually, the games are at night, but this one was scheduled early. The team is doing well this year and there will probably be a lot of parents going too.”
“Hockey?”
“On the ice,” I clarified as if that wasn’t obvious.
“Since when have you been interested in hockey?”
“I never disliked hockey.”
“No, but I never thought you would go out of your way to enjoy sports.”
“It was just an option.”
“We can go. I haven’t been to a hockey game in years. We’ll mix it up a little,” she said.
“Sounds good.” I smiled.
“You’re sure smiling a lot.”
It was either smile or collapse into tears.
“I like it,” my mother said softly. “It’s good to see you smile. I feel like I haven’t seen it since you were a little girl. See? I told you that coming to university and putting your mind to it would pay off in the end.”
Right. Sure.
“Are you sure there isn’t anything else I should know about this hockey game? You seem on edge, dear.”
Another round of nerves coursed through my stomach. I was pretty sure this time if I tried to talk, my voice would come out as a jittery mess. We started to walk down the path of campus towards the sports fields and rink.
Here we go. If we ran into the guys, I could just start strong and introduce them. If not until after the game. That would work too. Probably would be better.
“Actually, I have some friends I forgot to mention who are on the team now. I’ve been going to a few games recently and?—"
“Vera!” A voice called out.
Turning my head towards the sound, my eyes widened. Out of all the different scenarios of how I was going to broach the fact that I now had alpha friends. This situation was not one of them that had crossed my mind.
Claudia Padderson quickly pulled away from what looked like two other large men who extended an arm but watched her go with a smile on their faces. One of them had golden, ginger hair that looked just like Leeson’s. Making her way over towards me, before I could say anything, Claudia wrapped her arms around me. “How are you doing?”
“I’m good.”
“Being treated well?” she cocked her head and eyed me as if she could detect a lie a mile away.
I shrugged but couldn’t help the small smile that came at the thought of just how well I’d felt like I’d been being cared for recently since I’d last seen her.
Claudia’s eyes flicked behind me, pausing before smiling wide. “Wonderful. We love to hear it and I didn’t doubt that was the case for a minute. Is this your mother?”
“Uh, yes.” I turned around.
My mother glanced between me and Leeson’s mom. If you didn’t know her well, my mother would’ve looked the perfect picture of poise. But now I threw her for a loop, unsure who exactly was hugging me and I doubted it wasn’t completely visible that Claudia Padderson was an omega.
“Mom. This is…”
