Chapter Five – Noelle #2
Felix’s eyes are wide, as are Nico’s. The two are frozen, immobile… until Nico lifts a hand and points to his brother, wordlessly saying it was him.
“What?” Felix hisses. “I didn’t—I would never.”
Matteo and I share a look. It’s much different than the look he was giving me when he had me picked up, our faces so close.
“Team up?” I ask innocently, and he gives me a single nod.
Whoever threw that snowball is going to regret it.
The über and the omega are officially on the case, and what’s more: they’re working together.
The mysterious case of the thrown snowball will be solved.
In the end, it doesn’t matter who threw the snowball at me. Matteo and I make a perfect team, both of us adept at not only making the snowballs but launching them at our shared enemies as well. Just for a little while, I don’t see Felix or Nico; I only see enemies, and they are totally going down.
I don’t know how long we’re embroiled in a snowball fight, our snowman left half-built, but it feels like an eternity—in the best way, though. We’re all smiles, all laughs. Well, except for Matteo, but his scowling does lessen, so that’s a win.
Nico tosses a snowball at me, and I step aside to dodge it, only the snow in our area is so tamped-down now that it’s slippery, and as I step to the left I lose my footing and fall back, landing hard in the snow. And to top it off, the snowball hits me anyway.
When I go down, I don’t bother getting back up. I stay there, grinning up at the gray sky like a madwoman, breathing hard. Doing any sort of physical activity while wearing all these layers is tougher than you’d think it’d be. Still, can’t deny how fun this impromptu snowball fight was.
Felix rushes over to me, falling to his knees as he asks, “Are you okay?” For a moment, his worried expression blocks out my view of the sky.
“Yeah,” I say, watching as he relaxes and slumps over next to me. Nico gingerly sits next to his twin, while Matteo approaches and stands on my other side. “That was fun. I can’t remember the last time I was in a snowball fight. You guys are good competition.”
“Next time,” Nico muses, “I want you on my team.” The words are barely out of his mouth when a strange sound fills the air around us, and it takes me a good, long moment to realize what it is.
Matteo. That sound is Matteo growling. The mere notion of me being on Nico’s team has him growling like he’s lost his mind.
I’m slow to sit up and meet Matteo’s stare, while Felix mutters under his breath, “Dude. Really?”
“Fuck,” Matteo says as he abruptly stops growling. He shakes his head, probably at himself, and then storms away, and the three of us on the ground watch as he heads toward the house all by himself.
Once he disappears inside the house, both Felix and Nico look at me, and I feel strangely uneasy all of a sudden. Just like that, the fun of it all faded away, replaced by something much weightier than reverie.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s not your fault,” Felix is quick to tell me. “You didn’t do anything. He’s just…”
“On edge,” Nico finishes for him.
Whether he’s on edge or not, I still can’t shake the feeling it’s my fault. I mean, I know he’s an über and über alphas are gonna über and all that, but still. We were having such a fun time before Felix made the joke that he wants me on his team next time, which would mean Matteo wouldn’t have me.
That merited a growl? It’s almost funny. Kind of.
“Don’t worry about it,” Felix tells me as he stands. He offers me a gloved hand. “Let’s finish that snowman. We’ll make him the best snowman there ever was!” His easygoing grin flashes over his scarf, but powerful as that grin may be, it still doesn’t put me at ease.
I’m slow in taking his hand and accepting his help to stand, and once I’m on my own two feet, Nico stands along with us. I’m in the middle of a twin sandwich, but I don’t feel uncomfortable where I am. No, the only thing I feel is a slight pinging somewhere deep inside at how Matteo stormed off.
“Or,” he goes on when I don’t say a word, “we can pause the snowman-building for now and go inside. We brought some Oreo hot chocolate I’m dying to try out.”
Hmm. That does sound like it might be good.
“Okay,” I say, and then I realize Felix is still holding onto one of my hands. We seem to come to that same realization at once, because he drops my hand like a hot potato and steps back, putting more space between us.
Together, the three of us head back to the house, following Matteo’s footsteps.
When we step over the threshold, we’re met with the steady heat from the house, and it’s time to shed our layers and hang them somewhere to dry.
I go to change out of my wet jeans, and by the time I return downstairs, I find the twins and Miranda in the kitchen, talking in hushed whispers.
“What’re you guys talking about?” I ask, and just like that, the three of them shut up. So weird.
While the twins share a look, Miranda bounces over to me and says, “Oh, they were just telling me how Matteo stormed off—after he growled. You okay?” Her amber eyes take me in, studying the way I stand, as if she’s trying to peer inside of me and figure out how I really feel about the subject.
“I’m fine.” Everyone acts like I’m so breakable. In a physical sense, I suppose I am, but a little growl from an alpha isn’t going to push me off the edge. It does make me anxious in a way I can’t quite describe, but that’s it. “Where is he?”
“Oh, the jerk stormed to his room and slammed the door,” she says with a shrug. “My guess is he wants to be alone right now. Eh, let him have some time to cool off. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by the growl.”
“I know. He’s the one who stormed away first.” I sigh.
Felix says, “It’s not that I don’t want to keep talking about my brother, but… on to bigger, better subjects: who wants theirs made with hot water, and who wants theirs made the correct way, with milk?”
Everyone speaks in unison: “Milk.”
He grins. “Good. I don’t have to kick any of you out into the cold.”
Turns out, Oreo hot chocolate is what would happen if hot chocolate had a baby with the cookies and cream flavor.
You wouldn’t think it’d work, but it does—and it works beautifully.
It’s a shade or two darker than your average hot chocolate, but that added taste is so good it makes me never want to have regular hot chocolate again.
Add some small marshmallows on top and it’s literal perfection.
Once we have our cups, the four of us head to the couch to drink and watch some silly Christmas movie.
All Christmas movies are pretty much the same.
Someone learns the true meaning of Christmas, and it isn’t the gifts.
It’s family. It’s kindness. It’s everything that a lot of people tend to put off or ignore the rest of the year.
And, what’s even sillier is, it doesn’t matter how many of these types of movies you watch.
You still root for whoever to come to the realization that work isn’t everything, that sometimes being nice and generous is the very definition of Christmas.
You still get that warm, fuzzy feeling inside.
I don’t know why that is. If they’re so predictable, why bother with them at all? If they’re all cut from the same cloth, why waste so much time watching them?
Maybe it’s in the spirit of the movie we started, but after I finish my hot chocolate, I get up. “I’m going to make Matteo a cup.” The guys offer to help, but I turn them down with a shake of my head.
Matteo is still in his room, brooding over what happened outside. I don’t want him to feel like he has to stay locked up this entire time, so maybe if I go to him and tell him it’s okay, he’ll come out and join us.
Everything is still out from when Felix made ours other than the milk, so it doesn’t take me too long.
I make him a cup of Oreo hot chocolate, and then I sprinkle what I think is a good amount of marshmallows on top—if you don’t put marshmallows or whipped cream on top of your hot chocolate, is it even hot chocolate?
Up the stairs I go, cradling that steaming cup against my chest. It’s a good distraction for how rapidly my heart is suddenly beating. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I’m nervous to do this, which is ridiculous. It’s Matteo. I’ve known him for fifteen years. He’s like a brother to me.
All of them are. That’s why nothing will ever happen between us, no matter what Miranda thinks.
So what if they each smell delicious? So what if I have certain, um, inappropriate dreams about them and wake up to find my pajama bottoms are damp with slick? I can’t control stuff like that, and besides, it’s natural for an omega to have dreams like that.
The last thing I want is for things to be weird between us. Miranda, for some reason, thinks something’s there, but that can’t be. It just can’t be. She’s wrong—and she’s the type of person who never believes she’s wrong, so it’s easier to just go along with whatever she says.
I hesitate in front of his bedroom. The way my heart beats in my chest makes me wonder if my best friend actually has a point, if maybe I do have crushes on her brothers.
Oh, who the heck am I trying to kid? I’ve crushed on them for years, practically from the first moment I saw them, back before I even knew crushes were a thing.
I can do this. I can play it cool. Everything is fine.
I lift my hand and knock on his door.