Chapter Nine – Noelle #2
“Do mine next,” Nico says, earning himself a glare from Matteo. “Uh, I’m guessing by that death glare you’re not going to do mine next. Fine, fine. I’ll just handle it on my own. I see Noelle is always going to get special treatment.”
“Damn straight,” Matteo growls out.
“Like anyone wants to smell your feet, anyway,” Felix remarks dryly as he does his own skates.
Nico pulls off his first boot, sitting two feet to my left. “I’ll have you know, they don’t smell that bad.”
“Oh, yeah? Give your foot a sniff, then, and let me know if that’s true,” his twin says.
“I will not be doing that, thanks. I’ll just put my skates on myself. I’m capable. I’m a very capable alpha with feet that do not smell.” He gives me a lingering look. “My feet are peaches and cream, baby. I sweat pure gold—”
Matteo cuts him off as he moves to sit directly beside me and work on his own skates now that mine are tight on my feet, “Oh, shut it. You might smell good to the omega, but we all know you don’t sweat fucking gold, Nico. Be fucking for real.”
“I am so fucking for real you don’t even know.”
I roll my eyes at the guys. They get along great, but sometimes I wonder if they get on each other’s nerves.
Brothers don’t always end up in a pack together.
A lot of times they do, but not always. Growing up together, they’re super comfortable around each other, which probably means they don’t hold back.
Once Matteo has his skates on, we’re ready to roll.
Or, um, skate? The guys pop up on their feet like it’s nothing, but the moment I try to stand, I wobble.
The only reason I don’t immediately fall over is Matteo and his quick hand; he grabs my shoulder and steadies me.
We’re on packed-down snow right now, on the bottom of the gazebo, and I can only imagine once we get to the ice, it’s going to be worse.
“Just walk slowly,” Matteo tells me, his hand falling down to my arm as he takes a single step. “I’ll help keep you steady. Once you get the hang of it, it’s not that bad.”
Walking on ice skates is a balancing act, one I did not come prepared for.
Every step is like I’m taking a step for the first time, like I completely forgot how to walk and stay upright.
Thankfully, the guys are much better at it than me.
Matteo helps me stay upright, while Felix and Nico keep an eye on us from ahead.
The twins reach the frozen lake first. They only shoveled about a quarter of it, but it’s still a good size, plenty of room for them to show off how much better they are on their skates than I am.
They might not twirl like those contestants you see on TV in those tight, shimmery outfits, but they can stay upright, pick up speed, slow down, and even turn without losing their balance.
Me? I’m not so good.
The ice is relatively flat, but not perfectly so. There are a few bumps in the ice, and those bumps make me stumble. Matteo is right there to steady me; his hand leaves me for only a few seconds before he has to grab hold of me again. Never before has staying upright been more difficult.
Ice skating isn’t easy, but people make it look so effortless, like you just scoot along on the ice, but that’s not how it is.
You need to know how to move your feet to keep up your pace while still going straight.
You have to know how to bend your body when you make a turn so you don’t fall over on your butt.
It’s all stuff I never had to think about, mostly because I never really wanted to go ice skating.
But the guys are having fun—minus Matteo, probably, since the über is stuck to my side like glue—so I’m going to do my best.
Felix and Nico take turns showing off, chasing each other, zooming around me and Matteo like they’re a speedster in a comic book universe. Their hoods fall down thanks to the wind buffering them as they go, but they don’t seem to mind. They’re having fun, and seeing them have fun makes me smile.
“I’m sorry you have to be my personal wall,” I tell Matteo, glancing up at him as we meander along the ice at a snail’s pace. It’s about as fast as I can comfortably go without losing my balance. Apparently, keeping my balance isn’t something I’m good at. Who knew?
“It’s not a problem,” he’s quick to say. “I didn’t realize you’d be this bad at skating—no offense, but I’m pretty sure a five-year-old can hold their balance on skates better than you.”
“A five-year-old is a lot smaller, so they have less to balance,” I say.
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Oh yeah? Then how come a cat can jump down from like fifteen feet high and be fine, but if I were to do it, I’d break something?
Size matters.” The last two words are out of me before I can think better of them, before I realize how those two words could be taken, and when I do realize it, I blush heavily.
Nico appears out of nowhere to my left, like he’s been waiting his entire life for this moment.
“Ah-ha. I always knew size matters. Anyone who says it doesn’t is a liar.
” He leans in closer to me as he adds, “I can’t speak for my brothers, but I can speak for myself when I say, you won’t be disappointed in what’s under the hood of this car. ” And then he winks and zooms away.
Matteo groans. “Just ignore him. He’s… well, you know how he is.”
Yes, yes I do. If I was anyone else in the world, I might not know how he is, but since I practically grew up with these three, I know how they all are.
Nico always has something witty to say, and if that something witty is also borderline inappropriate?
Even better. That particular comment wasn’t one he could’ve said to me a month ago.
“To be fair,” I manage to say once I overcome the heat in my cheeks, “I did walk into that one. To be clear, though, I was talking about balance, not, um… the size of other things.”
Matteo chuckles, and when he chuckles I realize it’s a sound I’ve hardly heard before. The über’s always been standoffish, kind of quiet and mean when he’s around me. Now I know that’s because he was trying to hold himself back.
“You did kind of walk into that,” he admits as his hand drops from my arm, falling to my gloved hand, which he then holds onto as he picks up our pace just a hair.
I let him take the lead on the ice. It’s much easier to let him skate while he pulls me along, much, much easier to stay on my feet that way.
“But, call it intuition, I don’t think nature has ever made an alpha who’s lacking in that department.
” He glances at me. “In case you’re wondering. ”
Ah, there’s that blush again. These three seem to bring it out of me often.
There’s nothing else I can say besides “Good to know.”
I mean, it’s not like I haven’t thought about it.
Of course I have. When I lay in bed at night, when my thoughts wander, it’s impossible for me not to eventually wind up there.
I’ve seen them without their shirts on thanks to the pool they have at their house.
Those instances—where I got eyefuls of their muscled torsos—have been packed away in my mind for years.
The tiny little squares on their stomachs. The V-shape that points downward, to the space between their legs. The smooth curves of their pectoral muscles and the way their shoulders tense when they heave themselves out of that pool…
Oh, yeah. I’ve thought about it. How could I not?
They’re sex on two legs, these alphas. I’d be blind to not have wondered how they’d look without any clothes on.
Of course, now it’s really starting to hit me: I’m going to find out, maybe even before we leave the cabin.
I’ll find out exactly what these three are packing and if they know how to use what nature gave them.
They will. We’re taught in health class it’s all natural when it comes to alphas and their omegas. Our bodies will know what to do. The ones with real awkward virginity stories tend to be the betas, because their bodies simply don’t have the same amount of hormones omegas and alphas do.
The sun sets in the distance, around the mountains, and with each passing minute, the sky darkens until we’re in a world of black, our only light that from the Christmas lights on the gazebo.
Thankfully they strung enough lights up that it’s plenty of light, even when the sky is full of stars.
We must be out there for hours, too busy having fun to pay attention to the way the cold bites at our cheeks or how our bellies rumble with the need for dinner.
Eventually, Nico trades places with Matteo as my personal balance-keeper. When his hand takes my left, Matteo has an opportunity to show off his skills on the skates. Their skating shoes are a little different than mine; theirs look more like hockey skates.
“So are you this bad at every sport, or is skating a one-off?” Nico asks with a grin.
I giggle. “I’m pretty bad at most sports, honestly.”
“Yeah, I guess when I think about it, there aren’t any omega teams. It’s all alphas, with maybe a bigger-than-average beta here and there. How does it feel to suck?”
My giggle turns into an outright laugh. “I can’t believe you just asked me that.”
“Why? I’m just saying. Can you even drive? Do you have good hand-eye coordination? Should my brothers and I be worried you’re going to walk into a wall at any given time?”
“I’m not that bad. Come on.”
Nico chuckles as his gloved hand squeezes mine. “I tease. You know, if I ever say too much, or go too far, all you have to do is tell me to stop, and I’ll stop. I’m aware sometimes my mouth runs off and I tend to say anything that’s on my mind.”
“I know. We’re not strangers, Nico. I’ve known you practically my whole life.”
“Yeah, that’s true.” A few seconds pass before he adds, “It just feels different now, you know? Like, even though we’ve known each other forever, it’s new.”