Chapter 12
Selector: A person who is delegated with the task of choosing players for a team.
Translation: Rugby boy is officially a Dragon Daddy.
Everly
“Fun facts about bearded dragons,” I call out as I follow Wolf up the wooden steps leading into his barn apartment. “They
can run standing up. They live longer in captivity. Stress stiffens their spikes. They are poisonous, but not much.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he asks, stepping aside so I can open the door for him.
“It means, if he bites you, it will sting like a bitch but not kill you.”
“Oh, how comforting,” he murmurs as he walks over to the long table that houses the desktop computer. “Is here good?”
I prop my hand on my chin and frown. “Not much of a view.”
“Do lizards need a good view?” Wolf deadpans.
“Over here!” Stevie calls out as she runs through Wolf’s apartment like it’s hers.
I suppose she’s spent more time up here than he has since Trista used this area as an office for a long time while the rescue
center was being built. Stevie darts past the living room area and points to the long dresser on the wall opposite the foot
of the bed. I’m impressed to see the bed is made.
Wolf and I make eye contact, silently agreeing that it does look like a decent place for this guy to live. So, we both listen to the three-year-old and take the reptile over there.
I try not to squirm too much at how this entire space smells like Wolf. Like clean laundry and a warm, spicy sort of cologne
that clings to the air. I shouldn’t notice it. I shouldn’t imagine it on his skin or him in the big bed. I wonder if he sleeps shirtless?
My stomach flips as I glance back down at my phone to focus back on the bearded dragon intel. I’m here for work, not for peeling
back a layer of Wolf Reilly, even if he did surprise me by agreeing to come with me to Hilow’s party. This is just business.
Get your shit together, Everly.
“It also says here that bearded dragons can develop strong attachments to their humans and even want to cuddle.”
“Cuddling, you say?” Wolf murmurs as he obsessively straightens the large tank on the dresser, and I can’t help but smirk
at the way that doesn’t appear to freak him out in the slightest. My God, is this guy going to cuddle with this lizard? This,
I have to see.
Stevie pushes Wolf out of the way and taps on the glass. “Hi, Rugby.”
“Rugby?” He directs that question to me.
“The owner said his daughter never named him.”
Wolf scowls down at Stevie. “If I have to take care of it, shouldn’t I get to name it?”
“No,” she replies with a sharp tone.
I laugh as Wolf squats down to argue with the child in the room. I’m impressed with how quickly he volunteered to take home
the bearded dragon. Trista brought the tank into the barn after the owner left and said, “Wolf . . . would you like a new roommate?”
And that’s all it took.
She said we could share the responsibilities of the lizard, but Wolf seemed like he wanted him all to himself.
It made me smile and wonder what he was like as a little child.
I wouldn’t have pegged him for a reptile lover, but I am gathering there’s a lot about Wolf that I don’t know.
Life at Mount Millie is forcing me to learn all sorts of new things about my best friend’s brother.
Wolf stands and looks at me with a flat expression. “His name is Rugby.”
“Rugby it is.” I cover my lips with my hand as I try to hide my giggle. Mr. Grumpy Rugby gave in to a three-year-old pretty
quickly, it would seem. “He eats live mealworms, kingworms, and crickets, or greens like parsley and kale, not lettuce. You
can also feed him vegetables like peppers and sweet potatoes. You can give them some fruit, but not much. The previous owner
gave us this container of freeze-dried crickets.”
“Ewww!” Stevie squeals, wrinkling her nose at the tub I pull out of the bag on my shoulder.
“Stevie!” Trista’s voice calls from down in the barn. “Get down here, please. You don’t need to be in Wolf’s space. Plus,
I need help with Reginald.”
Stevie makes a growling little noise as she stomps past us to leave, but then she stops and hugs Wolf’s leg. “Bye, Nana.”
She moves to hug my leg next. “Bye, Everly.”
“Bye, kiddo,” I call back and watch her as she runs through the apartment and out the door to meet her mother on the steps.
“She’s obsessed with you.”
Wolf grumbles his discontent, but I swear I see a twinkle in his eye. He turns around and sets about plugging in the heat
lamps connected to the tank, so I continue my education.
“They call ’em beardies.”
“I’d rather call him a dragon,” Wolf says, eyeing the animal closely. “More manly.”
My view drifts to Wolf’s back, and I have to cover my mouth because he’s covered in alpaca shit, dirt, and other grime that I don’t even know where he picked it up. It’s been a big day for Conri the Convict. And I hate to admit that even covered in manure, he’s still painfully good-looking.
Did I ever notice how hot he was at Trinity? Admittedly, when we had class together, I couldn’t not notice him. He towers over most people and has that dark, rugged look down to an exact science.
But I rarely ever look at guys romantically for myself. My brain just instantly starts churning about what type of person
he’d match with, and that person is never me.
My one big relationship in high school proved to be a fluke. Hilow lived down the street from me, and we knew each other for
years. Then one day, he asked me to go on a date, and I really had no reason to say no. Logistically, we made sense. Similar
socioeconomic backgrounds, similar educational and professional goals, supportive families. We were both kind people with
similar interests and hobbies. By matchmaking standards, Hilow and I checked all the boxes on my matchmaking manifesto.
But after graduation, I just couldn’t stick with him. I felt stir-crazy and bored and guilty for not wanting to hang out with
him. I knew I had to end it before I went to Dublin, and I’ve never regretted it because I never really missed him. We were
just better off as friends, simple as that.
Maybe I can develop that friendship with Wolf. He’s not nearly as sweet and easygoing as Hilow, but he did agree to come with
me to that party. That’s a good start.
I just need to stop ogling his ass as he reaches into the tank to pet his lizard.
God, that sounds dirty.
I snort back a laugh at my own thoughts, and Wolf turns around, eyeing me curiously. “Something funny?”
I shake my head. “No, nothing funny at all. I’m just shocked you wanted to take care of this thing so much.”
He turns his focus back to the cage, tending to it like a doting father. “It’ll be nice going from slaying dragons to feeding
one crickets.”
“Excuse me?”
He offers me a rueful smile as he stands up and pushes his hair back on his forehead. “I played a lot of D and D as a kid.”
I stare back at him, my jaw dropped.
“What?”
“I cannot picture this—” I wave my hand in front of Wolf, gesticulating his whole being “—playing Dungeons and Dragons.”
“Don’t judge a book by its cover, Stretch,” he drawls, his eyes narrowing on me in a way that lights my skin on fire. “That’d
be like me expecting you to only ever play with Barbies.”
“Oh, you’d be spot-on there,” I reply with a nod. “I’m a boring and predictable basic bitch.”
He frowns and looks forward, his jaw muscles shifting under his skin. “I don’t think moving to a foreign country and managing
to get the most popular pub near Trinity to host you and all your dating events is what I would call basic bitch behavior.”
“More like crazy bitch behavior,” I retort with another weird snorty laugh. I have got to stop doing that. Even Rugby is judging me. I frown as I process what Wolf just said a bit more. “Which is probably why you rejected my matchmaking offer all those years
ago now. Any regrets?” I waggle my brows knowingly at him as our eyes connect.
For a beat, he doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even blink. His gaze drags over my body like he’s seeing the memory play out between
us. And when his tongue sweeps out over that lush lower lip of his, my insides squeeze, and my face flames with heat.
What is this?
What is he thinking?
He’s never looked at me like this before . . .
Has he?
His voice is rough when he answers with, “I have regrets.”
And I swear you could knock me over with a feather because I get the impression those three simple words are anything but
simple. I cough loudly and turn my focus away from him before I spontaneously combust and become food for the beardie. I survey
the space, my eyes blatantly avoiding his bed as I try to turn the conversation to a safer category. “How do you like it up
here?”
“It’s brilliant,” Wolf replies easily, like that charged moment between us never happened. He reaches into the tank and pets
Rugby with his finger. “Nicer than what I had in Dublin.”
“I guess I never saw your place there.” I can’t help but frown as I wonder how many girls he brought back to his flat. Why
is my brain being such an asshole right now?
“I shared with a few other rugby guys. They were disgusting.”
I force a smile. “Did you host all those rugby parties I always heard about?”
“A few,” he confirms casually, but his eyes feel very noncasual. “Why didn’t you ever come to any of our parties?”
“I wasn’t exactly hanging with the rugby crowd,” I reply honestly and feel my cheeks flush. “Even after Cliona and I became
roommates, we didn’t really socialize much with her teammates. We just kind of did our own thing. Though I’m not sure I would
have come anyways. Big parties stress me out. They’re so chaotic. Not my thing.”
“You were good for Cliona,” Wolf says, his eyes tender on mine.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, after all that shite with her teammate and her ex fucking behind her back, she needed a friend outside of rugby. Glad she had you.”
My brows lift. “Are you . . . complimenting me right now? Hang on, I need to sit down. I’m feeling lightheaded.”
“Sod off,” Wolf murmurs, rolling his eyes.
I can’t help but marvel though. Wolf always made me feel like a nuisance. Like he couldn’t get far enough away from me. I
never would have suspected he actually appreciated my friendship with his sister. “Her ex and her teammate are both assholes.”
“You can say that again.”
“They’re assholes.”
Wolf tilts his mouth in a sly curve. “You still could have come to our rugby parties. Who knows, you might have enjoyed yourself.”
I smile and nod. “That’s why I’m committing early to Hilow’s party. I need to start saying yes more. Put myself out there
a bit.”
“Like your mate’s party,” he confirms, his face scrunching up with thought. “Do you ever say yes to something that makes you
feel unsafe? I suspect you’re a bit of a good girl, aren’t you, Everly?”
Heat sparks low in my belly at the way he says my name. My actual name. Not Stretch. Not pain in the arse. Not my sister’s
friend. He called me Everly, with that accent of his that rises and falls in a way that makes the most ordinary sentence sound like a naughty secret. Like
a gentle caress on my belly. I feel nearly woozy at the sound of it.
“You think I’m a good girl?” I pant and cringe because I sound like a total simp.
His lips curl up into a sly grin as he leans closer to me. “Definitely.”
A noise from downstairs pops the bubble that formed between us, and I jerk back, shaking myself out of whatever stupor I was just in. Pull yourself together, Everly. Good girls don’t lust after the mountain farmhand.
But his words stir some curiosity inside of me. I don’t really do anything unsafe. Even at Trinity, I never so much as considered
a one-night stand with anyone. No one ever made me want to take the risk. Not that I got too many propositions. After I started
my matchmaking business, most guys I talked to were interested in being set up with anyone but me.
I bet Wolf has had tons of one-night stands. In a way, I admire it. I admire people who do something for themselves because
they feel like it and don’t overthink it. How freeing.
I glance down at the bearded dragon. “I should get out of your space. It looks like you have our dragon well taken care of.”
“Our dragon?” Wolf frowns back at me.
“We’re co-parenting Rugby, obviously,” I state primly. “I’ll expect daily updates on how our little guy is doing. And anytime
you need a break, he can come spend the weekend with me at my place.”
“I had no idea I was agreeing to shared custody.” Wolf fights back a smile that looks really good on him.
I shrug. “Does it make you feel a bit . . . unsafe?”
He narrows his eyes. It’s that dark, wicked look of his I will allow myself to have very unsafe thoughts about well into the
night.