Chapter thirteen #3
I locked my phone and headed for the elevator, trying not to think about the fact that my brother was actively encouraging me to spend time with a man who’d just asked me out while I was still hung up on someone else.
The elevator doors opened on my floor, and of course—because the universe had decided I hadn’t suffered enough today—Odin was in the hallway. He was carrying groceries, struggling slightly with the bags as he tried to get his key in the lock.
“Hey,” I said, because ignoring him would have been rude. “Need help?”
He looked up, and his face broke into that easy smile. “Dante. Yeah, actually, if you don’t mind. These bags are heavier than they looked at the store.”
I crossed the hallway and took two of the bags from him, waiting while he got his door open. His apartment looked more settled than it had last night—some of the boxes unpacked, furniture arranged, the signs of someone actually living in a space rather than just occupying it temporarily.
“Thanks,” he said, taking the bags back once we were inside. “I keep buying like I’m feeding an army.”
“I do the same thing,” I admitted. “My ma always cooked for five, so my brain thinks that’s the normal amount.”
“Big family?”
“Just the two brothers you met and a million cousins. You?”
“Only child.” He set the bags on the kitchen counter and started unpacking. “Which probably explains why I’m terrible at gauging portion sizes.”
I should leave. Should make an excuse and go back to my apartment and not stand here making small talk with a man who was interested in me while I was thinking about my coach.
Instead, I heard myself say, “You still interested in that drink?”
He paused mid-motion, a can of something in his hand, and looked at me with surprise that quickly shifted to pleasure. “Absolutely. When were you thinking?”
“Tonight?” The word was out before I’d fully thought it through. “I know a Thai place if you’re hungry as well. Nothing fancy, but good beer, and they don’t care about hockey, so I won’t get recognized.”
“Sounds perfect. What time?”
“Seven?”
“I’ll meet you in the hallway at seven.” His smile widened. “I’m looking forward to it.” We exchanged numbers because that’s what people did.
“Yeah. Me too.”
I left before I could change my mind, closing myself in my apartment and immediately wondering what the hell I was doing.
This was a terrible idea. Going out with Odin when I didn’t actually want to go out with Odin, when I was only saying yes because I was trying to convince myself I could move on from Kincaid, when my motivations were all wrong, and this was going to end badly for everyone involved.
But I didn’t text him to cancel. I stood in my apartment for a solid minute, staring at my phone, and then I set it down and went to take a shower.
Because maybe this was exactly what I needed.
Maybe spending time with someone who actually wanted to spend time with me, who looked at me like I was interesting rather than like I was a project to fix, would help me get my head straight.
Maybe I could learn to want what was available instead of what was impossible.
Maybe.
Theron
I’d been thinking about food for the last hour of film review—specifically, about the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything substantial since breakfast, and my body was starting to remind me that even dragons needed fuel.
There was a Thai place in Cherry Creek that I’d been going to for years, the kind of establishment that knew me well enough to have my usual order memorized but not well enough to ask personal questions.
I called them from my truck, ordered the pad Thai I liked and spring rolls, and made the drive through evening traffic with my mind still half on the game footage I’d been reviewing.
Chicago’s defense had patterns we could exploit in game five if we were smart about it.
If we didn’t lose anyone else to Markov and Jensen’s brand of aggression.
If Dante could get back on the ice and remember he was allowed to be good.
I’d watched him this morning—really watched him, the way I’d been avoiding watching him for two months because watching him too closely made my dragon want to do things I couldn’t allow.
He’d been tentative at first, second-guessing every shot, telegraphing his intentions in ways that would get him eaten alive in playoff hockey.
But gradually, as the session went on, something had shifted.
His shoulders had come down. His hands had remembered what they knew.
And by the end, he’d been putting pucks in the net with the kind of precision that made it clear exactly why Antoine had been so threatened by him.
He was good. Instinctively good. He just needed to believe it again.
My dragon stirred with approval at that thought, and I told it firmly to settle down. Professional interest. That was all this was. I was his coach, and helping him regain his confidence was literally my job.
The fact that I’d spent most of the session cataloging the way he moved, the grace he brought to the ice, the sound of his breathing when he was working hard—that was just unfortunate biology. Dragons noticed their mates. It was inevitable. It didn’t mean I had to act on it.
I pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot and grabbed my phone to let them know I was here for pickup. The place was busy for a Tuesday night—most of the tables full, ambient noise of a successful dinner service filtering through the windows.
I walked in, gave my name to the host, and while I was waiting for them to bring out my order, I glanced toward the dining room.
And froze.
Dante was sitting at a table near the window. He was wearing a dark blue button-down that I’d never seen before, his hair still damp like he’d showered recently, and he was smiling at something the man across from him was saying.
Odin Clark.
Odin fucking Clark was sitting across from my mate—my player, I corrected savagely—in a restaurant that I came to regularly, looking at Dante with the kind of focused attention that made my vision sharpen and my hands curl into fists.
This was a date. The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow.
Dante was on a date with the human-born dragon who’d shown up at the game with Dante’s family, who’d somehow appeared in Denver, who was now apparently taking him out to dinner and making him smile in ways I hadn’t seen him smile since the trade.
My dragon surged forward with enough force that I felt my eyes heat, felt copper bleeding into my vision. The urge to cross that dining room, to make it extremely clear to Odin Clark that Dante was mine, was so overwhelming that I had to grip the host stand to keep myself rooted in place.
“Sir?” The host was back, holding a bag that presumably contained my order. “Your food is ready.”
I took the bag without looking at it, my eyes still locked on that table near the window.
Odin said something that made Dante laugh—actually laugh, his head tipping back, his whole face transforming with genuine amusement.
And the jealousy that went through me was so intense, so visceral, that I tasted metal in the back of my throat.
Mine, my dragon snarled. Mine mine mine.
He wasn’t mine. He was a player on my team I’d rejected three days ago because getting involved with him would put him in danger. Because mate bonds made you vulnerable. Because I’d already lost one mate to people who’d wanted leverage over me, and I would not—could not—do that again.
But watching Odin Clark lean forward slightly, watching the way his attention was focused entirely on Dante, watching my mate smile at someone who wasn’t me—it made every rational argument I’d constructed feel hollow and inadequate.
I should leave. Should walk out of this restaurant before either of them noticed me, before I did something I’d regret. Should go home to my empty house in the foothills and eat my Thai food alone and remind myself why distance was necessary.
Dante’s eyes shifted, scanning the restaurant the way people did when they were checking their surroundings. And they landed on me.
I watched the smile fade from his face. Watched something complicated flash across his expression—surprise, maybe guilt, or maybe just the same awkwardness that had been sitting between us since Sunday night. Odin must have noticed the change in him because he looked up too.
Odin’s eyes met mine across the dining room, and I saw recognition there.
Not just the surface recognition of someone you’d met briefly at a hockey game.
Something deeper. More knowing. The awareness that dragons had when they recognized their own kind, even through all the human presentation and careful control.
He knew what I was. And from the slight smile that curved his mouth, he knew exactly what seeing him with Dante was doing to me.
I turned and walked out before my dragon could make that choice for me. Got to my truck with the Thai food I suddenly had no appetite for, sat in the driver’s seat with my hands on the wheel, and tried to breathe through the rage.
And wondered what the actual fuck I was going to do.