Chapter 42
chapter
forty-two
Damon looks exactlythe way you would imagine a pro-athlete to look driving his convertible.
Cool and stupidly gorgeous.
Or maybe I’m the stupid one, because it’s all I can do not to openly gape at him.
After telling me to change into jeans, he ran off and returned in a pair of his own, along with the softest gray sweater. It’s late March, not nearly cold enough for sweaters in Florida, but he made me grab one before he escorted me down to his Audi.
While my curls fly everywhere, his thick black hair remains slicked into his usual carelessly coiffed style. Equally dark aviators shield his eyes as he laces our fingers together and steers one-handed through the curving roads that lead to town.
Maybe he wants to go shopping, I fret. That would be ill-advised since I finally broke down a couple days ago and went on a late-night online-ordering binge. With Cassian and Damon at an away game on the other side of the state, and Smith doing his usual work-late routine, it was my first night in the pack house alone.
Normally, I would have hidden in my nest until one of them came home… but the nest is still an entirely empty round room with a bare mattress built into the floor.
Hence the panicked shopping.
While I chew on my lip, Damon whips us into a parking lot at the back of what looks like an old warehouse. It’s huge, made of white metal.
When I raise a brow at him, he cocks a crooked grin and squeezes my palm. “Come on, pretty girl. I want you to play with me.”
I really should have known.
“Size seven?”
Damon’s still grinning as he dangles a pair of skates in front of me. I nod, doing my best not to openly pout.
Apparently, I fail because he chuffs a laugh as he drops to his knees and starts to remove my sandals for me.
“Cassian told me you had a bratty side, but I didn’t believe him,” Damon snorts. “I approve, for the record.”
It’s my turn to giggle. “That’s because you’re a brat!”
His megawatt smile somehow gets even more dazzling. “Only all the time.”
I’m not sure how he does it, but this alpha always knows exactly what to do to stop my anxiety dead in its tracks. I often find myself laughing with him, unable to remember what I was even worrying about minutes before.
But, this time, the thing I’m worried about is sort of strapped to my ankles.
“I don’t know how to skate,” I whisper. It’s something I haven’t told any of them because I assumed they would be disappointed.
But Damon keeps smiling as he stands, dusting his hands off and moving to tug off his own shoes. “I figured you needed a tutor, sweetness. This is me volunteering. Insisting, actually. Because once we start popping out babies, I’m signing them alllllll up for hockey.”
Babies?!
Um.
UMMMM.
When I blink in dismay, his grin takes on a wry edge. “Too soon?”
I nod.
He shrugs his stacked shoulders, unbothered. “Inevitable, right?”
If he wasn’t currently blowing my mind in a whole different manner, I might be mind-blown at the way he can somehow put skates on while standing up. In forty seconds flat.
“I mean,” he continues, bending down to flatten his hands on either side of my thighs. Until his perfect face is looming right in front of mine, aqua eyes snapping with electricity. “I’m your alpha, right?”
A dizzy thrill streaks through me. “Y-yes?”
“Mm,” he says, smirking. His hands find mine, pulling me up to my feet as he straightens himself out. “And you want a family, right?”
We’re moving. Walking toward the empty ice rink. Or, rather, he’s walking, backward, and I’m sort of gracelessly stumbling while he holds most of my weight on his forearms.
“Right,” I squeak, my eyes darting to the ice that’s only a few feet away now. “Damon, are we allowed to be here? What if—what?—”
He stops on a dime, letting my body tumble right into his. Even balanced on skates, he catches me easily and pulls me right up into his arms. My legs cling to his waist, the skates accidentally knocking his backside.
He doesn’t mind. Not even when I wind my arms around his neck and cling to him like a child having their first swimming lesson.
I glare down at the ice. He laughs and kisses my nose. “Goddamn, you’re cute. Though, I do feel like I should be insulted. Don’t you have any faith in me at all?”
As if to prove his point, he glides onto the ice while balancing my weight. Effortless. Smooth as that grin of his.
He skates backward lazily. Almost… indolent. Teasing me, I realize. Showing me just how silly it is to be afraid of skating with the likes of him around.
“And to answer your question,” he murmurs, ducking to put us face-to-face again. “This is the rink the local minor league team uses. They’re on the road this week, so I knew it would be empty. I pay the maintenance crew to let me use it sometimes. When we’re done, I’ll text them and someone will come smooth things over. No one will ever know we were here.”
I turn my head, looking around. The rink really isn’t small. It’s a huge warehouse-type room. Almost a miniature of the arena the Timberwolves use, without all the fancy bells and whistles like the enormous Jumbotron or the panels of screens along the walls.
This place is simple. Almost cozy, despite the size and the endless rows of empty bleachers.
“It reminds me of what I thought high school would be like,” I breathe. “This is how it always looked on TV.”
Damon nuzzles his face into mine. The gesture is comforting. He must know that omegas without guardians don’t get to go to school. “I would have had the biggest crush on you, pretty girl.”
I bite my lip, imagining him back then. He must have been uber-popular. Fun and athletic and gorgeous, with that scoundrel’s grin to boot. “Somehow, I highly doubt that.”
Damon gives me side-eye, his aqua-blue irises contrasting those shiny black lashes and his pale skin. “Psht. Trust me. I would have sat behind you in class and watched your pretty hair bounce around your shoulders. And your cute little fingers arranging all your notes. I bet you would have had a special color highlighter for every class.”
My cheeks glow because he’s right. Before my designation came in, that’s exactly how I was. Damon chuckles, kissing my blush. “Adorable.”
I want to cringe. “I was a bit of a—” total dork “—nerd. You wouldn’t have thought I was lame?”
He frowns. “What? No way. It’s fucking sexy how smart you are, sweetness. And I like the buttoned-up prim-teacher’s-pet vibe. Makes corrupting you even more fun. Plus, you have to know by now that Cass has been in love with you forever.”
My heart pounds. Cassian has only said those words to me a few times, but every night when he gathers me into his arms and hugs me, I swear I can feel them. The same way I used to when he was just my friend, huddling into my side for warmth on those cold rooftop mornings.
He isn’t a wordy person, but he always makes me feel cared for. So does Damon, with the way he actively engages in all of my hobbies and constantly checks in with me.
Smith, on the other hand…
Sometimes, I think Damon may be the smartest of them all. He seems to be to read all of our minds, staring at me just a second too long before he sighs. The warm gust tingles over my chilly cheek. “Do you think you’ll ever forgive him?”
His question confuses me, for a moment. All this time, I’ve felt like I had to please the pack alpha. Convince him of my worth. But ever since the first morning that he brought me coffee, Smith has seemed…
Sorry.
Like maybe I’m the one rejecting him, instead of the other way around. And, you know what? Maybe I should be. Maybe I am. Because if the way Damon and Cassian treat me is the right way for an alpha to treat their omega, then I think I have every right to be furious at Smith. Not to mention all of the things he did before we knew we were supposed to be mates.
I try for a joke, pasting on a smile I don’t quite feel and replying with a question of my own. “Do you think he’ll ever apologize?”
Heaving out a deep breath, Damon turns us in an easy circle. “I’m not sure he knows how to. Not out loud anyway. He’ll just work himself to death to make up for everything— it’s the only way he thinks he can.”
With money.
It’s another astute observation. One I’ve caught onto myself. Every time we’ve ever been alone together, Smith tries to ply me with material wealth. Offering me anything and everything. Without really giving me anything.
“What do you think I should do?” I ask quietly.
Damon spreads his feet and arches us in a wide curve, spinning to a smooth stop. His face leaps in surprise. “Me?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, stroking his cheek with my cold fingers. “You’re so much better at relationship stuff than the rest of us, D. What do you think?”
The question seems to shock him. I’ve noticed that the others don’t ask his opinion very often. Which is silly because he has the highest emotional intelligence in the pack by a mile. Then again, he diffuses conflicts and solves problems so smoothly; I doubt they even notice he’s doing it.
He drops his forehead to mine and nuzzles there. Scent-marking me, the way he does every time I seem even the least bit uncertain. He’s sweet. In a way I never expected. Between his crooked grin and bedroom eyes, I thought he’d only want to give me one thing.
But Damon gives me everything he has.
And I might be more than a little bit in love with him.
“I think,” he starts, speaking slowly, as if testing the words. “I think that only you can decide what feels safe to you. And that’s all that matters to me.”
He kisses my cheek softly, adding, “But I hope he figures his shit out so you can forgive him one day. Because all of us, together? Shit, sweetness, that’s everything I ever wanted and never had.”
My heart pinches as I nestle my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. “What do you mean?”
He sighs, moving his feet again. The ice beneath us gets carved to ribbons before he finally answers.
“My parents were assholes,” he finally says. “I, uh, left. Left them, I mean. When I was fifteen.”
My fingers freeze. “But where did you go?”
His sad smile is a weak approximation of his usual grin. “Here and there. I had a lot of friends. Slept on a bunch of couches. Ate a lot of free cafeteria food.”
Likely because he was just as charming back then as he is now. That’s fortunate, I guess, but I hate that he felt he had to take care of himself like that.
“Did they—” I can only imagine one reason why I would ever leave a home—withparents—but I know I come from a very different perspective on this sort of thing. “Did they hurt you?”
Damon’s shoulder lifts in a shrug, but his features harden. “Sometimes. Not a lot. Usually not on purpose. They were both drug addicts. Or are. I don’t really know. I haven’t spoken to them in more than ten years. When I left, they didn’t exactly come running after me.”
My arms tighten immediately, hugging him around the neck. “D… I’m so sorry.”
Damon cuddles me, securing his muscled arms around my back and nestling his face into my hair. When he closes his eyes and rests there, everything inside me melts. “Thank you,” he says into my skin. “It was a long-ass time ago. I’m mostly better about it now.”
I get what he means when he says “mostly.” I’ve “mostly” gotten over being abandoned at birth. I’m an adult now, and I can understand, rationally, why people give children up.
But that doesn’t make Christmas alone hurt any less. Or other occasions.
I try to paste on a bright smile, ignoring the pang echoing behind my breastbone. Damon’s ice-blue eyes trace over my expression. After a long beat, he narrows them slightly.
“Tell me something,” he requests.
“Tell you… something?”
A spark lights his gaze. “Yeah. Something you don’t think I want to hear.”
My lashes flutter, confusion quirking my brow. “Why would I do that?”
Damon spins us quickly, flashing his crooked grin. “Because… I think you keep a lot of things to yourself so you don’t upset us. I want you to tell me something real and true, that you think I won’t like. So I can prove to you that you’re my omega. All the time, no matter what.”
My heart rips in two; fear and longing tugging it in opposite directions. And below all of that, there’s awe. Damon’s emotional intelligence is way beyond anything I ever would have imagined.
He’s nothing like I originally thought he was. He’s so much more.
Maybe, if I show him some of my true colors, he’ll feel the same way about me.
Thinking this, I whisper the first confession that comes to me. “I hate my birthday.”
He practically pouts. “What?! Why?”
I feel like the most pitiful person on earth, but it’s too late to turn back now. Sighing, I hide my face against the hot, autumn-spiced skin of his throat.
“It’s the same day they gave me away.”
Damon stops breathing, and I squeeze my eyes closed.
He’s going to hear how pathetic I am and run for the hills. He won’t want me anymore, and he’ll tell the others I’m defective, and then they’ll finally figure out whatever it is that made all the others return me, too.
But he asked to hear this. I have to follow through and give him what he wants, so I scrape out the rest of this dark thing I’ve never told anyone else.
“The day I was born is the same day they gave me away; and every year, even if I’m doing something fun with Meg… I have to remember that, however many years ago, someone looked at me and decided they didn’t want me.”
For the longest moment, everything is still and silent. All I hear is my own breathing, too quick and muffled by the collar of his sweater. Finally, Damon moves, slowly skating us to the edge of the rink and setting me on the low wall surrounding the ice.
When he leans back, just far enough for me to see his face, he cups both palms around my head. “Remi,” he says, staring right into me, “I want you.”
My eyes sting while he crowds closer.
“Okay? I want you, sweetness. I want all your muffins. And I want to hear about your pirate romance books, even if I still don’t actually believe that’s a thing. I want to watch Bake Off with you and score for you at every game and hold you all night, every night. I want you.”