Chapter 15 Timber
Timber
Carys watches me from the passenger seat as we cruise along the highway.
“Are you going to say anything, or are you going to keep staring at me?” I ask.
“It’s just… um…” She twists her lips, and a faint blush stains her cheeks. “You smell like an omega.”
There’s a pause between us as my eyebrows shoot up. “Excuse me?” I snap my head to look at her, and she smirks, which instantly makes me pull back.
Carys is one of those special people in my life who’s seen me at my worst and still wants to be around me for some godawful reason.
She was a teen when Kane broke my nose, and I left my wife.
As the assistant coach’s daughter, it doesn’t mean she was immune to the shit I put the team through when I was trying to deal with it all.
She’s more of an outlier because she came to the rink after school at the end of our practices.
She and the other team members who endured me are why I kept playing, even when I lost my position for a year and almost never got it back.
I tried to hide it from her when she was younger, but I was so wrapped up in myself that it was obvious what was going on. Now I want to be someone she can rely on, even if it’s just giving her a ride to the rink.
“I know your sense of smell has been messed up for a long time, but can you seriously not scent that at all?” She gives me a pointed look, as if I’ve done something wrong.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about. What does it smell like?” I double-cleaned myself up after my adventure this morning.
Her nostrils flare as she takes a breath, and her blush deepens.
“Maple syrup,” she murmurs, and my heart plunges.
I suddenly need to get to the rink ASAP and shower off anything that’s left on me. It’s strange, but I don’t want any of the other guys to scent it. It’s the first thing I’ve smelled and tasted in years, and it belongs to me. No one else is having it.
“It’s more than just you, though. I’m pretty sure I can smell older perfume in the car, too. Are you really not hooking up with someone? Or did Marilyn set you up? Dad mentioned she’s been on a war path these last months with all of you.”
“No, though I heard she’s got her sights set on Rhett and Paxton,” I say casually, repeating what Thorne said at practice the other day. He’s worried he and Silas are on her hit list as well.
We don’t know how wide Marilyn is going to cast her net. Would she only focus on packing all of us up? Some of the staff had been pulled into her schemes as well, so there’s tension floating around the rink from every department.
Glancing at Carys, I grit my teeth. If Marilyn ever ropes her into her plans, it won’t just be Ares who’ll kick off. Even though Carys is an adult, she’s like a little sister to the team. Marilyn should know we won’t let her play with Carys and her future.
“I heard you already had a meeting with her,” Carys asks after a beat of heavy silence. “Is that why you smell like that?”
I click my tongue before scowling at her. She’s so used to it that she doesn’t bat an eyelid.
“Do you honestly think I’m going to start anything with an omega?” I ask, holding back a snarl. Even when she knows so much about me, she’s still young, but nearly as old as Luke.
I almost groan as guilt surges through me again. That’s right, Luke really is that much younger than me. I know it, but I keep forgetting because of how relaxed he is with me. And I was fantasizing about him like that while I was getting high off whatever the hell he put in the oatmeal.
“Look, I stopped at the convenience store on the way here, okay? It’s just my nutritionist will have a fit if he finds out.
” And if he discovers what I did before I left.
“There was an omega behind the counter, so that could be it.” Though she didn’t touch me, so it wouldn’t explain why the scent is all over my clothes and my car.
I’m grasping at straws at this point.
I only went there because I needed some kind of comfort food after the stress of losing control.
“Timber, it’s way more intense than a random encounter. If someone’s scent marking you without your consent, that’s a really big problem.”
Except I’m fine with having maple syrup all over me. If it’s plastered on my insides, then I can wear it on my outside to show people I can actually fucking taste something.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say gruffly as I lick at my teeth, hoping some of the taste is still trapped in there.
More guilt flows through me as another silence sweeps between us. I worry I’ve been too harsh when she’s only looking out for me.
I’m tapping my finger on the steering wheel as we get stuck in traffic, while thinking of a way to break the awkwardness, but she rescues us.
“What would you do if you matched with someone again?” Carys asks quietly.
My hands instantly tighten on the wheel as I put my foot down. The engine notches up a pitch as we speed off down the highway again.
I scrabble around for an answer that won’t come off as curt.
When she first asked me, she hadn’t presented yet, she couldn’t scent anything, and she only knew about scent matches from all those shitty romcoms she made me watch when I was going through my bad years.
Ares forced me to stay with them off-season, so I didn’t do anything stupid.
I had an instant answer for her back then: I’d reject them.
I didn’t sugarcoat it because she was looking for advice when her boyfriend presented as an alpha.
The asshole ended up breaking her heart, so I don’t regret how selfish and blunt I was.
I hurt her by telling her not to have any expectations of him, but I was right in the end.
“There’s something about scent matching that drives you wild, Carys,” I say.
“It’s like nothing else matters in the world.
Your match becomes absolutely everything to you, and it really feels like you’re nothing without them.
It’s crazy.” I click my teeth as I remember how insane I used to be when I matched in my twenties.
“So, first, I’d make sure I knew if what I felt was really genuine, or if it’s just my alpha side telling me that person is my match. ”
“But aren’t they the same thing? Your… instincts and your feelings?”
I let out a heavy sigh and notice the way she’s winding her fingers on her lap.
“Did you scent match with someone?” I ask softly.
“No,” she murmurs. Her cheeks darken again, and she focuses on the passing buildings. “I haven’t even gone on a date since getting back from college this summer.”
“Really? So you don’t want a relationship?”
She shakes her head before she shrugs. “I don’t know. I spent all of college on suppressants. I’m just trying to figure out how to… exist in my own body, I guess.”
“You took suppressants?”
She flinches and ducks her head. “Don’t tell anyone, please. I presented a month before I was supposed to go to school in Colorado. I… was terrified, honestly. So I went on a low-grade suppressant and then had a booster medication to stop my heat from starting.”
I fucking hate that she had to take suppressants. But there are no alternatives for omegas in a situation like that.
“Do you remember what you told me before you presented? When you were still dating that dumb asshole from the football team?”
Her brows furrow as she glances back at me. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “That I wanted a love I didn’t have to hide from my dad?. And… and someone who wasn’t intimidated by him, or was only interested in me because of my connection to hockey.”
“Is that still what you want?”
Carys bites her bottom lip. “I… yeah, I think I do. It’s so cliché, I know, but I want something like the movies: the flowers, the dates, the small, nervous touches.
I want what Chase and Axel have. Something that’s just so…
” She sighs. “You just know. There’s no questioning it, no worry you’re wasting your time with someone who won’t even know your friends in another year. ”
Her voice turns bitter. It makes me wonder what happened to her while she was on the suppressants, what kind of jerks stole her smile while she was gone.
“I want a scent match,” she says, barely a whisper, knowing she’s worried about my response.
“But I’m scared I’ve already matched, and I won’t know because I was suppressed.
What if I already met them and missed my chance?
” She gives me another nervous glance as my jaw tightens.
“I know you’re going to go off about how I’m still super young and have loads of time, but that doesn’t stop me worrying about it, okay? ”
She sucks in a breath and then mutters a vehement curse. She’s quick, grabbing a bottle of lotion from her bag and obsessively rubbing it on her arms and legs with smooth, efficient strokes.
It’s the distress scenting that makes me want to be there for her. She shouldn’t have had to take care of me when she was a kid, so I need to take care of her now.
I park up in the lot, getting us as close to the front entrance of the rink as possible so she doesn’t have far to walk.
“Listen, Carys,” I say as I kill the engine, turning to press my elbow on the top of my seat.
“You’ll know, okay? You won’t need to wonder if you’ve matched with someone.
It’ll hit you out of nowhere like a fucking freight train that’s gone off the rails.
There’ll be times when you can’t even remember who you are. ”
She drops the lotion into her bag, and tension eases away from her shoulders.
“You can talk to me, you know? I’m here if you need help,” I say.
She gives me a shaky smile, and I realize I’m looming over her. I have to stop doing that to the shorter people in my life. Because I don’t want Luke to look up at me, trembling as his smooth lips part and he makes the slightest noise from the back of his throat as he reaches out for me and—
I flinch as I shoot away from her, clenching my teeth.
“Are you okay?” she asks as her eyes widen. “Your scent just…”
Her throat bobs as she suddenly swallows, reaching out to help.
“Yeah, sorry. I’ve got a twinge in my back, that's all,” I say as I bat her hand away.
She raises an eyebrow, not believing me for a second. After a beat, she rolls her eyes. “Okay, Grandpa. You can just say you don’t want to tell me. I’m only trying to help. You know, the way you said you would with me.”
“Little brat.” I scowl jokingly, and she laughs as she hops out of the car. “I mean it, though. Call me if anything happens. I’m always going to be here.”
“Yeah, I got it,” she says as she closes the door. I’m probably embarrassing her, but I don’t want her to go through any of the things I did when my ex-wife used our match to her advantage.
All the stuff I’d said to Carys, and what was I doing? Getting hard and jerking off to the taste and scent of maple syrup.
I got too caught up by it. I was so pumped up on being able to smell and taste again that I never asked where it had really come from.
Luke said it was a special seasoning he added to the oatmeal, but have I ever reacted to anything like that in my life? I was a total animal, and my words come back to me.
It’ll hit you like a fucking freight train that’s gone off the rails.
It had come out of nowhere. I never expected it. And it was so good that even thinking about it now has my cock hardening.
If I really stop to think about it, it isn’t just good old-fashioned maple syrup. Even after all these years, I can never forget it.
When I run my tongue over that last little morsel that’s stuck at the back of my teeth, I groan. Because I swear it’s the taste of slick.