Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
WEBB
By the midpoint of Saturday afternoon’s Nature Scout Skate on Pond Pond, I was ready to admit that I’d been wrong about today being fun.
It was not.
It had nothing to do with the dozen six-, seven-, and eight-year-olds sliding around on the ice, starting random snowball fights, and whooping so loudly the trees rang with the sound, because Maryanne and the other Herd Leader were in charge of them.
And it had nothing to do with the weather either.
Though it was overcast and I could smell an impending snowstorm in the air, the temperature had finally dropped back below freezing the day before, and after drilling the ice in a few strategic locations to check its thickness, the Herd Leaders and I had decided most of the pond was safe for skating.
No, the issue was Luke Williams—insatiably curious, constantly smiling, adorable Luke Williams, with his borrowed ice skates and all the natural grace of a shaky newborn calf—and the fact that every time I looked at the man, the churning in my gut ratcheted up a little tighter.
This wasn’t fun—it was torture.
“Like this?” Luke asked, looking up at me with hopeful excitement on his face. He balanced on his skates while I pulled him along from the front and Aiden propelled us from behind, and together we formed the world’s weirdest, slowest ice locomotive.
“You got it, Mr. Williams,” Aiden encouraged. “You’re doing great.”
“I’m not sure about that, bud. You and your dad are good teachers, though. Whoa! Crap—” he began, then glanced over his shoulder at Aiden. “Uh, I mean, crapulent toads.”
Aiden snickered, and I shook my head briefly, trying not to laugh. I was usually pretty good about not swearing much in front of my son, but he’d definitely heard the word crap a time or ten… probably just that morning alone.
“Um. Hey, Dad? I’m gonna skate off real fast and just check if Grace and Alix are okay… okay?”
I glanced over at his friends, who were playing a fast-paced game of ice tag. “Hmm. They seem okay to me.”
Luke looked up at me, eyes dancing with humor under his thick wool hat. “It’s nice of you to want to go check, though, Aiden. Very thoughtful.”
“Sure it is.” I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, go ahead. Have fun.”
“Thanks! Hey, call me if you need me, Mr. Williams!” Aiden yelled belatedly as he skated away.
“Sure will,” Luke shouted back. To me, he whispered, “I’m not positive, but I think I may have lost cool points today.” He seemed resigned.
I snorted. “It’s not possible for you to have lost more than me. Remember I told you I had to sit the kid down this morning and tell him a highly sanitized story about the bugle blowing?”
“Oh, I remember.” Luke chuckled sympathetically. “Was explaining handfasting better or worse than discussing the birds and the bees?”
“Infinitely worse. At least sex makes sense.”
I might have put off the conversation even longer if Jerry and Ellie Walcott hadn’t sat down for an interview with the mayor’s reporter niece the day before to express their support for me and Luke, but they had.
And then Genevieve had turned that interview into a news segment called “Hand-Fast Watch!” complete with a giant graphic of the mayor’s scroll showing how many tasks had been completed and which were predicted to be completed, with a countdown clock in the upper corner of the screen as if Luke and I were a bomb that might explode at any moment.
And then someone had started making T-shirts with our ship name on them, and other folks had come up to me on the street and told me they’d always suspected Luke and I were meant to be together.
It was ridiculous, but as I’d told Luke last week, if there was one thing the Hollow loved, it was love.
And clearly Curt had been wrong about this thing blowing over, because this town was just getting started.
Because of all that, I’d woken Aiden up for breakfast a few minutes early this morning and sat him down at the kitchen table to explain the unexplainable… and I was pretty sure the embarrassment of that moment would become one of my core memories.
“So, you and Mr. Williams are, like, half-married?” Aiden had demanded excitedly, eyes shining. “And you’re gonna get whole-married later?”
“No, no. That’s what I’m telling you, kiddo. The bugle blowing was an accident because we didn’t know what it meant.” My face had gone feverishly hot. “We were just having fun and didn’t intend to get handfasted.”
“So…” His face had scrunched up. “So, you’re not handfasted to Mr. Williams.”
“Uh…Well. No. Technically, I am. But as long as we don’t finish the steps, it won’t be legal. We’ll stay friends, though,” I’d assured him. “Good friends. That part won’t change.”
Aiden had sighed. “Unless Mr. Williams decides he doesn’t wanna be friends with you.”
“That won’t happen. Why would it?”
“Oh, Dad,” Aiden had said sadly, placing his hand on my arm. “You’re kinda boring. But it’ll be okay. I’ll still hang out with you. Sometimes.”
“It could have been worse,” Luke teased, like he knew exactly which part of the story I was dwelling on. “At least he said he’d hang out with you.”
“He said sometimes,” I grumbled, making Luke laugh harder. I steered him left, around a couple of kids practicing pirouettes. “Let’s go this way. We wanna stay over here where the ice is nice and thick. Nice job.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m incredibly talented at letting you pull me around, huh?” Luke clung to my arm and grinned up at me, his pink cheeks making his freckles stand out.
Jesus fuck, he was gorgeous.
There, I said it.
Luke Williams was the most delectable thing I’d ever seen, and my very confused, formerly straight self wanted to haul him in my arms and kiss him right there in the middle of the frozen pond and not give a single shit who saw us.
But I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t.
Not when it would start a whole fresh crop of rumors and news segments.
Not when I had nothing to offer Luke but a bonfire of lust, a bunch of half-baked fantasies, and a severe allergy to relationships.
So, why the fuck had I insisted Luke come along today? I didn’t have a damn clue.
And why had I texted him a dozen times a day, every day, all week long, when I hardly ever texted anyone? Also a good question.
And why had I practically elbowed Mark Burns, the second Nature Scout Herd Leader, out of the way when he’d offered to teach Luke how to skate? Once again, I—
Okay, no, actually, I knew the answer to that one.
Mark was annoying as hell, and he’d practically talked Luke’s ear off the whole time I’d been explaining the maple sugaring process that morning, even though I’d seen Luke gently shushing him more than once, which was fucking rude.
And, frankly, I didn’t like the look in his eye when he smiled at Luke, all overly friendly and eager to help.
The man was married, for fuck’s sake, and Luke was my betrothed—I mean, my fake-betrothed, obviously, but Mark didn’t know that—and yet Mark had still been trying to get his helpful fingers all over Luke. Luke didn’t need a person like that in his life, so I was teaching him to skate myself.
“Son of a goose,” Luke said as he lost his footing. “Sorry.”
I grabbed both his hands in mine and forced him to look at me. “Don’t be sorry. You really are doing great.”
Luke looked over his shoulder at all the little kids skating circles around us. “Pretty sure this is Georgia’s first time, too, and she seems to be skating on her own already.”
“She’s a kid,” I said patiently. “It’s not as easy picking up something new when you’re older. You start to focus too much on how much you don’t know and get embarrassed. But when you get distracted and let yourself have fun, you do way better. Have you noticed that?”
“I hadn’t.” Luke smiled up at me. “Wow. That’s really profound, Webb.”
My breath caught in my chest at the sight of that smile, and just like that I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know exactly why I’d invited Luke today. Because I wanted any excuse to stand next to him, just for a little while.
“Yeah, that’s me. Profound.” I moved around to the other side and held on to Luke’s jacket so he could get used to using his arms. “There you go. Awesome. You’ll be playing hockey for the Habs in no time.”
“Yeah, right. I’ll settle for just staying upright.”
“If you manage that, you’ll be doing better than a couple of their wingmen.”
“Shush.” Luke smacked me lightly in the stomach and nearly lost his footing again in the process. “They’re my team now, okay? Stop hating on my dudes.”
“Your dudes? You didn’t even know them until that night at the Bugle, and they’re only your team because Alan Laroche misunderstood—”
“Doesn’t matter,” he insisted stubbornly. “They’re mine now.”
I laughed. “And you don’t know the rules of the game and you don’t know the players—”
“Yet. But you’re teaching me. Besides, I like their jersey colors, and I like backing an underdog—”
I stared at him in horror. “The Canadiens are not an under—”
“And Alan Laroche taught me their cheer, and it’s quite catchy.” He lifted his chin. “So in my heart, they’re mine. You can mock me all you like, but I figure people have made more important decisions based on worse things.”
Good God, he was adorable.
“I’m afraid we can’t be friends anymore, then,” I sighed sadly. “I’m a Bruins fan.”
“And you’ll be sad to see your team lose, and the sight of me will just make it worse? Aww.”
“Those,” I told him, “are fighting words. I’m gonna go skate with Aiden.”
He grabbed at my hand. “You can’t, or I’ll fall.”
“Nope. I haven’t been holding you for the last two minutes,” I said smugly. “Ever since you got fired up about your dudes.”
“Holy shoot,” he whispered. “I’m doing it. I’m really doing it.”
“You’re doing it,” I agreed, my chest squeezing with pride and happiness and other things that made my stomach fucking tremble like I was a teenager, not a grown man who knew better.
Like I didn’t know that stomach trembling was likely to end in life-shattering disaster.
Like I didn’t know that there was no such thing as a happily ever after in real life.