18. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Who dat?” My niece was asked as I woke up the next morning with Wiz’s arms still wrapped tightly around me.
I thought when I finally gave in last night and agreed to be Wiz’s… girlfriend… that I would wake up with immediate regrets and panic for breaking the rules that were becoming more obsolete by the day. Instead, I just felt a sense of warmth that was partly thanks to the alpha at my back, his breathing even against the nape of my neck, and also partly because his half-erect cock pressed against my ass.
It would have been perfect if not for the round toddler’s face peeking over the side of my bed.
Her head of loose dark curls bounced as she put her chin on the edge of the bed and asked her question again. “Auntie Cici, who dat?”
This time she reached up and poked Wiz in the nose, causing the alpha to stir.
Apparently my sister had decided to come over and see how my date had gone, not realizing that my date was still here.
Glancing down, I was relieved to see that the blankets were at least covering all of our nude bits and we weren’t going to traumatize my baby niece for life.
The door, which had been slightly ajar thanks to Birdy’s intrusion, suddenly burst open.
“Oh shit,” Brynn, who seemed to have finally realized what was going on, whisper-shouted as she took in the situation.
“Mama, who dat?” Birdy repeated for a third time, her expression turning stormy because no one seemed to be answering her question.
“That,” Brynn said as she swooped the little girl up into her arms, her blue eyes bulging out of her head as she made eye contact with me. “Is one of Auntie Cici’s friends.”
“They’re nakey.” Birdy’s voice was much louder now and I felt Wiz stiffen against my back, telling me he was completely awake now.
“Shhh,” Brynn hushed her and hurried to the door.
Before she shut the door she shot me one last look and mouthed the words ‘oh my god!’
Then the door snapped shut, leaving Wiz and I alone in my bedroom.
“Did I just scar a three-year-old for life?” Wiz asked groggily, groaning as he rolled into a sitting position.
His black hair stuck up wildly in all directions, making him look adorably rumpled as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
In spite of myself, I laughed. “No, I think all of our bits were covered.”
Standing, I stretched like a cat and winced at the soreness between my legs thanks to the knot that he’d wedged inside of me last night.
Pulling clothing out of my dresser, I began to dress. I needed to shower, but I was enjoying the way that his musky clove scent was still clinging to my skin.
“Does your family always show up like this?” he asked, sounding grumpy. “I thought we’d maybe go for another round before I had to head to practice.”
Returning to the bed, I pulled him in for a quick kiss.
“Well, handsome,” I murmured against his seeking mouth. “You told me the McDonald clan was a bit loud and crazy? Well, I think the Peterson clan might have them beat.”
Case in point the gentle knock on the door.
“Ciara?” Aurelia’s soft voice came from the other side. “Uh… we’re here once you two are ready to come out. We brought breakfast!”
“See?” I told him with a grin. “If you’re going to be my boyfriend then you’re going to have to get used to my sisters being very nosy.”
I turned to go but Wiz snagged my hand. “Will you come to my family dinner this Sunday?”
“Are you bargaining with me, Jae-Sun Park?” A laugh bubbled out of me as I shook my head with disbelief.
“Are your sisters about to interrogate me CIA-style over what I’m hoping are waffles?” he shot back.
I pursed my lips, staring him down for a moment as I weighed my options. Meeting the family of a man that I really liked sounded like the scariest thing in the world.
“Are you scared, Callaghan?” Wiz asked as if he’d read my thoughts as he brought my hand up to his lips for a kiss.
“Terrified,” I answered honestly. “I’ve never met a boyfriend’s family before.”
Wiz didn’t seem put off by that, instead he seemed pleased by it. “I guess I’ll be taking some of your firsts too then, huh?”
“I guess you will, but you’ll have to get through breakfast with my sisters first.”
He grimaced and leaned over the side of the bed to snag his shirt from the floor.
“Do you think they’re versed in waterboarding?” he asked as he pulled it over his head.
My smile became mischievous.
“Oh, it’s their specialty,” I sang as he headed for the door. “Come out once you’re dressed, handsome, and be ready because I’ve got a feeling that there’s an entire zoo of children in the living room right now if the noises coming from it are any indication.”
With that I turned and headed for the door, leaving Wiz behind to get dressed.
It wasn’t every day that I introduced a boyfriend to my family. Brynn and Aurelia would be excited and the dads would shit bricks.
Either way, I was sure it would at the very least be interesting.
“Can you please stop bugging me and make yourself useful?” Aurelia waved me off as she typed something into her computer.
“And how should I do that?” I whined, picking up the fancy blue stapler she always kept on her desk and giving it a few testing clicks. “My only skill set is skating, and they’ve closed the rink for emergency maintenance.”
After a surprisingly nice breakfast where Brynn and Aurelia—for the most part—behaved themselves, I’d come to the complex ready to skate with Artie again. Only to be stopped by the sign on the door telling us that the rink was closed for the day and the other one was packed full of the other ice sports’ practices.
That freed up my entire day… to do absolutely nothing.
Artie had gone off with Leith as soon as he realized, his expression a little bit crestfallen when he undoubtedly caught the scent of Wiz that still lingered on my skin.
It had made my chest hurt to see, but I also didn’t regret my decision to finally let Wiz in.
Artie was full of the strings of my past with Leith and I hadn’t even begun untangling them yet—but Wiz? Wiz made my chest feel like it was glowing from the inside.
Falling in love like a dopey schoolgirl was not on my 2022 Bingo card, and yet here I was.
Aurelia shot me a withering look. “Go downstairs to the broadcast closet and get me these supplies. Colt has a taped interview this afternoon and we need all of the audio equipment because our sound guy is out sick. Can you manage it?”
I gave her a mock-salute. “Aye aye, captain!”
“Be careful with that closet though,” Hideo called through his open office door. “The handle is broken so if you let the door shut behind you you’ll be stuck inside.”
Turning my salute in his direction, I stood at attention. “Duly noted, o’ wise one.”
Aurelia rolled her eyes at me before shooting me out of her space. “Go before I ban you from the office entirely.”
With my list in hand and only a vague idea of what any of the things on it looked like, I took the elevator down to the broadcast studio.
Peeking out of the doors, it was like I’d suddenly been transported from the SSC to a television station. People were busily hurrying around like they all had somewhere to be and their feet were on fire.
Stepping into the chaos, I tapped on the shoulder of someone who looked the least bit busy and they wheeled around with a shocked expression like they’d seen a ghost.
“Can I help you?” they asked hurriedly, their eyes already going somewhere beyond me as they tapped their foot impatiently, waiting for me to respond.
Suddenly I felt like the asshole who had nothing better to do than to bug someone with an actual job.
Holding up my list, I offered them what I hoped was a friendly smile. “I’m supposed to get some audio… thingies from the broadcast closet? For the big guys upstairs?”
With a sigh, they pointed to a door labeled broadcast closet, something I clearly would have seen had I just been using my eyes.
“Thank you.” I put as much gratitude in my voice as I could muster.
“Oi! Collins! We’ve got three hours to broadcast and you still haven’t gotten your list done!” someone called from the thick of the mayhem.
“Just go in and try not to mess things up. It’ll make the interns who just organized it cry again and don’t—”
“Shut the door or it’ll lock, yes, they told me,” I finished for them and watched as they turned and hurried away from me. “And have a nice day to you too.”
Obviously the broadcast floor worked at a very different pace from the rest of the Complex and it reminded me just how privileged I was that I never had to work a job outside of helping out at the dads’ skating rink back in Minnesota.
Money was usually tight for them—figure skating was an expensive sport to fund and they did for both Brynn and me—but there was always enough until I started getting prize money and endorsements once my career really took off.
Pulling the broadcast closet door open, I grabbed a mic stand from inside and used it to prop it open before stepping inside.
“Okay,” I said to myself, reading the first item on the list. “If I was a lavalier microphone… where would I be and what would I look like?”
Twenty minutes later and I was at a complete loss. I kept trying to look things up on my phone, but the cell service in the closet was, quite frankly, the worst.
Stepping outside for a moment, I hurriedly typed the name of the item in and hit images before stepping back inside to scan through the shelves for said items.
In the time that I’d already been searching, the entire studio had cleared out and was empty aside from a single PA working on their laptop across the room.
My stomach growled and one glance at my phone told me it was lunch time—which explained the sudden ghost town that the studio had turned into.
“Just get your things and get out of here, Ciara,” I said out loud to myself, hoping to fill the sudden silence as I scanned the shelves looking for a specific black cord… that looked like all of the other cords save for a slightly different end bit.
I was standing on my tiptoes, reaching into a plastic tote to try my luck at the tangle of wires inside, when I heard someone’s footsteps behind me.
“Are you finally taking pity on me and coming to help?” I asked, thinking the PA had come to put me out of my misery.
“No, I wanted to talk to you,” Enzo’s voice made me jerk and pull the box entirely off of the shelf where it crashed to the ground with a loud noise.
“Shit!” I squawked, whirling around to find him coming in and the door closing behind him. “Wait! Don’t let the door—”
But it was too late and the door slammed shut locking us in.
Enzo frowned at me, his brows pulling together with confusion as he turned and tried the useless door handle.
“It’s broken,” I grumbled as he put his shoulder to the flat expanse and tried to force the door open.
After finally giving up, Enzo turned to face me. I assumed he was going to be on air later because he was dressed in a dark blue suit that cut such a neat silhouette on the man that I nearly forgot that I was angry at him for trapping us.
“I didn’t know,” he said and I watched as he pulled out his phone and tried to call someone, quickly finding out that cell service was nonexistent in this closet because apparently Colt had decided to line the space with fucking lead or something.
“That also won’t work. You work here, how did you not know about this closet?” I crossed my arms over my chest, irritation filling me. “And why do you constantly sneak up on me like this?”
“I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, Ciara, and just because I work here doesn’t mean I come into the broadcast closet every day. Besides what are you doing in here digging around in shit?”
My spine went shock straight as he snapped at me. This man was so incredibly frustrating, always turning everything into an argument.
I figured we were past this, but the other alpha still seemed to have it out for me if his expression was any indication.
Balling up the list that Aurelia had given me, I chucked it at him and was pleased when it bounced off of his stupidly broad chest and fell to the floor. “I’m here on errands for the head office because practice was canceled today you absolute ass.”
Enzo ignored the piece of paper on the floor and crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking my own stance.
Immediately dropping my arms, I sucked in a deep, calming breath. “Please just get to the point, Enzo, why did you want to talk to me so badly that you needed to shut that door behind you?”
Enzo seemed surprised by the sudden shift in my attitude, but I’d be damned if I was going to let this alpha yank me around like a ragdoll. If he wanted a fight, then he wouldn’t be getting one from me today.
The man blinked once, then twice as if his brain was doing a factory reset, before he leaned against the broken door and scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d let his dark beard grow a bit in the last couple of weeks since I’d begun pair skating with Artie and my eyes were drawn to it as I imagined how it would feel under my own fingertips.
I shoved that thought down immediately.
Bad Ciara, I scolded myself inwardly as if I was yelling at a dog.
“What did you do to Artie?” he finally asked, oblivious to my inner thoughts.
It was my turn to feel confused. “What do you mean? I haven’t done anything.”
“Then why has he been acting like someone broke his heart since yesterday?”
It clicked then what Enzo was asking about.
“I went on a date last night,” and became someone’s girlfriend for the first time ever, I added silently in my head.
Enzo gaped at me. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
“Because he asked? Come on now, Enzo, keep up. Why else would a woman go on a date?”
“But Artie likes you and you know it, why would you tell him you were doing that?” Enzo’s words made me sound as if I was completely stupid. “Not to mention Leith.”
Anger flared in my chest. “Why are you of all people angry about that? Last time I checked you chased me down on my run to tell me not to date either of them—remember?”
I was done with this conversation, pushing him to the side, I banged on the door. “Help! Is anyone out there! Let us out!”
But I was met with silence on the other end, not even the PA who had been working on their computer seemed to remain in the studio.
“They won’t be coming for another hour or so. Everyone always takes a long lunch before the afternoon shows.”
“Grand. Just grand,” I said, turning and sliding down the door until I was sitting with my knees to my chest on the floor. “This is all your fault.”
Enzo sighed, and despite being dressed in a very nice suit, he sank down next to me until we were shoulder-to-shoulder. “I know.”
Well that was unexpected. I thought he would lean into the argument and continue it for the next hour that we were trapped. It was also incredibly vague.
“What do you know? That you’ve locked us in here for an unknown amount of time? That in your quest to put a bubble around your pack that you just might be hurting them? That you were wrong about me? What?” My voice was full of more venom than I’d intended and a sneaky little thread of guilt wound through me when the man flinched.
Enzo’s lips pulled up into a tired half-smile. “Can’t it be all of the above?”
I wheeled back away from him in surprise. I hadn’t actually expected him to admit it.
All of the fight in me deflated almost immediately. “Why do you hate me so much? I’ve done nothing but try and help Artie. I get that I made some pretty shit decisions when it came to Leith… but that was four years ago.”
I’d torn myself up enough about that, more than whatever Enzo Santoro could throw my way, and yet he still seemed to base all of his opinions of me on it.
“I don’t hate you…”
I snorted. “Bullshit.”
“Will you let me finish?” Enzo chastised, some of the irritation from earlier returning to his voice.
With a sigh, I mimed locking my lips and throwing away the key before gesturing for him to go for it.
“I don’t hate you Ciara. The opposite in fact, I’m scared of you.” Enzo ran a hand through his dark hair, making it stand on end. “You’re going to change everything and I’m so damned tired from all the change.”
“That’s life,” I pointed out, forgetting my earlier vow of silence.
Enzo shot me a withering look and I looked down at my knees sheepishly. “Sorry, go on.”
“I’m going to share something with you that makes me feel… naked. I never told anyone this but Leith and Artie, so it’s…” he seemed to struggle with the word he was looking for.
“Sensitive,” I finished for him.
Enzo nodded. “Sensitive is a good word for it, I suppose.”
I watched him suck in a deep breath before he began.