20. CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Do you want to talk about what happened earlier today?” Aurelia asked me as we sat on the back porch of Pack Stone’s mansion after our weekly family dinner.
We used to have it at the dads’ place, but as our family continued to grow it became too crowded to cram nearly twenty people into that little house.
Sometimes it was hard to wrap my mind around how big it had gotten, and if my hunch was correct, it would soon be growing some more.
“Do you want to talk about why you weren’t drinking any wine at dinner?” I countered, lifting a brow and nodding at Aurelia’s stomach. She was an avid wine drinker, and I hadn’t seen her not drink a glass of Pinot Grigio at family dinner in years.
Aurelia sighed and scooted in a little bit closer to me on the pool lounger we were sharing, putting her arm around my shoulders.
“You are far too observant for your own good, Ceer, did you know that?”
I grinned. “I’ve been told that, mostly by you, though. So how far along are you?”
“A little over ten weeks.” Aurelia’s smile widened as she answered. “We were going to wait a couple more weeks before telling everyone since it’s not going to be the easiest pregnancy.”
Excitement filled me for her. She was the best mom to Tobey, and well, me and Brynn too. This little baby was going to be the most protected, spoiled thing ever.
“Does Brynn know yet?” I asked, giving into the urge to touch Aurelia’s still relatively flat tummy before wrapping her in a hug.
“She’s got an inkling, but unlike you she’s not as nosy,” Aurelia said with no malice as she gave me a return squeeze. “But I am glad someone outside of the pack knows. I swear Christa’s been driving me up the wall with her special prenatal smoothies. Those things are diabolical.”
I laughed at that. At some point or another we’d all fallen victim to Christa Stone and her cure-all smoothies. The last one she’d managed to get me to drink tasted like I’d licked a bale of hay.
“But don’t think this gets you out of explaining why I caught you making out with Enzo Santoro in the broadcast closet earlier.”
Leave it to Aurelia to steer a conversation right back to where we started. She’d never let me get away with distracting her, not today and certainly not fifteen years ago when she’d taken on the role of big sister, and basically, mother to a girl with a bad attitude and a propensity for pissing off grown adults.
Fourteen years ago…
“You have to go to figure skating practice, Ceer,” Aurelia said as she gently brushed my hair into a neat bun at the base of my neck, her eyes on the YouTube video that was teaching her how to do it. “You love figure skating practice.”
She’d already done Brynn’s hair and the little girl was currently in the kitchen singing at the top of her lungs in her usual tone deaf voice. She was only a year younger than me, but sometimes it made me feel absolutely ancient to watch her skip around without a care in the world.
I couldn’t understand how she was so free. Her mam had died, same as mine, but it sometimes felt like I was the only one still stuck on it.
“Maybe figure skating isn’t for me,” I lied, wincing a bit as Aurelia tugged a little too tightly on one of my curls, trying to tame it into place. “Everyone says I talk funny and Madame Orlin hates me.”
Madame Orlin was the figure skating teacher for all the little kids. A class that I still wasn’t happy about being in.
Figure skating had been the one bright spot in moving all the way to Minnesota where it felt like it never stopped snowing and everyone looked at me like an orphan.
I wasn’t an orphan. Da was still alive, though the single phone call he’d given me in the hospital had been full of slurred sobbing and blaming me for Mam’s death.
Shaking off the horrible memory, I tilted my head back so that I could look Aurelia in the eyes.
She was four years older than me, but seemed to be so much older than even that. She always made sure that everyone in the house had what they needed—including me.
Alexei and Maxim were in and out most of the day, running the ice rink that seemed to be the center of this tiny town. So most things fell on the teenager to get done.
“Madame Orlin doesn’t hate you,” Aurelia argued as she took styling gel and smoothed it over my hair, locking it in place. “She’s like that with everyone. Her sister is the same way.”
The two old women both ran the ballet studio and the figure skating classes respectively and spent most of their time terrorizing the children of the town with their harsh teaching methods.
“But she treats me like the rest of those babies,” I grumbled, leaning against her legs. I hated being in the same class as seven-year-olds, especially since Brynn was with the girls older than us.
A prodigy was what people called her and when I watched her skate it was obvious that was true.
She skated in a way that made everyone stop and look.
And I so desperately wanted to do that too.
“She’s much nicer to the babies,” Aurelia pointed out cheerfully as she put down the brush. “All right, you’re all ready for practice, now come on let’s go. I’m supposed to meet Kyle for a date after I drop you off.”
The urge to throw a fit rose like bile in my throat but I shoved it down. Aurelia almost never went out with her boyfriend and me refusing to go to practice would definitely ruin that plan.
Even though every time I looked at Kyle something about him scared me… his eyes were so very dead for someone who was only a senior in high school. Da scared me at the best of times with his drinking, but his eyes never looked like that. If anything he had too much emotion in them.
But Aurelia had been my everything ever since I’d woken up to her face in that hospital back in Dublin and she deserved a night to herself.
With a sigh, I stood and grabbed the bright blue duffel bag full of my skate stuff and gestured to the door. “I guess we’d better be off then.”
Aurelia’s smile was wide as she smoothed a hand over the hairstyle she’d just finished.
“If you really hurry you can boot Brynn into the backseat, remember the phrase?”
I nodded, suddenly eager as I ran into the hallway. “Shotgun!”
My voice rang through the little house followed by Brynn’s shout of protest.
“I don’t know why he kissed me either,” I said to Aurelia, blinking away the memory as I stared out over the lit pool.
Aurelia gave my side a gentle pinch. “Oh no you don’t. What I stumbled on didn’t look like a one-sided kiss. So, spill. Was it nice?”
We locked eyes for a moment as I tried my best to keep my expression neutral but it very quickly cracked and I nodded, putting my face in my hands. “Too nice. Mind numbingly nice.”
And with it came the sick feeling of guilt because I hadn’t told Wiz about it yet.
Look at me go, a girlfriend of barely twenty-four hours and I’d already kissed another man.
Even if Wiz seemed open to it, it still sat sourly in my gut.
Remembering the kiss made me want to touch my lips, but doing that in front of Aurelia would really give me away.
“You know I never wanted to do any of this—this whole pack thing. How do I avoid ending up just like her if I dive headlong into something as permanent as a pack?”
My mam hadn’t bonded with my da even though she was an alpha and he was a beta. I always wondered if she knew on some level that her story would end the way it did and never marked him because of it.
That didn’t make much sense, though, as they’d been childhood sweethearts.
“You know how I feel about it, Ceer,” Aurelia cupped my face in her hands so she could make sure I was looking her in the eyes. “Do you think that if I kept my stance on packs and love that I would be as happy as I am now?”
Aurelia had gone through hell, just like my mam had, and had come out the other end of it much stronger and better.
So why the hell was my brain still trying to convince me that a happy ending didn’t exist for me?
“Just give it a chance. Tell Wiz about the kiss, go with him to see his family on Sunday, talk to those three and set some ground rules,” Aurelia said, her blue eyes serious. “But even if all of this doesn’t work out? You still have us—your family—here to catch you.”
My eyes began to sting and I blinked hard. “You’re going to make me cry.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Aurelia told me cheerfully, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Now, I’m going to go back inside and tuck Tobey into bed and hope he goes to sleep after the amount of sugar the dads fed him tonight. You call Wiz before it stews in your head too much.”
I helped her up from the lounge and back into her chair, waiting until she wheeled inside before I pulled out my phone.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Wiz’s voice greeted me cheerfully. “You’ve reached your number one hunky boyfriend fresh off of a gaming session where I completely destroyed the rest of the defensemen on the team at Call of Duty. I really think I earned their respect this time.”
I smiled like an absolute crazy woman as I listened to him, stepping to the edge of the pool and hugging myself with my free hand as I stared out at the water. “Are you sure? I really think winning at Modern Warfare is the true sign of a hockey player who gets respect from his peers.”
“And you know video games? I didn’t realize you were perfect, Ciara Callaghan.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said, the sour guilt in my stomach making it turn. “Hey—something happened today that I feel… weird about.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line before: “Okay…”
Just rip the Band-Aid off,Ciara, I told myself silently before blurting it all out in one long, breathless stream.
“IwastrappedinaclosetwithEnzoandhekissedme—orIguesswekissedeachotherandIfeelreallybadaboutit.”
None of that made sense, I realized as I kicked myself inwardly.
But thankfully, Wiz seemed to have gotten the gist and put me out of my misery.
“So you kissed him in a closet, why do you feel bad about it?”
Or maybe he hadn’t understood me. “Because I kissed another man? And I’m your girlfriend? I know I’m new at all of this, Jae-Sun Park, but I’m pretty sure that kissing someone else when you’re someone’s girlfriend is off limits.”
Somehow my admission of guilt had turned into a scolding. If I flip flopped anymore someone was going to have to commit me because even I was getting whiplash from it all.
“It would have been had we not spoken about it last night. You told me straight up that you were interested, and I’m not opposed to a pack, so why do you sound like you’re about to break up with me—wait—you aren’t going to break up with me are you?” Wiz suddenly sounded panicked. “Because that’s not allowed.”
“I thought it was going to be the other way around if I’m being honest,” I mumbled with a breathy laugh. “Aren’t you supposed to break up with me?”
“I’m not really sure. I haven’t dated much either, so I guess we make quite a pair,” Wiz said, his rumble of laughter in my ear sending a shiver of pleasure down my spine.
“Well,” he continued. “Why don’t I come and pick you up and we can curl up in my bed and maybe watch a movie and then I can show you just how good of a pair we make.”
One thing I’d realized about Wiz was that he could flip his switch on a dime from the cheerful defenseman to someone who was sure to make me see stars.
“A musical?” I asked hopefully. I’d been meaning to rewatch Cats and I was sure it would draw the most interesting reaction from the other alpha. I couldn’t wait.
“Whatever you want, gorgeous,” Wiz promised. “I’ll be there in thirty.”
We hung up after that and I stood, still grinning like an idiot. I’d fully expected him to be pissed, to break up with me on the spot, and instead? Instead he’d reassured me and made me laugh.
“What did I do to deserve a guy like him?” I said to myself with disbelief before turning and heading into the house. I had time for a quick glass of wine before my boyfriend came to pick me up.
If the Ciara from fifteen years ago could see me now I was sure she’d be completely amazed… and maybe just a little bit angry because I broke our promise.