Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
brIAN
Liv
Be there in ten. And I’m warning you in advance, I look fucking amazing.
Me
You always look amazing. You gonna save me a dance, Liv?
Liv
All the dances, Bry. Absolutely every single one.
“Uncle Brian, why are you smiling at your phone?”
Chuckling, I slide the phone into my pocket and look down at Maddy standing two feet from me just inside the ballroom where the gala is being held.
In a bright blue dress, with her red hair curled long and loose around her shoulders, she looks wholly like the almost-teenager she is, and it’s impossible for me to reconcile that with the seven-year-old she was when I first met her.
Time is fucking insane. “Someone texted me something funny.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m twelve, not five. That wasn’t a something’s funny smile. That was an I like a girl and she’s texting me smile.”
Grinning, I lean down and press a kiss to the top of her head. “Why are you so smart, Mads?”
She shrugs. “I just know things. I can feel them sometimes. My mom says I’m intuitive, just like her.”
“You sure are,” Jeremy’s wife, Emma, says with a smile, coming up next to her daughter. “Hey, Bry.”
I lean in and kiss her cheek. “Hey, Em, you look great.”
She grins at me and wraps an arm around Maddy’s shoulder. “So, what does Maddy know about you?”
“Uncle Brian was smiling down at his phone, and I’m pretty sure he was talking to a girl.”
“Was he?” Emma says with a sly grin that makes me a hundred percent sure she knows absolutely everything about my feelings for Olivia. Fucking brothers who can’t keep their damn mouths shut. “Anyone I know?”
I narrow my eyes at her, but her grin just gets wider. Anyone who doesn’t know Emma well thinks she’s the quiet, uber-introverted type, and she is that. Except people who do know her well know she also has a wild streak lying just below her placid surface.
“You’re doing that weird thing grown ups do when they talk with just their eyes. Might as well say it out loud. I’ll figure it out eventually.”
I look down at Maddy and laugh at the way she stands with her hand on her hip, her posture full of attitude. “Who let you in here anyway?”
She shrugs again in what I figured out months ago is the universal pre-teen gesture of How stupid can you be that you don’t know the answer to the question you just asked?
“My dad said I could come this year because I’m twelve now and he started the foundation, so he gets to make the rules.
And anyway, I want to work with athletes one day, so it makes sense for me to be around them now. ”
“You do?” Jeremy asks, walking up to us and leaning down to kiss Emma, then running a hand over Maddy’s curls and wrapping an arm around each of them, soft smile on his face.
The gesture makes my heart squeeze. Jeremy has endured so much in his life, and he deserves every single bit of this happiness. “That’s news to me, Little Red.”
“Me too,” Emma says, curious look on her face. “Want to tell us about it?”
She looks up at her parents. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but I haven’t told you yet because I had to do some research first. I want to be a psychologist, but the kind that works with athletes.”
“No kidding,” Jeremy says, bending so he’s eye level with Maddy. “What made you want to do that?”
She glances up at Emma and then back at her dad.
“I understand feelings, you know? I feel what other people feel, so I think I would be good at it. And I want to work with athletes because of you. Because you got hurt and had to retire from hockey before you were ready, and then you didn’t skate for fifteen years because skating made you sad.
I think maybe if you had a psychologist to talk to back then who understood athletes, you could have gotten back on the ice sooner.
I was there the first time you skated again, remember?
So was Mom. It was scary for you, but you did it, and when you did, you looked so happy, and ever since then you’ve always told me that skating is your happiest thing, and now it’s my favorite thing that we do together.
” She shrugs again. “I wish you didn’t have to miss fifteen years of your happiest thing, and maybe one day I can help other athletes like you keep doing their happiest thing, even when it’s hard and scary. ”
We’re all silent for a beat before Jeremy swallows hard, pulling Maddy into a fierce hug.
He closes his eyes, a tear spilling over as Emma puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes, her own eyes filled with tears, and when he speaks, his voice is rough with emotion.
“You are my favorite person in the entire world, Little Red.”
“Even more than Mom?” Maddy asks.
Jeremy laughs and releases her, standing up and wrapping an arm around Emma’s waist, leaving a hand on Maddy’s shoulder. “Let’s call it a tie.” He presses a kiss to Emma’s temple and then leans down, kissing Maddy’s head too. “I have the best girls in the world.”
“You sure d…” My voice trails off as I swear the air in the room shifts. A mixture of nerves and excitement shimmer in my stomach, and somehow, I know.
She’s here.
Spinning around, the immaculately decorated ballroom blurs around me. Everyone else ceases to exist, and all I can see is her.
Olivia.
She walks towards me, her green dress sparkling with each step she takes.
It molds to every curve of her body, her hips swaying as she moves, and it dips down between her perfect breasts, leaving her shoulders mostly bare.
Her chestnut hair floats in waves and tumbles down her back.
And her eyes—god, her eyes. My breath hitches as our gazes connect, and I feel the eye contact deep in my bones.
Those gorgeous greens stay locked on me, the emotions swirling in them making my stomach swoop and my heart pound.
Fuck, I love her.
She is my whole entire world.
And suddenly, she is way too far away.
My feet are moving before my brain even registers it, my entire being centered around three words.
Get to Olivia.
So, I do exactly that.
My legs eat up the distance between us, and nothing in the world matters more in this moment than getting my arms around her.
I register in the dim recesses of my brain that we are supposed to be keeping this a secret.
That kissing her right now would be a bad idea.
But then she gives me a wicked grin, her eyes changing, filling with a kind of mischief that turns my heart buoyant.
Makes me feel lighter than air. And I hear her words as if she’s speaking them out loud.
Bring it on, baby.
Fuck. Yes.
In three strides I’m in front of her, one arm sliding around her waist and the other hand cupping her cheek as I take her mouth with mine.
It’s the perfect kiss, full of heart and heat and so much fun I practically laugh at the joy of it.
It’s slow and deep and she melts against me, her arms around my waist and her body pressed to mine, fitting perfectly against me as if she was made for me and me alone.
I think she was.
Our hearts beat out the same rhythm, my senses filling with her lilac scent, and I could keep on kissing her like this for a hundred years and it would still never be enough. There is no amount of her that would ever be enough. She is my heart and soul and my entire fucking universe.
“Oh, holy fuck.”
We don’t jerk apart at the sound of Gabe’s voice.
Instead, I ease back, the room slowly coming back into focus, my hand still on Olivia’s face and our eyes locked together.
“You look so pretty,” I murmur, my thumb sweeping her cheek, my other arm keeping her locked against me. “The prettiest girl in the world.”
She smiles, kissing my jaw. “I think the image of you in a tux walking towards me like I was the last person on earth is going to be burned into my brain for all of eternity.”
I lean in and kiss her again. “I like the idea of eternity with you.”
I love you.
“Same goes, my guy.”
“I’m sorry, but what the fuck am I looking at right now?”
At Gabe’s disgruntled question, Olivia gives me a wink and turns, keeping her back to my chest and my arm locked around her waist as she faces Gabe. “Did you have a question?”
Gabe’s jaw is slack as he looks from me to Olivia, his mouth opening and closing like he’s trying to figure out what to say but can’t quite get there.
I thought I would be nervous telling Gabe about Olivia and me, but I’m not.
He’s my best friend and one of the best people I know.
He loves Olivia, and he wants her to be happy, and no one in the world will work harder to make her happy than I will.
But it looks like he might need a minute to adjust.
“I think maybe we broke him,” I murmur to Olivia.
Molly snorts out a laugh and Amelia giggles, and out of the corner of my eye I see Amelia’s husband, Elliot, grinning.
“Wait, Uncle Brian, was Liv the reason you were smiling down at your phone earlier?” Maddy asks from behind me. “Are you guys, like, dating or something?”
“Yeah, Bry, are you guys, like, dating or something?” Jeremy asks, his tone wildly amused.
“Who’s dating?”
I glance behind Gabe, who is still gaping at us, to see Asher walking up with his wife, Julie, Ben, and Ben’s wife, Hallie.
“Liv and Brian, apparently,” Maddy says, sounding decades older than her twelve years.
“No shit,” Asher says, wide smile on his face. “Baby Sullivan finally gets her man! Love this for both of you.”
I can practically feel Olivia’s eyeroll. “If you call me baby Sullivan again, I’m going to cut your balls off, and then you’ll never have that football team full of kids you want so badly.”
Julie cackles out a laugh and leans into her husband, one hand on her very pregnant belly. “Savage, Liv. I love it.”
“Hang on,” Ben says, studying us. “Did this start the night of the snowstorm? Brian covered for me at the bar so I could leave before the weather got bad.” He beams at us. “Did I do this?”