She doesn’t immediately respond like she did before.
How I already have a red flag from my name, I don’t understand. Unless I’m still in trouble for getting caught sleeping on the ice in my boxer briefs.
Her response is lightning fast, like she was already typing it when I had sent mine.
This girl isn’t messing around. She must have gone straight to her phone’s search engine.
I should reply with an argument disputing her perception, but what am I going to say? That I wasn’t an asshole who left my entire family, my people, everything I’ve ever known because I wanted to play football and make my own choices?
She doesn’t immediately respond. Considering she just found me sleeping on the ice, she probably has a workout or something.
Checking to see if it worked, I pull up the tracking app I may have also quickly installed while I added my number to her phone.
I’m not going to stalk her, but knowing that she’s my mate, I can’t just let her walk away and let there be a chance I never see her again.
My side of the app shows that she’s skating fast circles around the rink, so she must have tucked her phone in her pocket.
Satisfied that it looks to be working, I toss my phone in the passenger seat of the truck and take off.
If I thought my condo felt hollow the other night after Carrie left, I was wrong. It has never felt as empty as it does now. I’m standing just inside the closed front door, not wanting to step in further as I stare longingly at the vast emptiness and wishing I was back at the rink with my girl.
Or even back home with my family.
The weight of my decisions has finally caught up with me, and I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to make it right.
It’s not your normal family drama. It’s not bad parents; they were the fucking best. It’s not even a shitty community. I was just a young boy and the last thing I wanted, for whatever reason, was to follow in the footsteps of all the men that came before me.
My father—and his father before him, and his father before him, and so on—is the mayor and resident, year-round Santa Clause of our little town, North Pole, Alaska. Those are the only titles that are publicized anyway. He’s also the Arctic guardian for the large shifter community that lives there.
While our small town is a bustling tourist attraction, it, and the sounding towns, is actually home to a large arctic shifter population. Any arctic animals you can think of, live within the communities surrounding the town, and it was my family’s responsibility to serve as mayor, Santa, and guardian to those families.
Granted, the position began as a way to protect themselves from humans who hunted them for a time. The human population that now resides within our reach know of us. My great-great-great-grandfather started a peace treaty between the humans and paranormals, promising to work together and no one would be hunted on either side.
Now, the position of guardian is being the main point of contact for all of the leaders in the area, shifters and humans alike.
Unlike my father, who was born for the role, my immature mind couldn’t imagine a worse life for myself. I didn’t want to be Santa Claus. I didn’t want to be a mayor. I didn’t want to be important. I just wanted to be me.
It’s not even that I don’t like Christmas. I fucking love it. I love the lights, the atmosphere, the magic, the family, the songs. I love it all. But since I left, Christmas just strikes a nerve. Well, I had previously thought it was a nerve being struck, but I’m beginning to think that was what I convinced myself so I wouldn’t miss it.
As I grew, I did everything I could to push myself away from what everyone expected of me. I found football in middle school, and I was good. I knew that it was something I could do as a career, that would take me far away from there. There weren’t any professional football teams in Alaska, after all.
My desire to play only grew when I learned that professional sports were played by shifters.
So, I put in the work. I trained until I couldn’t move the next day. I got a full ride scholarship to college, and I was drafted to the big leagues.
All to finally make it, and the homesickness is finally catching up with me.
6
Anya
Iskate around the rink in a blur of confusion. Suddenly, hockey isn’t the only thing on my mind. I can’t get the sight of him out of my head.
Kodiak Northerly.
Kodi.
Even thinking his name sends a wave of tingles across my skin, and stirs a bone deep wanting that I can’t even begin to explain.
