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 asomething’s funnysmile. That was anI like a girl and she’s texting mesmile.”
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 ofHow 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 andhe 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.
