She got that. She understood. She didn’t want to leave tomorrow either. She wasn’t ready like Birdie wasn’t ready.
“I don’t want to leave either,” Moira admitted.
“I figured. We saw you and the ATV guy holding hands when you walked up here.”
“You want a wine?” Avery asked. “I have two extras.”
Ava and Birdie both had dark blue stadium cups full of soda from the snack shack, but Lance and Brock drank those down and handed the empty cups to Avery, who was so smooth about hiding them in the big floral bag as she poured drinks into them. Easy-as-you-like, she handed them back to the ladies, and Moira found herself doing something she never would’ve called. She was smiling. Right beside a hamster shifter, her literal nightmare, she was relaxed.
“If you Change, I’m going to take my boot and squish you,” Moira told her, warning her off of ruining this moment.
“I don’t need to for a long time. Your boot is safe from my blood smears.”
“Ew,” Avery said. “Shifter?”
Birdie pursed her lips. “Human?”
“She’s cool,” Moira said. “She’s Cam’s sister, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” Birdie huffed a laugh. “Duh. You probably don’t hate us if you know one.”
The rest of the game was Birdie asking every question imaginable about hockey rules, and Avery and Lance explaining loud enough that Moira could thankfully keep up.
All it took was one tiny miniature wine, probably equivalent to one small glass, and she was completely relaxed by the end of the game. Not only relaxed, but she found herself cheering for Avery’s son, Nathaniel. Time and time again, her eyes found Cam, and half the time he was looking up at her, like they were just in sync.
Admittedly, hearing the way his sister spoke of him made Moira’s heart wrap around Cam even more.
He was dominant, and a brute in the bedroom in the best ways, but he was also a good man. He was caring, and there for his family, and hard-working, and so charismatic down there with the players and the other coach. He was a man who was so sure of himself, and she questioned why he liked someone like her.
Probably because this was temporary. It was short-term. He didn’t really have to get to know her before tomorrow. She was just an exciting distraction from a strange holiday.
Yeah. That made sense.
Tonight was fun, but tomorrow they would go back to their lives, and it would be a memory.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Chapter Eight
He wasn’t ready to say goodnight.
Cam slid his arm around Moira’s shoulders as she talked to Avery out in the parking lot after the hockey game.
She didn’t even tense. In fact, she slipped her arm to his back and leaned against his ribs and kept smiling at his sister. Chills rippled up his spine. God, he had trouble taking his eyes from her tonight.
It wasn’t just because she was a good lay in bed either. He liked earning her smiles. He liked watching her guard go down. He loved the way her tension eased over time. He liked it when she had her spit-fire moments, and he liked the softness that took her eyes after she was done with her fit. He liked figuring her out. He liked learning her triggers. He liked that when he called her out, she got quiet and thought about her reactions and then worked with him to steady them out.
He just liked…Moira. There was something about her that felt so big. So important.
“Hey, Mom?” Nathaniel called, running over to their group with a big grin on his face. His nephew’s best friend was jogging behind him, carrying his heavy hockey bag. “Can I stay the night with Emmett and Bryce?”
Avery looked over to the crowd a few cars down. “Are you okay with a sleepover?” she asked Emmett’s dad.
“Yep. I’ll bring him back in the morning,” Emmett’s dad called.
“Okay,” Avery said, and tried to settle down the excitement to parent for a minute more. “Behave, mind your manners, say thank you for everything—”
“I know, I know!” Nathaniel crowed. “Come on, Emmett, I still have five bucks for the snack shack. Let’s get some candy before they close.”
