My scent spikes with my nerves, and I grimace. I grab the small bottle of scent-blocking lotion I keep tucked in the chest of drawers and slowly apply it to my arms and neck.
“Paxton told me Ares mentioned that you were really busy this week,” Billie says. She tucks her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, cataloguing the shop again. “I was curious if you wanted to get drinks tonight.”
I pick at a few of the scratches on my arms and drop the lotion back out of sight. “That sounds fun, but I’ve still got, like, forty feet of garland to make and then I have to prep everything for getting picked up by the event planner tomorrow morning. I’m stuck here for another few hours at least.”
Probably more like five or six. It’s going to be the third fifteen hour day I’ve had to put in this week. Billie nods. She drops her small designer bag on the café table and drapes her hair over her shoulder.
“How can I help?”
Relief floods me before I have a chance to quell it. She’s asking to be polite, but there’s a game tonight and it’s already almost five. Puck drop is in a little under two hours.
“There’s a game tonight. You don’t have to stay holed up here with me.”
Billie shrugs and smiles again. “An away game. I can order us some dinner and stream the game on my phone.”
Tension twists my stomach. “Are you sure? You really don’t have to ruin your night.”
Billie’s smile this time has an edge to it. “To be totally honest, I’d rather be here than alone in a rented apartment that still doesn’t have a couch in it.”
I frown. Her furniture was due to arrive yesterday.
“They pushed back delivery again?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yep. There was snowfall in the Rockies that delayed everything by a few days apparently. Hopefully it gets here by Monday, but I’m not holding my breath.”
Just like the first time we hung out, Billie is quiet with a sly humor that has me smiling so wide my mouth hurts even more than my back. While I’m still trying to catch my breath, she pulls another bucket full of lilies from the cooler.
“I cannot believe you convinced your entire sorority to dress up as ducks for the big Halloween party on campus,” I say, wrapping wire around another grouping of sunflowers before adjusting the spread of ruscus below them.
She tucks her hair behind her ear. “That wasn’t even the best part. Our president went as a text message cursing autocorrect.”
I downright cackle. “That is way better than anything I’ve ever managed to come up with.”
“It was definitely one of my better ideas,” she says. “Halloween is my favorite holiday, so I try to do something even if Paxton isn’t home.”
“Are you doing something this year?” I ask. It’s only a couple days away. “We could go out if you want. I have an afternoon event delivery but then could do something. I could probably put together some kind of costume by then.” Not that I have any good ideas or time to go shopping for one, but I’ll throw some kind of vibe together for the sake of helping Billie feel welcomed here. I spin open one of the lilies and then frown. “Wait. The team is at home that night, aren’t they?”
Billie nods before quietly setting the full bucket of lilies beside me. She touches her phone’s screen and unmutes the pre-game show we’ve been casually watching.
“Wow. They really don’t have much nice to say about the Scorpions, do they?”
“Not for a while,” I admit.
Billie flicks her hair over her shoulder, her lips flattening into a thin line. Her voice is hard as she says, “It’s only the end of October. They haven’t even played a full month. It’s not like the season is entirely lost at this point. They could at least give the guys the benefit of the doubt.”
My chuckle is dry, my smile fading. “How would they get all the viewer traffic if they said something nuanced?”
“Gross,” she mutters.
While I add the last bit of flowers to this portion of the garland, she wordlessly cleans up the little pieces of leaves littering the work table, dumping them into one of the large compost bins. Then she helps me move the finished piece to the only cooler that has any space left, holding the doors open while I try to keep anything from getting damaged.
“Are you doing anything besides the game then?” I ask, prepping to start the last of the garlands. Fifteen more feet and then I can finally collapse into my bed.
“Rhett mentioned a party happening after the game. I think it’s one of his music friends,” Billie says. “We’re probably going to go to that since they have an off day the next day. Paxton will refuse to dress up, but I’ll probably do something simple.”
My stomach flutters at her casual mention of Rhett… again. It’s even worse than when Timber had mentioned him. Since my literal run-in with him last week, my entire body has been a mess. Perfuming at the worst times, thoughts derailing when I’m trying to focus. I’ve never been so… inside my own body in my life. And that lemongrass scent of his? It’s haunted my dreams. I’ve woken up more than once from the wildest sex fantasies I’ve ever experienced. Even now, my orchid scent surrounds me,breaking through the lotion and billowing out like the world’s worst snitch.
Thank all the stars that Billie is a Beta and won’t actually realize just how unruly my body is being right now.
