We drop back into an uneasy quiet. I make inroads on my tea, nearly finishing it in three heavy gulps. He clears his throat and holds his hand out to me, palm up. I carefully set my palm in his. His eyes glisten with unshed tears.
“You can trust me, Carys bug. I might not react the best, but I’ll always be in your corner. I always have been.”
My heart warms. “I know. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about him.”
“This means they’re coming to Christmas, right?” he asks, a smile curving his lips. “So I need to figure out what to get all three of them with less than a week left.”
I want to smile, but my stomach only twists. Dad reads the hesitancy in my face.
“What’s wrong? Are we… Is it not actually that serious? Because I’ve never seen Rhett so intent on anything other hockey in the seven years I’ve coached him.”
I cover my face, trying to ignore just how dark my blush is now. “No, it’s just… messy. With Paxton. Billie flew back to California. I don’t know if she’ll be… back for Christmas.”
Or at all, but I don’t want to think about that right now. I’ve gone from friend to home-wrecker in less than a week. The thought makes me want to throw up. I sneak a look between my fingers. Dad’s face is carefully neutral, but I can see all the wheels turning in his mind.
“That bandage on his hand.” His voice is neutral, too. “He didn’t actually cut himself, did he?”
“Dad…” I groan and duck my head entirely. “It wasn’t something either of us could control.”
“Fuck, that’s going to mess with all of the dynamics on the ice,” he gripes. “We’d just settled into a decent groove, too.”
“Dad,” I whine in renewed embarrassment. “I just admitted to…” I mirror his earlier gesture. “And your first thought ishockey?”
He chuckles. “No, it was my second thought. But you’re clearly all right and sorting through it all, and I’m trying to give you the space to handle it like an adult rather than as my daughter. I don’t want to reach March when you have another heat and realize you’ve kept anything else big from me.”
I drop my head onto my arm with a groan. “I’m sorry!”
He carefully brushes a hand through my hair like he did when I was a little girl. He hasn’t done it in years at this point. I settle under the soft touch.
“All right,” he says after a long minute. “Well, regardless, they’re both welcome for Christmas. Billie, too, if she’s back.” Iturn so he can see my small smile. He gives one back. Then he sighs and checks his phone. “I need to get to the arena for warm-ups.”
The weekend passes in a blur of arrangements and order pickups and texts from Rhett as he travels up to New York for a game where they manage to eke out a win. The workload is nearly impossible to manage on my own. The sadness I feel from Paxton only deepens as the days go by, slowly blending with a burning anger. Feeling him slowly becomes part of my routine, like brushing my hair and cuddling in Rhett’s lap the nights he’s home. I send another text to Billie, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do, what I’m supposed to say in all of this. The messages show read Friday morning, and my heart leaps. But the dots never appear, the thread remaining one-sided.
By Monday, only two days before Christmas, I admit to myself that she’s not going to be coming back. Not any time soon, at least. A twisting stab of longing shoots up my chest, and I flinch, my hands spasming. Rhett sets the last bucket of flowers for the final arrangement due before I can close for a couple days leading up to Christmas on the ground by my feet, palming my waist.
“Okay?” he asks, his voice the soft croon he uses when he knows it’s the bond that’s drawing a reaction.
I shrug. “I hate feeling how upset he is and not knowing how to fix any of this. I like making people happy.”
I gesture to the shop around me in example. He nods and then unloads the flowers, setting them in a pile beside me so they’re easier to grab.
As I’m slowly building the arrangement, he says, “I know you wanted to talk to Billie first.” I tense, my knuckles whitening on the stem in my hand. “But I can’t let you keep doing this, baby girl. You need to talk to him.”
I sigh and add another couple flowers. It’s not my prettiest work, but nothing since surfacing from my heat really has been. “All right. I’ll talk to him first.”
Rhett grabs my hand and kisses my knuckles. “You’re still coming tonight?” When I nod, he asks, “In the suite or in your dad’s seats?”
“The suite,” I say with a blush. We’ve already hard launched, so there’s nothing to hide by sitting with all the other Omegas in the suite we keep ready for most home games. “But I’m not wearing your jersey like I’m in a romance novel. I’ve seen enough of them to last a lifetime.”
He laughs. “Yeah, me too.”
Which is exactly why I find myself sitting beside Ollie, the Omega Timber and Kane have bonded, just as the puck drops for the first period. Her focus is laser sharp, her eyes tracking the guys, muttering under her breath any time either of her Alphas are on the ice. When Kane scores in the last minute of the period, she jumps to her feet, cheering louder than anyone else in the suite. A crash of satisfaction breaks across my sternum, and I suck in a breath even as I clap with everyone else.
When the buzzer sounds and the guys head into the tunnel toward the locker room, she turns to face me.
“I’m Ollie,” she says with a smile. “You’re Carys, right? Timber’s talked about you.”
My cheeks flush. “That’s embarrassing.”
