Wes
IslaCovingtonstealsmybreath.
She’s even more beautiful in person. I trudge to my pickup truck with Thea, and that’s all I can think about. Not about the “damage” I supposedly caused on Isla’s car. Or her combative attitude.
All I can focus on is the way her hair flowed past her slender shoulders when she stood before me in line. How her leggings sinfully hugged her tight ass. And the fire in her blue eyes when she narrowed them on me.
She was beautiful the night I met her when we were teenagers. But her beauty wasn’t all that pulled me to her. I recognized a defiance and anger in her, the same that existed in me.
And it’s still there, for both of us.
“Are you okay?” Thea scrutinizes me from the passenger seat, and I realize I’ve been sitting in this car for a full minute but still haven’t turned it on.
I start the ignition and click my seat belt into place. “Yeah, fine.”
Isla doesn’t remember me, not that I’d expect her to. I’ve forgotten a lot in the last fourteen years, and I’ve also changed significantlyfrom the scrawny kid she met. But that crushing disappointment in the center of my chest means some part of me—the naive, weak part—still hoped she might hold on to the memory of me as I have of her.
Thea goes to put her earbuds in—a seemingly permanent fixture for her—when I blurt out my middle school-era question. “Hey, so, what did she say to you?”
“Who are you talking about, Uncle Wes?”
She’s fucking with me. I expected fights about curfew or attitude when I told her to make her bed. I didn’t anticipate that she’d psychoanalyze my actions and poke at my sensitive spots.
“Isla.” Her name sounds foreign rolling off my tongue like I’m sounding out a word I’d never seen before.
“Oh. Her.” Thea’s voice drips with false surprise. Antagonizing little shit. “Not much.”
I glare at her, but she sticks her earbud in, ignoring me. Guess that’s the extent of information I’ll learn from their interaction.
We arrive at the rink before I’m ready. My nerves ratchet when I spot Isla’s “damaged” car parked in the lot. Spencer said they’d meet here today, so I’m not caught off guard. Still, I’m unprepared. Thea’s hockey camp has the ice for several hours this morning, but then it will belong to Isla and Spence, and avoiding Isla will become impossible.
“See ya later,” Thea calls as she hops out of the truck and grabs her hockey gear from the flatbed. She slings it over her shoulder like it weighs nothing, but I know that’s not the case.
“You know where you’re going?” I call to Thea while climbing out of the truck.
She pauses, turning around so I can watch her eyes roll. “I think I can figure it out.”
“Right,” I mutter.
Spencer’s cackling laughter reaches me moments later. “Real smooth, brother.” He claps me on the shoulder, sliding his arm around me. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get the hang of this guardianship thing.”
“Fuck off.” I shrug off his arm and continue toward my rink.
I purchased it ten years ago after I finished college, using the money I’d earned from consistently working since I was twelve years old. My friends didn’t understand why I returned to my hometown after spending my college years grumbling about it. Or why I’d sink my future into a broken-down, barely functioning rink. But we grew up only an hour away, and my best childhood memories took place here. I also wanted to take care of my father and support my brother.
We walk a few strides in silence before he starts talking again, always needing to break the silences I enjoy. “So, I was thinking the three of us would grab lunch.”
“Thea has already informed me that she has plans. Not sure how.”
Spencer snorts. “Jealous that you’ve lived here for ten years and have fewer friends than our niece?”
“I’ll survive.”
“I meant Isla,” he clarifies, sending my stomach into a storm. “Our timeline for getting ready to compete is ridiculous. We need tospend as much time together as possible to build trust and chemistry, and it’s important to me that you know her. Thea, too.”
My stomach tightens into knots. He wants me to spend time with her?
“Issheon board for this forced bonding?” I ask.
