“I mean, yeah. That too,” she concedes, finally releasing me and allowing me to put her back to her feet.
“You both look like you had a good time.” Their skin is golden, and their eyes are sparkling with happiness. I’m happy for them, of course I am, but I can’t deny the sight of it is like a boot to the chest. It’s always the same when I see genuinely happy people. It makes me wonder if I’ve ever truly felt it. And if I have, if I’ll ever feel it again and recognize it.
“It was all the naked sunbathing,” Linc quips, earning himself a glare from my sister.
“We’ve got something to tell you,” Parker says in a rush as if she can’t physically contain herself any longer.
My stomach twists weirdly, and my eyes jump to Linc.
“You’d better not have gotten my sister pregnant,” I warn, earning myself a less-than-gentle punch to my shoulder.
Linc puts his hands up in surrender as Parker mutters, “Not yet,” much to his horror.
“But…we are getting married,” she squeals before thrusting her hand at me.
“You’re…fuck,” I grunt when my eyes land on the ginormous diamond sitting on my little sister’s finger. “That’s…massive.”
“That’s what she said,” Linc teases as he moves closer and wraps an arm around Parker’s waist and kisses her hair.
The sight of them, of the way they love each other so openly and honestly, chokes me up a little.
“Shit,” I breathe, unable to find any other words.
“We wanted to tell you first. Only our parents know.”
“Shit.” Apparently, there are no other words.
“Can you…can you say something other than that?” Parker asks while Linc stands patiently, giving me a moment to let all this settle in.
“Y-you asked my little sister to marry you?” I ask, my eyes locked on his.
He doesn’t cower in the slightest with my attention focused on him. I guess he knows me better than to be intimidated.
“I did,” he states proudly. “And she said yes.”
“I can still change my mind, you know,” Parker teases.
“Yeah, but you won’t. You’re mine now. I put a ring on it and everything.”
“Pig,” she hisses.
“You’re really getting married?” I mean, it’s not that much of a shock. Not really. I can tell every time Linc looks at her that he’s seeing his entire future in her eyes. A future beyond our dreams of playing in the NHL and lifting the cup. He’s seeing a life that I’ve never allowed myself to think about. Well, not until recently. The second I saw that little black and white image on the screen that I was meant to recognize as a baby, everything started to change.
“We are. And soon,” Parker says excitedly.
“What do you mean by soon?”
“Well, we haven’t confirmed anything yet, but we’d like to do it before training camp starts.”
My eyes widen. “That’s like…ten weeks away.”
“Yep. I want to start the new season as Mrs. Storm.”
“Fuck,” Linc and I grunt simultaneously, but for very different reasons.
“You’re okay with this, right?”
I shake my head before dragging my fingers through my hair, only realizing a few seconds too late that I’d styled it before leaving the apartment.
