To be on the ice and feel the cold on my face.
Every time my blades meet the frozen surface, I’m reminded of the very first time I ever stepped an uncoordinated foot onto that frozen pond as a pre-teen. Emaly held my hands as she helped me learn how to stand, balance, and turn on the borrowed skates. She came to my high school games. She cheered me on the way Winter is doing right now.
And for the first time in my life, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.
A hand comes down on my back. “Tongue back in your mouth and boner in check, Moskins,” Clarkson orders with a knowing grin. “We’ve got a game to win.”
One of my eyebrows quirks up as I gesture toward the scoreboard. We’re in the lead.
By a lot.
“I don’t think we have to worry, Cap,” I bemuse. “But I’m grateful you’re concerned for the state of my cock. He appreciates it.”
He rolls his eyes. “Head in the game, jackass.”
I salute him. “Always.”
I give another cursory look at the crowd. “I don’t see Belle. Did your stepsister have better things to do?”
His nostrils flare, and a passive expression crosses his face. Once again, he says, “Head in the game.” But with a bite to his tone.
There is definitely trouble in paradise.
“And Moskins,” Clarkson says as he starts skating away, “It’s about time you pulled your head out of your ass.”
I can’t help but laugh and lift my gaze to the blonde with red streaks in her hair. She’d asked her sister for help dyeing the strands and wouldn’t let me see the results until today.
It’s the same red as her jersey.
Red for our team.
I lift a hand to wave and wink in her direction, not realizing there’s a camera on me that’s cast onto the large screens hovering above us so the crowd can see everything better.
Kourtney, a spitfire who doesn’t mince her words, nudges Winter with a grin on her face as the crowd reacts to my flirty grin.
I like her sister. Not only because she watches out for Winter, but because she doesn’t play with words.
The first time I met her was two weeks ago, and she’d jabbed her finger into my chest and heeded a warning.“If you break my sister’s heart, I’ll personally rip yours out of your chest and feed it to your cat.”
To which Winter turned red, yelled at her older sister, and made a comment about how Kourtney needs to stop holding a grudge against cats just because she didn’t like Melvin, whoever the fuck that was.
But that didn’t stop her sister from turning back to me with a mischievous grin and say,“I also am going to need you to look into vending machines.”
Their dynamic is strange but loving. And because I don’t want to mess with the all-encompassing force that is Kourtney, I’ll start looking into vending machines as soon as I drop her and Winter off after we win our first game.
EPILOGUE
Winter
The Chuck E.Cheese parking lot is packed full of cars when Thomas pulls in to one of the last remaining spots. “Whoa,” I breathe out, staring out the window. “You really meant it when you said the team shows up for people.”
When Luca met Thomas for the first time almost two years ago, he’d been a little shy. For at least thirty minutes, anyway. After that, he asked Thomas no fewer than fifty questions. Including if he knew how claw machines worked, why the sport he played is so violent, and if he knew anybody selling a vending machine.
They became fast friends when Thomas told him that hedidknow how they worked, and entertained Luca by watching whatever video my nephew showed him. They were mostly showing the inner mechanisms of claw machines, and Thomas never complained. It didn’t matter how long the videos were, he watched from start to finish and asked questions that he knew Luca would know the answer to.
That friendship rapidly grew when Thomas gave him VIP treatment at a Fireflies home game. He introduced the lanky boy to all of his teammates, where Luca asked them a similar line of questioning as he did the right-winger, and then he then invited every single person to his nineth birthday party.
Today. At Chuck E. Cheese.
