A moment later, Kai came out, shoulders hunched, wearing Steven’s hoodie, the little penguin dangling from their backpack.
“What’s wrong, Starshine?” I came over, holding the flowers.
“Ash!” Kai’s voice broke as they threw themself into my arms.
I wrapped my arms around them. “I’ve got you. We’re right here.”
That reaction made me feel better–they were happy to see me.
“We brought you flowers,” Steven said, wrapping his arms around the both of us.
There was something really off about their scent. I wasn’t sure if it was sickness, but something wasn’t right.
“Thank you. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be recovering from the biggest hangover of your life?” Kai asked, voice muffled from being between the two of us.
“We thought we’d wait and have that hangover here–something about whiskey pong?” Steven laughed.
“But really, what are you doing here?” Kai looked up at me, hazel eyes wide.
My heart dropped. What if Kai didn’t want us?
“Just tell her,” Steven urged.
“Tell me what?” Kai asked.
“Last night we won the playoffs. Everyone’s families and partners were coming onto the ice–and all we could think about was being with you,” I confessed. “So, we came to you. I love you, Kai. Steven loves you, too. We know you’re just recovering from a breakup. We know you have your PhD program ahead of you. We’re willing to do whatever we can to make this work. If you are, too, I think we could do this.” My heart lodged in my throat. Did Kai feel the same?
“You love me?” Kai’s voice wavered.
“I love you, Kai,” I reassured. “I love you so much. I know you’ve only been gone for a couple of days, but there’s a big Kai-shaped hole in our hearts. We know that your career is important and our careers are important, too. But you and Steven are most important to me,” I confessed.
“I love you, too. I also think you and Ash might be scent matches,” Steven added.
Kai looked at the two of us and blinked, clutching the flowers. “Scent matches?”
“It’s just a theory, but the connection between you two is something,” Steven said.
“What I feel for both of you is something,” Kai admitted. “It’s fast and a little scary, but I think I love the both of you, too. No, I know that I love the both of you, too. I just wasn’t sure if you felt the same way about me, or if I was just a spring break hookup–”
Before Kai could finish, I pressed my lips to theirs and kissed them.
“You're not a spring break hook up. You’re not the wrong omega. You’re ours if you want to be.” I smoothed their hair.
“The last thing we’d ever do is ask you to give up everything you’ve worked for, but we’re willing to do everything we can to make it work, and that includes spending our off-season wherever it is you need us,” Steven said.
“We don’t need an answer now. All we really needed to know is that you love us,” I said, feeling so much better at the fact that they did.
“I know you probably need time to get over your ex and graduation is important. So as long as you want us to wait for you, we will,” Steven added. “We’ll come out and visit you as much as you want and you can come visit us, we’ll just have a really great summer together, and we can make big choices when you’re ready.”
“What if I want to make a big choice now?” Kai peered up at us. “I don’t know if I want to wait.”
“You have us,” I told them. “We’re here. In fact, Steven’s got a hotel for us for the whole weekend, so we’re all yours. We’ll have to go back to Nashville and have some meetings, wrap up the season. But we can come back when we finish and rent a little place and stay here with you until graduation, if you’d like that. Then the two of us can go back to Washington and you can join us when you’re done with your trip with your brother. Or whatever you’d like. Whatever you need, Kai. It’s not like we can’t afford to fly you–or us–wherever,” I added, wanting, no, needing to make this work.
People were watching us curiously, but I didn’t care.
“Yeah, we can even look into getting something and then you’d have a place to stay during the school year and then we can come visit you whenever we can. I can’t make promises that would be very often, but it wouldn’t be weird, like if we wanted to stay overnight at your room at Auntie’s or the dorms. There are probably visitor rules,” Steven said.
Kai seemed a little overwhelmed and I stroked their hair. They were a little warm. “One step at a time. We have options and we have time.”
