Charming as Puck(42)

But the truth is, she’s trained me. Felicity can handle herself. How many times have you hit a guy for her, only to have it happen again? This. Doesn’t. Work.

You need a better method.

Next time you get mad, think of Loki hitting the asshole who’s pissing you off. Imagine that fuckshit getting taken down by a twelve-pound monkey. And then just smile.

I’d always smiled. Partly because Kami said fuckshit, and partly because yeah, the image of Ares’s emotional support monkey sticking his fingers up some fucker’s nose and then biting his nuts off was a damn good image.

“Nick,” she repeats.

My arms are shaking, and not just because I don’t usually lift four hundred pounds at a time.

Not after a game anyway.

I give both men a strained shake and put them down, and that’s when I realize Kami’s looking at me.

Not looking at me like she used to, like she’s happy to see me.

No, there’s a ghost between us now.

And there are stress lines in her forehead.

I’m fucking this up.

Dammit. I’m fucking it all up.

“Kami—”

Lavoie, Jaeger, and The Bear shove between me and the four guys who were sitting with the ladies, offering autographs and tickets and apologizing for me.

I’m not fucking apologizing.

Not to the dicknuggets, anyway.

“Sorry,” I mutter to Kami.

I hate saying sorry.

But it’s all I seem to be able to say around her lately.

Ever since I missed her birthday.

She’s not wrong.

I should’ve remembered. I shouldn’t have to make it up to her by sending her thirty presents a day for thirty days.

She saved me from missing my mom’s birthday. She helped me pick out Felicity’s wedding present. And reminded me about Felicity’s birthday.

She remembered my birthday.

Maren pushes between me and Kami. “You are so lucky Felicity’s not here,” she mutters.

Muffy gives me a stink eye too as she and Maren push Kami toward the door. “Your genome sequence is incomplete.”

“Dude.” Jaeger’s head whips around and his jaw parts while he watches Muffy and her overalls and her twin braids walk away. “Who’s that?”

I fumbled for half a second, processing that Kami’s walking away, that she’s serious, that she’s done with me, before I find the right answer. “Felicity’s friend’s friend. She doesn’t speak English.”

“She just called you a Neanderthal,” Jaeger says reverently. “In nerd.”

I ignore him, because all I can see is Kami.

Looking back at me before Maren and Muffy hustle her out the door.

I don’t know what that look means, but I know something else: She’s the one. And I’ve fucked it all up. Again.





Twenty-Four





Kami



The look on Nick’s face haunts me all night.

I’ve never seen him so lost. Or so intense. Not off the ice anyway. Even when he’s doing something that he knows is a bad idea, he barrels in without hesitation, without question, without doubt.

But last night, his green eyes seemed to be asking me for everything I’ve ever wanted, but I don’t know if I can trust myself, because maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see.

Or maybe, he’s finally seeing me.

But does seeing mean wanting? And if he wants me, does he want me because he cares about me and wants me to be happy, or does he want me because of everything I did for him?

It’s a complicated question without an easy answer.

But it’s an answer I need nonetheless.

I pack my dogs up and leave Dixie and Pancake with my parents’ aging Dalmatian lab mix, Isaac Woofton, and head the few blocks over to the nicer neighborhood where the Murphys live.

The roads are foggy, and I don’t call first—partly because I’m trying to conserve the battery in my phone—but I’ve been dropping by daily to check on Sugarbear anyway. Mr. and Mrs. Murphy won’t mind.

It’s Nick who might have something to say.

At least, I hope he has something to say.

Because I’m not entirely certain what I want to say, even when I get to the end of the long driveway to the brick mini-mansion.

Tiger grins at me from inside my purse. She’s completely in favor of visiting Nick. It’s like she knows where those gourmet dog bones came from. They might be almost as big as she is, but that doesn’t stop her from enjoying the hell out of them.

I step out of the car, pulling Tiger and my purse with me. She licks my hand, but happily settles inside the giant bag because she loves the rocking motion of being carried.

Crazy dog.

I love her to pieces.

We walk around the pristine landscaping, following the curved walk to the backyard in the thick fog. I don’t expect anyone to be up, and certainly not to entertain me. Once I check on Sugarbear, I’ll call Nick and ask him to meet me back here. I know he’s still staying in the basement, because Felicity let it slip the other night that he can’t find a new apartment downtown.

I like the fog this morning.

It’s giving me a sense of privacy, even here in the Murphys’ yard, to let me have just a few more minutes to gather my thoughts before I call Nick.