Charming as Puck(70)

“Mom doesn’t play fetch with her and take thirty million pictures of her a day.”

Fuck, I think I’m blushing. “Big dudes need big pets.”

Ares hands Loki a bag of dried fruit and smirks at me, because he’s a big guy with a little pet.

“Pets with big personalities count,” I tell him.

“The whole team’s signing an agreement to not engage in purchasing or taking possession of animals for the purposes of pranks,” Lavoie tells me. “Ares, Frey, and I are going to talk to the manager in their building with it. We can get you hooked up with a new place before we hit the airport this afternoon.”

While they detail all their plans to help get me moved out of my parents’ basement, I text back and forth with Kami—and her weird but growing on me cousin—because I already have plans. “Thanks, but not necessary,” I tell them. “I can’t get rid of Sugarbear. She’s my good luck charm. You guys want to turn around, drop your pants, and bend over? Kami missed seeing the moon last night.”

They all glare at me, I get the picture, and I shoot it to Kami.

Then I pop the last piece of bacon in my mouth and head back inside. “Appreciate the help, but I’ve got it under control.”

“The last time you said that, penguins invaded the arena,” Lavoie points out.

I just smile.

It makes them nervous.

But thirty minutes later, when Lavoie leaves to go get packed for our road game, and Felicity gets sucked into a conversation with Mom about which bedroom upstairs would be best for the nursery Mom wants to put in the house for when she babysits the baby, I join Ares in the living room and prop myself up in the recliner.

He’s watching last night’s game coverage from all the teams in the league. I should be too—always good to know what new tricks the enemies are trying—but I don’t want to watch more hockey.

I need advice.

I hit the mute button, and he looks at me like he’s just waiting for the inevitable. Like he knows what I’m going to ask, but he’s going to wait for me to ask it, because he’s not going to do me any favors.

“Good game last night,” I tell him.

I get the dry Ares look of you’re being a dumbass and wasting my time.

Damn good thing I’ve never seen him give my sister that look.

I drop the footrest and lean forward, elbows on my knees, and I drop my voice. “How do you do it? How do you balance hockey and being a good boyfriend?”

“Don’t fuck her in the shed,” he says.

For fuck’s sake. “Yeah. Figured that out. Thanks.”

He smirks.

“I’m serious, jackass. Kami’s—she’s—if any other woman in the world was plotting to marry me in two months, I’d be freaking the fuck out. But I’m not. Because she’s Kami. She’s—she gets me. And she still likes me. And that’s…”

“Weird?” he offers.

Except I’m pretty sure he’s not making fun of me, because it wasn’t that long ago that Ares didn’t date either.

Because he was weird too.

I nod.

He takes a deep breath. “When you know, you know. Just don’t fuck it up again. She comes first, always.”

“Tried that last night,” I mutter.

“With your clothes on too. Make sure she knows she’s special. Only one for you.”

He makes it sound so simple.

Maybe it is.

She’s not hard to please, which makes me feel like an even bigger asshole for never trying harder before. But I’m trying now.

“I feel like I’m getting more out of this than she is,” I confess to my brother-in-law, which is also a weird feeling.

Loki chirps and throws a pen at me, as though he agrees with my assessment and also loves Kami.

He probably does. She’s his vet, and sometimes she monkeysits him.

“Do you see her?” Ares asks me.

“As often as possible.”

And now I’m getting the don’t be a dumbass look again. “Not happy Kami. What she wants and who she is. The parts that she hides.”

“Oh.”

He just went over my head.

That’s not good.

Because Kami doesn’t hide stuff.

She hid how much she liked you, dumbass, a snide voice that sounds like Zeus reminds me.

And does her family know she wants to live in the country?

What other secrets could Kami possibly be hiding? She’s Kami. She likes dogs. She’s followed the Thrusters her whole life. She was a cheerleader in high school. She feels like the dumb one in her family.

Fuck, I’m totally lame. If I’m supposed to be reading between the lines here, I didn’t even know I’d opened a book.

“I don’t think I deserve her,” I tell Ares.

He nods. “Step one. Good job, Nick.”

“Step one is realizing I don’t deserve her?”

He nods again. Loki shrieks with laughter, the obnoxious little fucker.

“What’s step two?”

He grins, and I realize the bastard isn’t going to tell me. Felicity pops her head into the living room, glancing suspiciously between us. “Were you two…talking?”

It’s a legit reason to be suspicious. That’s more words than I’ve gotten out of Ares total since he started dating her almost a year ago. I know he talks to her more—I’ve walked in on the two of them whispering before—but he doesn’t use words with the rest of us unless he has to.