Page 30 of Secret Pucking Unicorn

“I’ve known you for over six years but it’s like I don’t know anything about you. How is that possible?” The hurt look on Kennie’s face is the last thing I want. I hug her.

“Ken, I don’t like talking about myself or my past. I deflect. It’s not personal. I’m not trying to hide things. There’s no point in talking about them.”

She returns my hug with a sniffle thrown in for good measure.

“We gotta get you on the rink downstairs,” Brick says.

“But first we need to go through your dresses,” Mallory says.

Stone calls out from the main kitchen, “First you need to come eat unless you want to starve.”

My stomach growls and makes the easiest decision of the day.

“Coming,” I call back. If our faces are full of food, no one can ask me questions and I can’t be expected to answer them. Activate the French Toast Forcefield. Tastiest deflection shield around. Maybe the maple syrup can reattach some of the bits of armor that have come loose. I know eventually I will have to shed it in order to make the true connections I want, but I’m not ready for it to fall away completely yet. I’m willing to stop deflecting as much as I have in the past, but it doesn’t mean I’m ready to deal with a bunch of direct hits with nothing to shield me. I’m working on being braver, not foolhardy.

14

DECLAN

Giggling drifts out of the closet as Miranda sorts through her dresses to see if she has something for tomorrow night. Coach and I are playing foosball against Stone and Carter. Stone gets one in our net and does an obnoxious dance. I put up with it because his breakfast casserole was delicious.

“What’s up with you having her dresses?” Carter asks. “That’s weird.”

“She was packing up before going to New Zealand and wasn’t taking them with her. She didn’t have time to take them to the consignment store. I said I’d take care of it. I sent her a check and shoved them in my closet because I didn’t feel like dealing with it either.”

“Why didn’t she leave them with me?”

I can’t believe he’s pouting over this.

“I don’t know. I was there, and you weren’t.”

I’m not trying to be an asshole, but part of me has a hard time forgiving the way he and Kendall abandoned Miranda. If I hadn’t been at her graduation, she would have walked across the stage in silence and had no one there to congratulate her and tell her they were proud of her. She spent much of her life alone. I couldn’t let her go through something else by herself if it was in my power to be there. I want to be there for all her moments if she’ll let me.

That must have struck a nerve because he spun his handle hard enough the ball went airborne, and it was Bedard’s lightning-fast reflexes that kept it from flying across the room.

“Fashion show time,” Kendall calls out as she walks into the room.

“Ken, no,” Miranda whines. “It’s ridiculous. They don’t care.”

“Yes we do, Randa Panda, strut your stuff,” Carter says as he turns away from the foosball table to face the door.

My breath catches in my throat when Miranda walks out in a gorgeous green floor-length gown with a beaded lace bodice. When she spins around and her skirt flares, I see how the back of the bodice dips to show an expanse of creamy skin. I swallow hard.

“Liam, isn’t this gorgeous? This is what I want for our bridesmaid dresses,” Mallory says, bouncing on her toes where she has wedged herself between me and Coach at the foosball table.

Miranda’s laugh tinkles like wind chimes. “This is a seven-year-old prom gown. I don’t think you’re going to find it unless you hit the thrift stores. Or get someone to sew something similar.”

“Wait, you still fit in your prom gown? How?” Daphne asks. “Of course, I’m not sure I can fit in what I wore yesterday, let alone a decade ago.”

“It fits differently than it did back then. I’m leaner in some places, curvier in others,” she says, running her hands along the curves I’m dying to touch.

“You’re even more beautiful now than you were then.” My voice rumbles from deep in my chest, next to my heart. Shocking myself by saying out loud the words I think every time I see her. She’s always more beautiful to me than she was the moment before.

I clear my throat and fiddle with the knobs on the table, watching my foosball players dance a jig. I know my face is burning.

“OMG, that is the dreamiest thing I ever heard. Where are the tissues? I used my pack up.” Daphne is sniffling and looking around for something to wipe her eyes with. Stone, ever a gentleman, rushes to the powder room and comes back, handing her a roll of toilet paper.

Brick waves her finger between me and Miranda. “Did you two go to prom together?” Miranda nods.

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