Page 86 of Wicked Serve

Chapter 42

Izzy

“Do your boobs hurt?” Penny asks, tilting her head to the side as she sips from her mug. “I’ve heard the nipples chafe.”

Bex makes a face, readjusting Charlie in her arms. “Unfortunately. I’m happy I can do it, but it’s not that fun.”

Mia and I share a look. While Mia is very much on the no kids train—a sentiment Sebastian is happy to share—I want kids one day, but I have to admit, not much about newborn parenting is appealing. You get a cuddly baby, yes, but that same baby is going to make chafed nipples seem like the least of your worries. I feel bad for Bex that James had to travel to Dallas for his next game, but at least she has us.

I hold my mug of spiced tea close, letting the steam drift over my face. It’s nice, sitting at the kitchen table with Penny on one side and Mia on the other, and Bex across from us, nursing her daughter. If someone told me back in high school that a couple years later, all three of my brothers would have significant others to bring home for the holidays, I’d have laughed. And yet here we are—and I have Nik, which, even a month ago, I wouldn’t have believed either.

“Do you have, like, a salve?” Penny continues. “Or does that make her not want to eat?”

Bex holds up a tin. “Christmas gift from Sandra. And no, she doesn’t seem to mind it.”

“Fortunate,” Mia says. She bites into another one of the peppermint cookies Sebastian made this morning, then scowls at it. “Okay, I seriously need to stop eating these. Christmas was a week ago.”

“He hasn’t gotten the memo yet,” I say cheerfully. “And I’m not going to tell him to halt the baking deliciousness.”

“Oh God, no, never,” Penny says.

Mia rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. Her default state when it comes to my brother.

“Have you started packing yet?” I ask.

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

“It should be easy for you,” Bex teases. “Three black shirts, two pairs of black jeans, and your laptop.”

“You forgot Sebastian’s old jersey,” Penny says. “Which, in case you didn’t know, she sleeps in.”

Mia’s eyes widen. There’s a scuffle underneath the table; I’d bet the Hermès boots my parents got me for Christmas that she just stomped on Penny’s foot. “I told you that while I was drunk.”

“And it is so adorable,” Penny says, a satisfied note in her voice.

Mia just flips her the bird.

“Hey,” Bex says, covering Charlie’s eyes. “Not in front of the baby.”

“I am looking forward to getting away from McKee,” Mia says, hugging her knees to her chest. To Bex’s point, she’s wearing a NASA sweatshirt and black leggings. “I’ve never traveled... well, anywhere, really. I’ll happily take Switzerland.”

“I wish I didn’t have to go back,” I admit. “Let me run away to Switzerland with you.”

The week in between Christmas and New Year’s has been blissfully uneventful, even though I still feel a tug of emotion whenever I think about Christmas Eve. Nik has been here, bonding with my family, sleeping beside me every night. He loved the Rift tickets I gifted him, and surprised me with a bracelet to match the necklace he gave me in Boston, plus half a dozen other wildly extravagant presents. All week, we’ve kept things light, but tonight is New Year’s Eve, and once it passes, we’ll be that much closer to the start of next semester.

And I’ll be that much closer to facing volleyball again.

Nik might have his own expectations to live up to—expectations that I’m sure involve his father, even if he refuses to talk about it—but he doesn’t know what my family is like. I didn’t just fail. I imploded. Everything spilled out of me at the hospital; I told Dad about my season with Coach Alexis, and my fight with Nik, and my idiotic choice to go to that party. He listened and, instead of getting into it, just hugged me and told me to rest, but I know there’s a longer interrogation coming.

“Is it volleyball?” Penny asks tentatively.

I need another cookie for this. I break it in half with a bit too much force, sending crumbs everywhere. “At least the season is over.”

“There’s spring league.”

I scowl at the cookie. Stupid spring league.

“You are going to do spring league, right?”

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