Page 84 of Slick Handling

It’s cute as fuck.

Seeing her support him and knowing she’s been to games and supported us like this? It makes my heart skip a beat.

This is nice.

This is how it’s supposed to be.

By the end of the game, Clover’s voice is nearly gone from yelling at the refs. Her nose seems to be permanently scrunched up from trying to understand the answers to all the questions she had about hockey. Something that all three of us ate up.

Mama Joy offers to take her home, but she says goodbye to her because Clover wants to stay and see Apollo.

The problem with that is we need to leave the suite.

As soon as we step outside of it she is visibly more stressed. Her hand reaches out, squeezing mine, despite the fact that Griffin has his arm around her.

Vaughn flashes a pass at the elevator operator and we’re let on to head down to the lowest floor. There is a room setup for families and packs to meet their relatives after games. It’s where we plan to take her, but Clover gets a whiff of the door before we head in and shakes her head.

“Can we stay outside? It just smells like a lot of people. I don’t think I can be around too many people right now. I sort of just feel like I want to be with Apollo.”

“Of course.” Vaughn says, being a voice of reason after being a pain in the ass about all this.

Clover needs to scent Apollo. She needs his scent to give her the last bit of safety from everything that happened. I don’t even know if she realizes that’s what’s going on.

We stay outside the room, watching a few guys go in and get their families before leaving with them. Some give us waves, knowing we’re packed up with Apollo. Some look at Clover with open curiosity until one of us snarls at them. Clover stays close to us, nuzzling up, and letting us touch her to ground us all.

Apollo will be rushing today. He knows Clover was at the game and even if he doesn’t know she’s waiting for him, he’s not going to dilly-dally. He will try to get through the media and showering, all the after game chit-chat, and be out as soon as possible.

When the door opens, her head snaps up before he even steps out of the locker room. He has one dress shoe on the ground, his gray plaid suit looking way better than it has any right doing, and he is completely unaware of how close she is.

His head snaps up when he hears her footsteps. She’s running to him. Apollo’s eyes widen as he bends slightly, catching her as she jumps into his arms. She buries her face in his neck and starts sobbing as Apollo hugs her close to him, looking at us like he needs to know what happened.

I think we all need to figure out what the hell happened.

He takes several steps, rubbing Clover’s back as he moves towards us. His eyes go over Vaughn and Griffin, before turning to me to make sure I don’t have any injuries.

“We’re going to head to the car now, cherub.” Apollo explains as her tears wet his skin, “Once we’re in the car Vaughn is going to drive and Mick will sit with us in the back. We’re just going to hold you until we get home. At home, we’re having a pack meeting and I want to hear what has my sweet Omega so upset. Does that sound okay?”

My sweet Omega?

Sounds perfect to me.

“Don’t let me go.”

“I won’t, Clover.” Apollo kisses her head as he guides us outside.

Thankfully we all drove together and Apollo had gotten a ride with one of his teammates. It made it easier now that we were leaving.

Her soft whimper comes out as we get into the SUV, met quickly with a soothing noise coming from Apollo. He’s so focused on her as we all quietly think about what the hell happened tonight.

It’s clear the Alpha that attacked was the one who had tried to force a bond with her. The fear that had rolled off her when everything was happening stayed burned in my nose.

No one should feel fear like that.

Clover least of all.

“I liked watching you play.” Her voice is so soft, so off topic from what’s bothering her to focus on something good, “I love my presents too. The otter is so cute.” Her nose rubs against his neck to get more of his scent.

Apollo tilts his head so she can scent him more. His hand rubbing under her jacket to calm down our Omega. His patience with her, the understanding is something that we’re all watching him do. Trying to see when he is going to start asking her about what happened.

---