Page 244 of Pucking Around

Mom and Tess come in to flank either side of me, mom putting her hand on my shoulder. We look so much alike. Except where my eyes are dark brown, hers are blue.

“Oh, honey,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry. I warned them this would be a lot for you to take. Harrison likes the spotlight, but you were always my little snuggle bunny. You prefer the calm and the quiet.”

I hold her gaze in the mirror, the tears in her eyes reflecting the tears in mine.

“This was never going to be easy,” she goes on, brushing my hair back behind my ear. “In choosing them, you’ve chosen a difficult path for yourself. A path that will mean leaving the comfort of your burrow…at least for a little while. But if you love them as you say you do, you need to understand what this means to them. You need to see how much they need it. How much they needyou,” she adds gently.

“Mom,” I whimper, the tears threatening to fall.

“I was worried when you first told me about them,” she admits. “Not about the polyamory,” she adds quickly. “We’re Prices. We’ve seen and done it all already.”

I sigh, shaking my head as next to me Tess laughs. Understatement of the decade.

“I was worried that they wouldn’t understand you,” mom goes on. “I was worried they would take from you. And you’re such a giver, honey. You’d give the clothes off your back. But theydoknow you, Rachel. They see you. They know what you need. Let them give it to you now. Let them show the world how much they love you. Let them have this moment. Ride it out with them, and they’ll be yours forever.”

“They did this,” I whisper, already knowing it to be true. Who else could?

Mom and Tess both nod.

“And you both knew? Of course, you did,” I answer for them. “That’s why you’re really here, isn’t it,” I say at Tess’s reflection.

“We all love you, Rach,” she says with a watery smile. “You deserve your happily ever after. You’ve got three knights in shining skates out there, waiting to show the world what your love means to them.” She holds out a hand. “Come on. Let’s go find them.”

I nod, sniffing back my tears as I turn. My focus catches on something in the mirror and I glance back. “Umm…Tess?”

She looks back at me. “Hmm?”

“What am I wearing?”

She flashes a grin at my mom. “Yeah, I totally can’t believe you let me get away with that.”

I look in the mirror again. I’m wearing a Rays jersey. Jake’s jersey. The front has the Rays logo, and the top shoulders have Jake’s 42s. But the back is Ilmari’s 31. And instead of either of their names at the top, the jersey reads PRICE.

“What am I wearing?” I say again.

“We reeeeeally need to find Caleb,” Tess says, grabbing my hand.

My determination hardens into stone as I set my fear and confusion aside. Oh yeah, we are going to find Caleb. And then I’m getting answers.

Rushing downthe stairs of our section, mom calls out our seat numbers again.

“AA, seats one through four!”

All around us, people shout when they see me. I hear more people screaming my name, waving signs. Why the heck are they screamingmyname? That’s what I’m not understanding. Why Price?

As we near the bottom of the stairs, I stop dead in my tracks. Standing there in the BB row, just behind our seats, are two faces I know as well as my own: Harrison and Somchai. They’re both looking over their shoulders, smiling up at me.

My gaze catches on the face of a pretty woman standing next to Harrison. Something about her is familiar. She’s young, maybe late 20s. Her dark hair is pulled up in a ponytail and she’s holding a beer as she smiles up at me…and she’s wearing a Compton jersey.

An explosion goes off in my mind and now I’m crying again. “Amy,” I say, hurrying down the last four stairs to my row.

She laughs, holding out one arm, sticking her beer out to the side. “Hey, Rachel! So nice to finally meet you. My brother hasn’t shut up about you for months.”

I’m laughing and I’m crying as I hug her.

“And you’ll notice her twin, the man who shared a womb with her, gets ignored,” Harrison says with a huff.

Amy lets me go, and then we’re all laughing as I hug Som first. He rocks a whole Thai mob boss vibe, with tattoos covering most of his body, even up his neck and a few on his scalp. His hair is growing in a bit, long on top like Ilmari’s. He looks tough, but inside he’s a big softie.

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