Page 33 of His Reward
I stopped at the window end of the room and turned back, narrowing my eyes slightly at my brother. “Boston isn’t my boyfriend.”
“Oh. I thought he was,” Marco said, looking awkward for some reason. “I thought the two of you were really hitting it off.”
We were, but that wasn’t any of Marco’s business. Boston had been my rock in the last month. He hadn’t needed to be so attentive and so present for me, but he had been. He’d continued to bring me a single, red rose every day, too, adding it to the vase on the windowsill and taking away the oldest, wiltiest of the roses that were already there. I’d joked with him about how cheesy the roses were, but secretly I loved them.
But we hadn’t had time yet and my recovery had been too intense to have any sort of conversation about whether Boston was my boyfriend or not.
Even if my inner omega sang with joy every time we were together and felt bereft when we were apart. We had almost bonded during my last heat, after all.
“Maybe Boston can take you down to the rink once you’re settled at home,” Mom said, shaking me out of my thoughts. “You haven’t seen the new facility yet, have you.”
The fire had completely destroyed the Davidson center, which meant Father had had to find a new training facility to coach in. Apparently, some small-scale rink on the east side of town had thrown open their doors to welcome him, and since Father loved when anyone made a big deal of him, he’d signed some sort of contract with them.
“I haven’t seen it yet,” I said. “It will be great to go down there and get back on the ice?—”
“You can’t go!” Marco blurted, cutting me off.
Both Mom and I stared at him. “Excuse me?” Mom asked.
“Lucien can’t go down there,” Marco insisted, looking way more panicked than he needed to.
“Why not?” I asked, wanting to argue with him so I could ignore the intensely itchy feeling that was starting to spread over the left side of my body. “I have as much of a right to go anywhere as anyone.”
“You can’t,” Marco insisted, looking downright panicked. “Dad doesn’t want you there.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mom said. “Dad welcomes anyone to the new facility. Why, he’d even welcome Boston with open arms.”
The last part of her statement was said as a smile as Boston himself walked into the room.
I was so relieved at the sight of my alpha, and I really needed to stop thinking of Boston like that, that I nearly cried. I’d been crying way too much in the last month and a bit, though, so I forced myself to smile and say, “Hey, Boston,” as casually as possible instead.
Boston paused just inside the room and looked from me to Mom to Marco. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” Marco answered quickly, staring at Boston with a weird amount of intensity. “We were just talking about the rink and how Dad doesn’t need Lucien heading down there to bother him.”
A beat of brittle silence filled the room. Boston glanced from Marco to me, then said a slow, “Okay?”
I was done with the weirdness in the air.
“Marco doesn’t think I should even try to skate again,” I said, walking over to greet Boston with a sideways hug that I wished could be so much more. I took his rose offering, sniffed it, although it was Boston’s tobacco scent that had my heart beating harder and my hole loosening up to a degree I definitely didn’t want with my mom and brother in the room, then carried the rose over to the vase on the windowsill.
“I thought the whole point of recovery and rehab was to get you flexible enough to skate with the big boys again,” Boston said carefully.
“It’s never going to happen,” Marco insisted. “Dad says so, too. He doesn’t want you messing up the rest of your recovery by getting on the ice and maybe falling.”
“I’m not some kid,” I snapped. “Father doesn’t have the final word on what I do with my life.”
“Yeah, well, even if you do start skating again, who do you think is going to coach you?” Marco asked, arms crossed.
I frowned. That was the real issue. Marco wasn’t doing a particularly good job of hiding it either. My father had written me off, as a champion figure skater, at least, and he probably didn’t want me at his new rink because he didn’t want everyone to be distracted by me. Or rather, he didn’t want me to pull everyone’s attention away from him.
“There are plenty of coaches still taking on skaters,” I said, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. “Father isn’t the only fish in the sea.”
“Who do you think is going to take on a has-been with a melted face like you?” Marco asked.
“Hey, now,” Boston glared at him, coming to stand beside me. “That was uncalled for.”
“I think you know better than anyone the only thing Lucien is good for now,” Marco said.
