Felicity

Ares is gone.

Again.

“Did he say where he was going?” I ask Melba as she’s locking the front door.

“Does he ever say anything?” she counters.

She has a valid point.

I head out to my car, which has gotten a flat. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” I vent in my Harold the Grumpapotamus voice.

“Language,” I vent back in my Lucy voice. “This is an opportunity to practice tire-changing!”

Melba and Jordan, the main PT I’ve been shadowing during clinicals, pitch in—not because I’m incapable of putting on a spare tire, but because they were there—and a sick sensation slithers down my spine as I look closer at my flat.

I’d almost swear someone took a screwdriver to the wall of the tire.

The clinic is right at the edge of the Mulvaney Hill district in Copper Valley. Middle-income residential neighborhoods, low crime, lots of office buildings, and a charming district center with a smorgasbord of international restaurants, a jazz club, twenty-screen movie theater, two-story library, and boutique shops. Random tire slashings aren’t common.

Maybe I got hit by a rock on my way in this morning.

I call Kami before I leave the parking lot, and she confirms Ares picked up Loki, so that’s something. She also says I should stock up on fruit and seeds, and that she’d really like to know how old he is, because once he hits monkey puberty, he might get aggressive.

“I can’t say for sure, since we don’t know enough about his history,” she tells me, “but I checked him over, and I’ve been doing some research, and as much as Loki clearly loves Ares, it’s really not feasible to keep him as a pet. Especially not for a hockey player. Can you imagine the monkey going on the road?”

“Did you tell Ares?”

“I did. I offered to call the zoo for him, and I got the impression Ares isn’t too keen on giving up the monkey while there aren’t any problems. But if you could talk to him too, and maybe see if the prince can get more information about Loki’s age or pedigree…”

“Sure. Is he okay for a while? I mean, while Ares is on the IR?”

“Probably. But he’s a wild animal. Just be careful, okay?”

Wasn’t that the advice of the day? “Yeah. Did Ares say where he was going?”

“He didn’t actually say much of anything at all.”

No surprise there.

I drive home to Gammy’s house and find every light on and way more people hanging out than is normal for a game night, because fuck yeah, we all hang out and watch the Thrusters play on TV when they’re away. Maren and I almost always watch the games together, usually with Kami and Alina, but it’s too early for all of them to be over—the game doesn’t start until ten since the Thrusters are in LA—and none of them drive the Jaguar parked in my carport.

No, that’s my mother.

Who’s currently in the living room showing baby pictures to Ares and a couple I don’t recognize.

On the plus side, Ares has come back to Gammy’s house and is sitting obediently with his foot iced and elevated on Gammy’s prized Turkish ottoman, Loki nibbling on sunflower seeds on his shoulder.

On the negative side, my mother apparently knows I’ve moved in. And is showing complete strangers my baby booty.

“I didn’t know what to expect from a girl after having just Nick for three years,” she’s saying. “This one here, at the hockey rink, she was bent over, peering between her legs, asking if she could have hockey lessons too once her—”

“Mom! Hey! What a surprise!” I immediately switch into my Lucy voice, because Mom loves her the best. “Let’s put the baby book away and pretend like we’re normal people who don’t discuss their daughters’ fascination with getting a penis with strangers.”

“It’s okay,” the woman I don’t know says. She has blue eyes and brown hair so light, it borders on blond, and she’s looking at me weird, which I’m used to, since most people don’t expect the ventriloquism on first introduction. “I wanted to know when my penis would grow in too, after growing up with these three lugheads. Hi. Ambrosia Berger. Call me Sia.” She pronounces it See-ah, which is kinda cool, and points to the handsome dark-haired guy on the floor next to her. “This is Chase. And I don’t know why grown men still snicker every time I say penis.”

Chase swallows his snicker. Ares isn’t smiling, but he’s not frowning either, and I wonder if his ankle’s hurting him again.

Probably.

It’s a high ankle sprain. By definition, it practically has to hurt.

“You’re reinforcements?” I ask her, assuming that by these three lugheads, she’s including Zeus, who’s clearly not in the room, since invisibility cloaks aren’t real and he’d be hard to miss.

Ares scowls.

She nods. “For tonight. We flew in from New York and brought Rock Band.”

Ares scowls harder.

I can almost see the resemblance, but she’s so much more normal-sized that it’s easy to miss.

“And I dropped by because your brother’s worried about you,” my mom says. “You didn’t tell us you broke up with Doug. That’s good, though, honey. He was too clingy. I can wait another year or so for grandkids if you’re going to find someone a little less clingy and snooty next time. And how lucky am I that you had friends here to open the door. Gammy would be so happy to see her house getting good use.”

She still has my baby book open to the page of me dropping trou at one of Nick’s first skating lessons. Something creaks overhead, like perhaps Gammy’s expressing her opinion of her house guests. “Sounds like Gammy’s still happy,” I say in my Tim the Goat voice.

Mom tilts her eyes upward. No plaster’s falling off the ceiling this time, because Gammy always did like Mom the best.

Even though Gammy was Dad’s mom.

“Just don’t spill anything on the carpet,” Mom says. “You know how much she loved this carpet.”

We all look down.

The carpet used to be beige. And fluffy.

I’m almost positive.

Thirty years ago. When it was new.

Now, it looks like a muddy poodle donated all its fur to cover the living room floor, but it was two ears too short to do the whole job even after a steamroller went to town flattening and stretching it.

It’s possible Gammy’s eyesight was going long before we realized it.

“So you’re a physical therapist,” Sia says brightly to me.

Chase sucks his lips together like he’s trying not to laugh. When he turns his head, something sparkles in his chin cleft. Weird, but I’m well used to weird and getting more used to weirder by the day.

“Finishing my PTA degree. Physical therapist assistant,” I say.

“She could’ve been a doctor,” my mom tells them. “She was reading at two. Valedictorian of her high school class at thirteen. She was accepted to Harvard but stayed here for Thomas Kelly University since she wasn’t old enough to drive yet. At least, not for her first degree.”

“I could’ve gone to Vassar,” Sia says.

Chase ducks his head. Ares growls. Again. And this time, Loki makes a distressed noise, throws his seeds at Sia, and hugs Ares around the head.

Sia grins. “But I turned out fine without it, and it looks like Felicity’s doing just fine too.”

Yeah, me moving into Gammy’s house to live with her ghost and picking up random hockey-playing and monkey roommates while I try to find myself at twenty-seven is totally doing just fine.

Working for the Thrusters is the dream.

Not the specific degrees.

I haven’t had as much passion in all five of my chosen fields of study combined as what Ares has in his passion for playing hockey.

And as much as I love the Thrusters, playing for them is the one thing I’ve never actually wanted to do.

Mom shifts a blue-eyed wince toward me. “Felicity’s independent and smart. And very talented with talking out the side of her mouth.”

That was a compliment.

It really was.

“Do you like boy bands, Mrs. Murphy?” Sia asks after an awkward pause.

My mom shudders.

“She loves them,” I say. “You know the guys from Bro Code are from here in Copper Valley, right? I knew all their songs, and I used to sing them all the time. I work just a couple miles from the house where the Wilson brothers grew up, and my friend Maren works for Ryder Consulting. You know. Beck Ryder’s family.”

“Shut up,” Sia says.

“We met Levi Wilson a few months ago,” Chase tells me.

Sia slugs him in the chest. “Shut up. I’m still mad at you for that. He was gone by the time I got there.”

Ares, I notice, isn’t doing much more than scowling. Loki’s petting his hair.

“How’s your ankle?” I ask him.

“Cashew,” he replies.

With a scowl. Naturally. Scowling is practically all he’s doing tonight.

At least he’s not breaking out in a sweat and going pale like he was last night after shoveling my cookies.

Which is a phrase I hope to never utter again in my life, because who has to shovel cookies?

Sia jumps off the couch. “Time to sing,” she says.

Ares crosses his arms, and I think he might’ve just told her she can’t make him.

“You know he needs to stay off his ankle and not go running out of here,” I say in my Lucy voice. Because Lucy can walk that line of possibly insulting people by stating the uber-obvious since she’s so damn cheerful all the time, whereas I would come off as a complete and total bossy smartass.

Chase laughs. “Ares loves to sing. Don’t you, big guy?”

More scowls and glowers. Loki grabs one of Gammy’s knitting needles and tosses it at him.

Mom and I both wince and glance at the ceiling.

I probably need to have that talk with Ares—and Manning? Loki’s technically from Manning’s country, isn’t he?—pretty soon.

Sia pulls an Xbox from a large tote and gets to work hooking it up to Gammy’s television. The television is relatively new. My parents used to get her one every two or three years, because she always broke them.

Sorry, Gammy’s ghost, but it’s true.

And no, we don’t know how she did it, but I swear she did. Abuse of the remote controls or plugging them in backwards or something.

“We brought all the good songs,” Chase says. “Backstreet Boys, N*SYNC, NKOTB…”

Ares’s scowl is wavering. “Right stuff?”

“As if we’d leave that one at home.” Sia points at Chase. “Get the drums set up, hot stuff. And don’t be such a slowpoke about it like you were at home last night.”

Step by Step. Ares woke up in the car saying Step by Step yesterday.

They’re serious.

These might be the coolest strangers I’ve ever hosted.

“Gammy isn’t going to like this,” Mom warns me.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “I think Gammy would’ve liked knowing there was music in the house.”

Ares shifts a glance at me. Ghost? that scowl seems to say.

“I’m sure she likes you,” I tell him. “She always had a thing for hockey players.”

“Everyone likes Ares,” Sia says. “Don’t let his name fool you. God of War, my ass. He’s the biggest sweetheart on the planet. When he’s not being a pain in my ass.”

Spoken like a true devoted sister.

I look back at Ares.

Despite the glowing embers in his angry eyeballs, I can actually believe he could be sweet.

It would explain the cake smell. The bunny dreams. And why Loki likes him so much.

Shoveling Soggy Dick Cookie Mountain.

“You’re really going to sing?” my mom asks dubiously.

“I should call Alina,” I say. “I’ll bet she’d bring her cello by for this.”

Mom shudders. “So much talent. Wasted with boy band music.”

Loki screeches at her.

And Ares actually smiles.

A nice smile. Warm. Happy. Hot, actually. The smile’s doing something to his blue eyes. Making them ripple like the ocean. Hinting at hidden depths.

And I suddenly want to know just how deep his ocean goes.

Shut up. That sounded way more poetic in my head.

“And we’re up.” Sia takes a microphone out of the bag. “Felicity, do you want to sing or play guitar?”

“Ask her to sing like Lucy. She’s very talented.” Mom rises, taking my baby book with her. “You’re not going to save your mother from this?”

“You showed them naked baby pictures. I’m going to sing until your ears bleed.”

She sighs as only a mother hell-bent on delivering a guilt trip can sigh. “We’re having family dinner Sunday. Your brother has the day off.” She eyes Ares. “Bring a friend.”

“Are you going to talk about how many of your friends have normal children-in-laws and grandbabies?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll bring Alina.”

“I’m never going to be a grandmother.”

“Me neither,” I agree.

The door’s barely shut behind Mom when Ares selects a New Kids on the Block song and orders us all ready.

I text Alina—she’s coming over later anyway—and let her know we’re getting musical. Because Alina doing boy band music on her cello would undoubtedly be epic.

She texts back that she’s forty minutes out and to keep singing until she gets here.

I haven’t practiced singing as Lucy in a while, so I miss all the right notes, but it’s okay, because Chase sucks on the guitar. Though I realize halfway in exactly what’s going on.

Every time he hits a wrong note, Sia glares hotly at him, he grins hotly back, and I check to make sure my clothes haven’t melted off because of proximity.

And every time I think about my clothes melting off, my eyes wander to Ares. Like maybe he can see through my clothes because they’ve been incinerated. Which is ridiculous, except every time, I swear I catch him looking away like he was just looking at me.

In any case, Chase and Sia better not be planning on sleeping on Gammy’s couch tonight, because I absolutely cannot handle the idea of Gammy’s ghost witnessing whatever it is these two undoubtedly do to each other.

Gammy would probably burn her own house down.

After the fourth song, we take a break. I pull up one of Alina’s YouTube videos, Sia freaks—apparently she’s a fan—and Chase raids the kitchen.

Ares taps his drumstick on the Rock Band drums. He didn’t miss a beat or a word, which is odd, since he talks so little, but he was smiling, like the music was pulling him out of thinking about his ankle.

I tap him on the knee of his good leg. “You sing really well,” I tell him.

He holds my gaze for that endless minute. He’s good at that.

At watching.

Reading.

Not the words, but the vibes. The emotions. The thoughts under the surface.

He must be fucking amazing in bed.

Can you imagine that kind of intensity staring into your eyes, into your soul, while he’s sliding that thick, hard cock deep inside your pussy, knowing when to go harder, when to go faster, when to grind and adjust, exactly how to touch your skin with his big hands, how hard to put the pressure on your clit, how you like to be pinned beneath his rock-hard body and the bed, without a word, just knowing because he knows what your breath means, what the pitch of your moans means, because he can detect the smallest shift in your gasp, understands exactly how badly you need him to grip your ass, to push your legs farther apart, to pin your arms over your head, to bite your nipples, to slam home, to find that secret spot deep inside, and hit it over and over and over again until he draws out an orgasm so deep, so hard, so exquisite that an entire supernova explodes in your ovaries and an intense pleasure you’ve never known makes your very aura leave your entire body?

Holy fuck, I need a drink.

And he’s still watching me. His gaze going darker.

Like he knows.

He knows I’m picturing myself naked. Picturing him naked. Bending me over the kitchen table. Eating me in the guest bedroom. Fucking me against the shower wall while hot, steamy water sluices over both of us as we come again and again and again…

I really need to not have mental sex with Ares Berger.

Because I’m not going to have real sex with him, but having mental sex with him makes me think of having real sex with him, and he is a hockey player, and he does have those bulgy, ripply muscles, and he is protective and mysterious and funny in his own way, and that gaze—

He would definitely be fucking amazing at sex.

He shifts his gaze away, pulls a bag of dried apricots out of his pants—oh my god—and hands them to Loki.

“Wine?” Chase asks from the doorway.

“Yes,” I gasp.

Everyone looks at me weird.

“She’s such a drunkard,” I vent as Harold.

“You’re one to talk,” I vent back as Lucy.

My cheeks are on fire, my nipples are hard enough to cut glass, and if I can smell how aroused I am, I wonder if everyone else can too.

Chase and Sia both tilt oddly identical is she doing what I think she’s doing? looks at me.

And it takes me a minute to realize they’re reacting to the venting.

Not to the seventeen mental orgasms and one near miss I just gave myself.

“Talks too much,” Ares grunts.

“They all do, man,” Chase says.

Sia gets him with an affectionate backhand to the gut.

Ares looks at me again, and his expression has gone blank.

Like he’s doing it on purpose. Hiding behind a small vocabulary and goofball pranks, like the wheelchair on the treadmill yesterday and the crayons on the wall today.

Is he really just an overgrown kid on hockey skates?

Or is that just what he wants the world to see?

I could tell you I don’t need more complications in my life right now. Or that I’m not interested in hockey players. Anymore. Or even that I’m just vulnerable from breaking up with Doug.

But none of that would be the truth.

And the only truth I know for sure is that my pulse is racing, I can’t quite catch my breath, and I’m getting all the tingles in the lady cave area.

With some overheating involved.

It’s official.

I am so turned on and intrigued by Ares Berger.

I don’t know how this happened, but it’s not good.

I leap up and make a dart for the kitchen. “Wine,” I call over my shoulder. “Yep. Wine.”

But I step into Gammy’s kitchen, and I realize what I missed before.

The window over the sink is fixed.

New glass.

No more cardboard.

I slowly turn.

Ares is watching me. Still.

“Did you—” I start.

I don’t finish.

Partly because I don’t have to.

I might not have known Ares long, but I’m positive that look he’s giving me now means of course I got the window fixed, dummy.

So now, not only does Ares give good mental sex, he fixes things that are broken.

He sees things that need to be fixed, and he takes care of it.

There’s way more to Ares than the world gives him credit for.

And I don’t know if I’m proud to have figured that out, or slightly terrified as to what it might mean.