Kami

I don’t know how long we sleep, but the light coming in my bedroom window is slanted against the far wall when I drift back to awareness.

I lost my jersey but I’m not cold, because Nick’s holding me to his chest. He’s not snoring, but he’s not sleeping quietly either, muttering to himself about blocking biscuits and just try me, fucker.

I smile and kiss his chest, because it’s there.

Did he really say he loves me?

And loves me-loves me, or friend-loves me?

“Snuffle your own beater,” he grunts.

I choke on a giggle, and he bolts straight up in bed. He blinks around the room, and when his gaze lands on me, a sleepy smile spreads over his face. He touches my cheek. “You’re wearing my nipple,” he announces proudly.

My fingers fly to my face, where I have the smooth indentation of sleeping on something that left a mark.

“As long as your mother doesn’t know it’s your nipple, I think I’ll be okay,” I tell him.

He stares at me for a beat, and then we both crack up.

“We had a couple awkward texts the last few days,” I tell him as he pulls me in for a cuddle, which is new, but utterly perfect. “Your mom and I, I mean.”

“She’s cool now,” he assures me. “Felicity pointed out I could’ve brought home three bunnies instead, and you’re now her favorite person in the entire universe. I think she likes you even more than Ares, and that’s hard. She just didn’t really believe we were dating.”

I poke him in the ribs. “You better not be bringing home three bunnies.”

“But you—oh. That kind of bunnies. No, Felicity meant the furry kind. With big ears.”

“Did she?”

“Yep. She knows Mom’s not ready for more animals by the pool.”

I kiss his chest, because it’s there and I can. “You’re a really bad liar.”

“I’m an exceptional liar. You just happen to see right through me.”

“Or you’re not trying very hard.”

“I can give you hard.”

I laugh, because it’s a terrible line, but also not ineffective. Especially when the growing evidence that he’s not lying about giving me hard is right there next to my knee. I give it a little boop right on the tip, boop noise and all, like a great big dork. “You can, can’t you?”

And he does, until my dogs start scratching at the door an hour later.

I brush my hair out of my eyes and wobble on shaky legs to let them in while he steps into the bathroom to discard another condom. Pancake, Dixie, and Tiger all swarm in and overtake the bed, though Tiger needs help, poor thing.

Nick pokes his head out of the bathroom. “Hey, I told you this is a costume party tonight, right?”

“No…”

“Huh. Must’ve forgot. But I got you a costume, so we’re set.”

I fold my arms and look at him.

He grins and leans in my doorway.

And I’m pretty sure it’s not a you’re adorable when you get all Stern Kami while you’re naked grin.

Nope.

That’s a classic Nick Murphy Is Up To Something grin.

“You remember how mad you got when you found Sugarbear at my place?” he asks without an ounce of shame, which sets off even more alarm bells in my head.

“That would be a little difficult to forget. You made me do Mad Kami things.”

His grin is getting wider and wider, and he’s so freaking hot when he’s plotting something, especially when he’s naked and in my bedroom plotting something, and I am completely and totally not immune.

“Mad Kami things like the penguins?” he asks.

“You’re a very deep sleeper, and I’m not nearly as nice as I pretend to be, and I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re way nicer than any nice that’s ever niced in the nice-iverse,” he tells me, which makes me crack up, even though I’m trying very hard to not fall for whatever he’s up to. “You know Zeus Berger is the one who took Sugarbear from her mama, right?”

“Yes,” I say slowly, because I do know it, but I don’t know what Nick’s plotting.

“He thinks I tried to get him back last week by gluing googly eyes in his locker.”

It takes me a minute to understand what he means. “Wait. Googly eyes, like the kind you get at craft stores for putting eyes on pompom animals and paper people?”

“Yeah. Those.” He’s grinning big again. “Lamest prank I’ve ever pulled, and now he thinks I’m losing my touch, which means he’s not going to be expecting true justice.”

“I don’t want to know, do I?”

“Please, Kami? Please wear the costume I found you?” Now he’s crossing the room at a slow pace, somehow managing to draw my attention to all that bare skin and the extra broadness of his shoulders and the solid muscle he hides under all those goaltender pads.

And those eyes.

Those mischievous, sexy leprechaun eyes are promising me very promising things, and now my brain and my vocabulary are all backfiring because he’s doing the Nick Murphy Smolder on me.

“I promise if you hate it we’ll just show up and leave and come right back here and I’ll be your sex slave for the rest of the night.”

Dammit, I can barely walk as it is, but I’m getting all hot and bothered again. It takes effort to keep a stern face. “What, exactly, is this costume?” I ask, as if I’m not going to completely cave just because he asked me to participate, which I am, because I’m physically incapable of telling Nick no.

And that’s how I end up downtown in a surprisingly comfortable costume with more legs than I’ve ever had, riding a private elevator to Manning Frey’s penthouse apartment less than two hours later.

I texted Felicity, who wouldn’t lie to me and who confirmed that she and Ares are going to the party in costume too. She also told me not to worry about the whole prince thing, because Manning’s just one of the guys here, despite being the third son of a real king of an actual kingdom in the north Atlantic.

Nick’s giddy.

And when I say giddy, I mean his cheeks probably hurt from grinning so big and he keeps quietly cackling to himself.

It’s utterly adorable.

“What?” he asks me when I smile at him.

“What are you going to do if you’re wrong about this?” I ask.

“I’m not.” He tugs one of my upper legs, and insists again, “I’m not,” when I laugh.

“But if I am,” he concedes, “there’s always tomorrow. Oh, we’re slowing down. Awesome.”

“He might not be here,” I point out.

“He’ll be here.”

The elevator stops, the doors open, and Nick tries to slip an arm around me, but all of our legs get tangled together, so after a few awkward re-tries that leave me laughing so hard I can’t breathe—seriously, I poked him in the eye with one of my legs, and then got him up the nose with another one—he snags my hand and pulls me toward the music.

We step from a marble foyer into a large living room with high ceilings, modern lighting, and Halloween decorations covering the walls. There’s enough food on the tables along one wall to feed an entire country, cobwebs strung between the lights, and a smoking punch bowl on the long counter between the living room and the kitchen.

The party’s crowded and already in full swing, with some people dancing, some standing in groups eating, and some having an arm-wrestling contest at a far table. Everyone’s in costume, and Nick tells me that while half the people are his teammates, Dax Gallagher from Half Cocked Heroes—yes, the rock band—is supposed to be around here somewhere, and there might be a few actors or actresses too. There are two blow-up dinosaurs that Nick tells me are probably Manning and Gracie. Tyler Jaeger’s working a blow-up costume of his own that makes him look like he’s riding a unicorn.

“Lost a bet,” Nick explains, then points to Connor Klein, who’s wearing an honest to god suit of armor and is only recognizable because his face shield is up.

I don’t see Zeus and Ares right away, which most likely means they’re not here yet, because they’d be impossible to miss if they were.

“Kami! Oh my dog, those costumes—Zeus is going to freak,” a feminine voice says from inside one of the T-Rex costumes.

Nick gives the dinosaur a hug. “Hey, Gracie. You lose some weight?”

The other T-Rex punches him in the arm. “You’ll kindly quit discussing my wife’s waistline,” a posh European accent informs him before turning to shake one of my legs. “And lovely of you to join us, Kami. Delighted to have you and all your spare appendages. If Murphy doesn’t watch it on the ice, he might need an extra appendage or three permanently attached to help him stop the puck.”

“He played fantastic last night,” I say, because even though they were in Colorado, of course I stayed up to watch.

With Felicity and Maren and Muffy.

Alina’s in California for one of the last few cities on her tour, because she has an even cooler job than Felicity and gets to travel for performances.

“He doesn’t need an extra appendage,” Felicity says behind us. “He needs an extra brain.”

She tries to fling an arm around me for a hug and ends up getting a leg in the eye too. She gives up and punches Nick lightly, because it’s apparently the thing to do. “I cannot believe you talked Kami into doing your dirty work for you.”

“It’s for Sugarbear,” I say.

Ares, playing a scantily-dressed and very chiseled Cupid with Loki on his shoulder to Felicity’s red-haired princess, is giving Nick a look like he’d better sleep with one eye open next road trip.

I start to say hi to him, but that’s when the screaming starts.

First, it’s a high-pitched scream from the doorway.

We all whip around and spot a 7-foot-tall clown screaming and pointing at me and Nick.

With at least seven clowns behind him.

All in full make-up.

Striped clown jumpsuits.

Big red noses.

Bigger red shoes.

Clowns.

The clowns are attacking. They’re invading and they’ll be pulling out their flower water squirters and their horns and they’re fucking attacking!

I scream.

Nick screams.

Three of the clowns point at us and scream.

“CLOWNS!” someone shrieks, and at least a dozen other people start screaming.

Security rushes the room.

“SPIDERS!” the clowns scream back.

Felicity shoves between Nick and me. She grabs me by the shoulders and forces me to the ground, and I realize Ares is doing the same to Nick.

“Clowns,” I whimper to her. I point, but all I can see are legs and blow-up costume legs, and I can’t see the clowns, and I don’t know where they are.

“It’s Zeus.” She pats my cheeks like she’s trying to wake me up. “Kami, it’s Zeus, and he’s not going to quit screaming until the spiders are gone. He’s terrified of spiders. Stay down. He can’t see you here.”

The screaming stops, and I stay there, huddled near the ground in a sea of people.

I fucking hate clowns.

“I fucking hate clowns,” Nick sputters.

Ares is gone, and Nick creeps closer to me, his face white as a ghost. “You okay?”

Felicity’s coughing like she’s trying not to laugh as she stands and backs away, because of course she’s not afraid of clowns. She’s a fucking ventriloquist. She probably has parties with clowns all the time.

“Fucking clowns,” I mutter.

He reaches around to hug me and gets a spider leg in his ear, then up his nose again, and we both end up on our backs, right there in the middle of the party, catching our breath and staring at the fake spiders in the webs hung from the ceiling.

“So, great plan,” I say.

“Fucking clowns.” Duncan squats to the ground next to us in a Ghostbusters costume and shoves his dark, curly head between his knees. “Berger’s going down.”

“I know a guy who can get a horse tranquilizer,” I hear myself say.

Both men look at me. Then at each other. Color’s coming back to Nick’s face, which is a huge relief, because until this very minute I would’ve sworn there wasn’t anything in the world that scared him.

I like my world better where Nick’s not afraid of anything.

“She’s on my team,” Nick tells Duncan. “So don’t even think of crossing to the Berger side.”

“I hear you, man, but spiders are all we’ve got on him. Dude has no shame.”

“He still deserves a dick in a box,” I mutter.

They look at me again.

Nick starts grinning.

Lavoie looks around like he’s making sure nobody walking around us is listening. “A dick in a box? Like…some dude’s actual dick?”

“Lavoie. Seriously?” Nick shakes his head. “Your prank game is weak, man. Weak. But you—” He points at me. “You are fucking awesome.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be Felicity’s sweet friend?” Duncan says to me.

“Not when clowns attack.”

“How about when spiders attack?” Nick asks.

“When—what?”

He grins.

And then he grabs me, pulls me to him, and kisses me.

Right there in the middle of the party.

With everyone watching.

Like I’m his entire universe.

I smile into kissing him back.

Clowns be damned. I’m pretty sure this man right here loves me.

Not friend-loves me. Loves me loves me.

Which is amazing.

Because I’m also pretty sure I’m going to love him forever.

Just like I always have.

But better, because this Nick truly is everything and more that I always hoped he could be.