12. Declan

It'sgood to be back home. I love playing road games, but I'm worried about Miranda handling the traveling and time changes. Hopefully, being home for almost a week will reset her body clock. Obviously, she can handle the job she's been hired for. She did the same job for a year and half with the rugby team in New Zealand. They had tournaments all over the world and she adapted. She's a grown woman. I know all this. But I can't help wanting to care for her and protect her.

We get home right before dawn. The overtime loss to the Colorado Cryptids was gutting. We don't have any games scheduled until after New Year's, so we have a few days off. Since we have a rink downstairs, we'll still skate. Our teammates drop in a lot to use the rink downstairs too. It's easier to come out here if they live on the mainland than drive out to Atlantic City to practice on the ice at The Nest. The rink here is a synthetic surface Carter's chemical engineer mother invented years ago—not actual ice, but it's great.

Carter is sitting at the kitchen counter when I leave my bedroom mid-morning.

"Good morning," I mumble.

He raises his coffee mug in salute and continues watching a video on his laptop. A glance shows it's a cheerleading video. He helps Kendall with her cheer team that uses the gym space downstairs. Maybe he's researching a new stunt.

Brick pokes her head through our open apartment door. "Hey guys. I'm making banana bread. Any you want to contribute to the cause?"

I pull our fruit bowl down from the top of the fridge and hand her two ripe candidates. I leave the bowl on the counter. We will have to find a new place for it. Miranda isn't over six feet tall like Carter and I are. She shouldn't have to climb a step stool to get an apple.

"And Stone is making French toast," Brick says. "Do you want some?"

"He forgot to put the bread in the freezer?" Carter asks.

If one of us forgets to put a loaf of bread in the freezer before we leave for a road trip, our tradition is to make a giant batch of French toast to use it up. Knowing how much Stone loves French toast, I bet he left the bread out on purpose to have the excuse and the slightly stale bread to make a batch.

"Yep."

"We have bacon," I say as I open the refrigerator to pull out a pack.

"Does Randi like French toast?" Brick asks.

"Yeah, with cinnamon on top." I fill the electric kettle to start my tea.

Carter's narrowed eyes follow me as I put the kettle on the base I keep on the counter and flip the switch to start it heating.

"How do you know?" he asks.

My eyebrows inch toward my hairline. "I've known Miranda her entire life. We've had hundreds of breakfasts together. What aren't you understanding about this?"

"As kids. Maybe she doesn't like it now."

"It's what she cooks us for breakfast," I say. What is his problem?

"When has she cooked you breakfast? She hates cooking."

Brick is watching us avidly. She probably wishes she had a bag of popcorn to snack on.

Stone walks in. "Are you guys having breakfast with us?"

Brick slaps him in the chest with the pack of bacon. "They are. Here's some bacon."

"What's going on?" he asks in a whisper.

"They're getting territorial," she whispers back, but Brick is not a soft-spoken woman. What she thinks is whispering is a normal speaking voice for anyone else.

"Over Randi?"

"Yeah."

"Is it a wolf thing?" Stone asks.

I look over at them.

Brick rolls her eyes. "No, it's a man thing."

Miranda wanders out from her bedroom looking adorably sleep rumpled. She yawns and rubs her eye.

"Good morning." Her Irish lilt is strong, making me smile. That's my Miranda.

"You sound like a leprechaun," Carter says.

"Bite me," she says.

"Would you be magically delicious?" he asks.

A growl rises in my throat and I cough to try to disguise it.

Brick and Miranda make identical "ew" faces and laugh when they make eye contact.

"Hey, Miranda," Brick says. "Stone is making French toast for breakfast, and we have bacon. Do you want to eat with us?"

"That would be great, thanks." Miranda's lilt disappears the more she wakes up. I miss her genuine voice. The one I know is the real her, not what she adopts to fit in here. "Do we have cinnamon?"

I don't try to hide my smirk as I prepare the pot of tea I'm hoping to share with Miranda. Now it's Carter trying to suppress a growl. Good.

"Mac, is Miranda your date for the New Year's Eve party, or did you ask someone else?"

Fuck.

"What New Year's Eve party?" Miranda asks.

Carter gives me a shit-eating grin and turns to answer her.

"Oh, you don't know about it? The team is having a party at Devil's Den. Drinking, dancing, a kiss at midnight. Wanna be my date? Want to be sure I have someone pretty to kiss to ring in the new year."

There's no holding back my growl this time.

"What am I? Chopped liver?" Stone asks to break the tension. "I've been using lip balm and everything."

Miranda laughs and her questioning gray eyes flick to mine.

"I forgot about the party," I say.

"Are you going?" she asks.

"Hello," Carter shouts, waving his hand. "I asked first."

Brick lays a hand on Miranda's arm. "Most of us are going stag, hang out with us."

"Yeah, okay," Miranda says.

"Come on and make breakfast with us," Brick suggests, "before these two whip out their dicks and pee on your leg to mark their territory."

Miranda nods and wrinkles her nose before turning to walk out of the apartment.

Stone looks over his shoulder to make sure she's out of earshot.

"Get your shit together." He's usually happy-go-lucky. For him to be stern is startling. "If either of you are serious in your feelings for her, then do something about it. If you're just trying to piss the other one off, then grow the fuck up. She's a nice person and doesn't deserve to be toyed with. We need to be cohesive as a team and not distracted by petty bullshit."

"So, what's the problem?" I ask Carter after Stone shuts the apartment door behind him. "Should I be looking for somewhere else for me and Miranda to live?"

"What do you mean ‘me and Miranda'? You two aren't a couple. She's here because she's my best friend. She didn't even know you were on the team. How close are you if neither of you knew the connection to the team?"

Okay. Score one for him. If I had my way, I'd have been talking with Miranda every single day for years, be with her every night. But I'm her best friend's brother and her friend. Not her boyfriend, not her mate, not her future. We send each other memes or listings of farms for sale with ideas of what we'd do if it was our farm, but nothing personal between our calls. We hadn't spoken since before training camp for the Devil Birds. I never had the chance to tell her about my move here and playing for the team.

"Well, I'm not leaving her behind," I say.

"Dude, there's no reason for you to leave. But you're acting like Miranda is your mate…"

"She is my mate," I say with a growl.

"Okay, fine." Carter holds his hands up in a placating gesture.

I do not broadcast the fact, but it's known in the wolf community I'm the next alpha of the wolf shifter pack of Scotland. Hopefully, I won't assume the mantle for many years because my father shows no sign of wanting to retire, but as heir to the oldest pack, I outrank everyone. Now pack wars are handled diplomatically rather than by force and pack Alpha is mostly a ceremonial role, but in a battle, my wolf is one of the largest and strongest. Like I am on the ice.

"But," he says, "if my mate suddenly showed up and moved into the room next to mine, I'd be making sure everyone knew she was my mate. I'd be claiming her."

Does he think I don't want to?

"Man, she's been here four days and is practically a zombie from not sleeping enough. It's not like I can throw her over my shoulder and take her to my den like in the old days."

Carter shrugs. "You do it your way, I'll do it mine."

"Good luck with that." I run my hand through my hair in frustration. "Seriously," I say, "she is my mate in the truest sense of the word. Since childhood. There has been no one else. There will be no one else. It's more than love, it's fate. I would do anything, give up anything, for Miranda. If I had my way, we'd be married, hopefully with a few kids already. I gave my word to our parents I'd give her time and space. I have. Now fate has brought us back together, and I'm done waiting."

"When has she made you breakfast?" Carter asks, circling back to the start of our conversation.

"When she'd visit me at Cornell. It's our thing. She'd make French toast, and I'd make scrambled eggs and bacon."

"I'm not saying this to be an asshole, but Miranda has never mentioned you in the six years I've known her."

I shrug, unconcerned. "It sounds like there are many things she hasn't told you. She gives the impression she's an open book, but she's an extremely private person."

"Are you lovers?" Carter asks.

I pause in pouring the tea I prepared into mugs for me and Miranda.

"No. Not yet." That's the best, most honest answer I can give.

Carter looks me in the eye, the most serious I've ever seen him.

"Don't hurt her. I like you, and if you hurt her, I'll have to fight you." He grimaces. "As much as I hate to admit it, you can probably break me in two."

I match his somber tone. "I will do nothing to hurt Miranda. I'd endure anything, give up everything, to keep her safe and happy. I love her."

"Does she know?"

Sighing, I add milk and sugar to our mugs. For this blend, this is how she likes it.

"I don't know."

"You haven't told her?" he asks incredulously.

"No. I didn't want to burden her." And I knew fate would bring us together again. Now it has and it's time. But it doesn't mean I can be careless about it.

Carter gets up and refills his coffee mug from the pot he made earlier.

"Dude. Maybe she would have stayed." He shakes his head like I'm insane. Maybe I am.

"She probably would have. But she needed to go. We needed to live our lives separately before we got together. It is going to work out as fate wills it."

Our conversation is over. Enough heart to heart—that's not how we work.

"Good luck with that," Carter says, echoing my earlier sentiment as he reaches out to open our apartment door. "I'm not leaving things to fate. I'm making them happen."