Page 38 of Butterfly
She understood that hockey was my ticket out of Bow Island, and that once that ticket was punched, how much I desperately missed my hometown.
She understood that late nights traveling for tournaments made me wild and angry, lack of sleep turning me into a feral monster.
She understood me in all the ways she could and saw everything I tried to hide for so long.
“Was she a good mom?” Shiloh asks, his voice small and wistful in a way I haven’t heard it before.
“The best. Was yours?”
He hesitates, then shrugs. “She could have been, I guess. I’ll never really know.”
The melancholy hits me then as he curls into me the tiniest bit. “You were little when she died?”
“Yeah.”
Silence stretches between us like a cat, and I press another kiss to the soft skin of his forehead, nudging him under the chin with a crooked finger until his head tilts up to mine. I smile, turning slightly on the couch so I can lean in and kiss him. My lips meet his and, as always, there’s a moment of hesitation before he kisses me back like air doesn’t need space between our lips. He sighs into the kiss and lifts a hand, apparently feeling bold enough now to grip my shirt in his fist and hold me exactly where he wants me. I grin in response, my tongue tangling with his as he delves into my mouth with his own, and I’m content.
There’s a rush of heat rippling through me as he devours my mouth, and though I can feel my body tensing, cock hardening, I don’t need more.
I just need this.
I could spend the rest of this shitty, strange day attached to his lips and it would be perfect.
Except, of course, that’s when my phone starts ringing on the coffee table, jittering and buzzing against the wood grain. Shiloh pulls away, ending the kiss before I’m anywhere near ready, and I grumble, staring into his beautiful gray eyes.
“Ignore it,” I mutter, reaching up to cup his cheeks in my hands. “They can leave a message.”
He leans in and kisses me again as the phone stops ringing only to start again. Shiloh again pulls back, and though I lean forward to take a kiss from him this time, the phone stops ringing and immediately starts up again.
“Fucking hell,” I grumble, as Shiloh smirks slightly at me. He leans back to give me space to answer, gesturing at the phone on the table. I dive for it to turn off the damn ringer so I can go back to making out with my hot boyfriend.
Boyfriend?
Person of interest?
No, that makes him sound like a suspect in some crime or some shit. I don’t know what he is, we haven’t labeled it, but he’s my… Shiloh. My Shiloh.
There.
I turn the phone around as it stops ringing, but when it starts again, I nearly drop the damn thing on the floor. “Jude?”
“Jude?” Shiloh repeats, cocking his head to the side in question.
“Jude,” I confirm, staring at the name on the screen. I haven’t talked to him in years. Not since… Well, not since he and Oakley had some kind of thing happen between them that somehow labeled me as someone Jude didn’t want contact with anymore. My heart leaps into my throat as I consider what day it is, and that if he’s calling me, it could mean more bad news is on the way. I offer an apologetic look to Shiloh, because I have to answer this call and I hope he understands. He nods once, then leans away from me like he’s giving me space, and I answer the call, my heart pounding like a drum.
“Jude?”
“Donovan,” he says, his voice smooth as butter on the other end of the call. “I didn’t think you were going to answer.”
“You called like seventeen times. What’s up? Are you okay? What happened?”
Jude’s soft laugh meets my ears. “Does something have to be wrong for me to call you? I know what day it is. I wanted to check on you.”
“Oh. I’m okay. Thank you.”
Jude is silent for a moment before he clears his throat and speaks again. “I also called because I’ll be in Boston in a week. We’re playing at the Dome.”
“Woah,” I breathe. “What?”
