Page 8 of Knotty Nights
She had a point.
“Go back to your dorm,” I told her. “You can’t avoid Anton forever.”
She pushed away with a dramatic sigh.
“Whydid I have to start dating someone who lives in my dorm? It’s gonna be so awkward now.”
“Well, the more you build it up in your head, the worse it’s going to be when you bump into him. I think you should rip off the band-aid.”
She pouted. “I’m not brave enough for that.”
“You are,” I insisted. “I promise you’ll be fine. There are plenty of other Alphas who would be happy to take you on a date.”
Rosie’s eyes, a mirror of her Momma’s, lit up.
“Actually,” she said, flopping closer to me again. “There’s this Alpha on the swim team…”
I smiled, listening to my daughter describe yet another love interest with the enthusiasm of a teenager.
As the heated blanket whirred beneath us, I itched to grab my phone and check the app. I wanted to commit Arya’s features to memory.
By this time tomorrow, she would be on my doorstep, filling the cottage with her scent. My stomach tightened at the thought.
The urge to cut Rosie off and send her back to her dorm was strong, but I was a mother, first and foremost. I could spend some time listening to my daughter gush about her potential dates. Still, as Rosie spoke, my mind wandered…
Was I really about to let a younger Alpha into my house, into my space, and possibly into my nest? Astranger?
What the fuck was I thinking?
FOUR
Atlas
Ascrapyard.
I’d been prepared for many things—a sleek mansion made of glass, or an apartment in a block of flats—but a scrapyard was an interesting change.
Jazmine’s two-storey house sat on a slight hill with a row of stairs leading up to the front door.
All around me, metal littered the ground—twisted car frames, rusted gears, old satellite dishes. What looked like the remains of an airplane wing leaned against a shipping container. Waning sunlight hit the piles in jagged flashes.
A B330 jet. How fucking cool.
It wasn’t a secret that I loved technology. From coding to hardware, I’d made it my life’s purpose to pull apart every piece of technology I’d ever been gifted to see what made it run.
I wondered if Jazmine would let me examine the airplane wing…
At the mention of her name, my nerves rose to the surface again. I’d been fighting to hold them back on the thirty-minute ride over, but my palms were now slick on the handles of my motorcycle. Was I overdressed? Underdressed?
Would she find me attractive?
All of this happening on V-day weekend only made things more awkward. Meeting someone for the first time and expecting to perform sexually while the shadow of a big romantic holiday hovered in the background was…
Really fucking stressful.
My heart gave a little lurch as I unclipped my helmet.
The house stood out like a cozy little cottage in the metallic mess. It was small, with two arched windows facing the front yard and a sloping roof with a skylight on the second floor. Ivy crept around the window frames and a brick chimney stuck out of the roof. A rocking chair sat on the porch, nudged into a gentle sway by the wind.