Vic didn’t have a favorite sports star. He hated sports. He worked out to keep himself in shape and to work off excess energy that could lead to his shifting into his animal form and rampaging the streets of New York, but other than that . . .
He did tolerate football, though. Could sit with friends and watch it without complaining if he had to. He enjoyed the rigidity of it. The definite lines and rules. He loathed basketball and baseball, however, and seeing really big guys on skates did nothing but weird him out. Of course, he’d felt the same way when he’d seen full-blood grizzlies on skates in Russia.
Stopping by the Starbucks located in the Sports Center—because there really always was one everywhere, even among shifters—and getting himself a large coffee and a few honey buns, Vic went and sat down on an empty bench to eat and people watch.
He thought about stopping by Livy’s office, but he didn’t want to crowd her. She hated that, and Vic didn’t want to become someone she actively avoided—like the pretty woman skating by him . . . once . . . twice . . . three times before she finally rolled herself over and stopped in front of Vic.
“Hi, Blayne.”
“Hi, Vic.”
“Honey bun,” he offered out of the Russian politeness his parents had drilled into him for years while he was growing up. But he was really hoping she’d turn him down.
She did.
“So, what’s up?” he asked around another honey bun.
She rolled closer. Blayne really was a beautiful woman. And there were few women who could wear shorts that tiny and still look good. She had long, athletic, muscular legs that said she worked out a lot. Maybe she lived on those skates. Did she wear them all the time? To family events? To bed? Did that meathead hockey player make her wear those skates?
“I heard about Livy’s father,” she whispered. “You know . . . about what really happened to him.”
That snapped Vic back to the moment and away from Blayne’s skate-wearing schedule.
“How did you hear?”
“I heard it from Ronnie Lee who heard it from Sissy Mae who heard it from—”
“Okay,” Vic cut in, quickly regretting asking her the simple question.
“You know, my mom was hunted, too,” she whispered.
“Oh Blayne. I’m sorry.”
She waved off his words. “It was a long time ago, and after a considerable amount of therapy, I’ve compartmentalized it quite nicely.”
“Okay.”
Blayne moved in a little closer, looked around, leaned down, and added, “Maybe I should cancel my wedding.”
“Well, if you don’t want to marry the guy, of course you should cancel your wedding. Don’t let family or peer pressure push you into a marriage you don’t want.”
Blayne snapped up straight, her hands resting on her hips. “Of course I want to marry Bo. Why wouldn’t I want to marry Bo? I love him!”
“Then why would you cancel your wedding?”
“Because of what happened to Livy’s father.”
Vic stared at Blayne, but she didn’t say anything else.
“I understand you feeling empathy toward Livy, considering what happened to your mother, but I guess I’m unclear on what Damon Kowalski has to do with your wedding.”
“Who?”
Vic took another sip of coffee. Maybe he wasn’t alert enough for this conversation.
“Livy’s father? Damon Kowalski is Livy’s father.”
“Oh! Yeah, I didn’t know his name.”
“Uh-huh. So you want to cancel your giant, double wedding because of a man whose name you didn’t even know . . . because of your mom?”
“No. And I don’t want to cancel my wedding, but I’m wondering if I should.”
“Why would you be wondering that?”
“Because Livy’s my friend.”
“She is?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, okay. No need to get upset.” Although he wanted to use hysterical instead of upset. “I guess the way to look at this is . . . how would Livy react if you canceled the wedding for her? Do you think she’d be okay with it? Or do you think she’d throw another locker at you?”
Blayne, after thinking on that for a few seconds, admitted, “Locker.”
“Right. So you may not want to cancel your wedding if the only reason is because of Livy’s father.”
Blayne sat down beside Vic. “What about having her as our photographer?”
“What about it?”
“Do you think it will be too hard for her?”
Probably, but not for the reasons Blayne was thinking. And Vic briefly entertained the idea of using this opportunity to get Livy out of being a dreaded wedding photographer—emphasis on the “wedding” part—but then he realized Livy wouldn’t want him involving himself in her career.
No. Livy would have to shoot or not shoot Blayne’s wedding on her own. All Vic could really do was keep her from throwing lockers at poor Blayne’s head.
“Livy is one of the strongest and smartest women I know. And I think you need to let her take the lead on whether she can handle shooting your wedding or not. She’s brutally honest, so if she doesn’t think she can do it, she’ll tell you. And probably recommend someone great who can step in for her. What’s important is that you trust Livy to do what’s right. Because she will.”
Blayne gazed at Vic for what seemed an excessively long time until she slowly began to smile.
“What?” Vic asked. “What did I say?”
“Oh.” She shook her head. “Nothing.” Blayne stood. “You’re right. I need to trust Livy.” She skated a half circle around Vic. “Hey, are you coming to our derby bout tomorrow? It’s just a local bout to help raise money for the tristate teams.”
“I’m not really a sports—”
“Livy will be playing, of course. She’s one of our shortest blockers, but also one of our meanest.”
“She is? Oh. Yeah. Okay. Sure. I can come.”
Blayne’s grin was amazingly wide. “Yay!” She skated off, then skated right back, leaned down, and kissed Vic on the cheek. “Thanks for your advice.”
“Anytime.”
He watched her skate off again, unable to shake the feeling something weird had just happened.
Deciding not to worry about it, Vic ate the last honey bun and finished off his coffee. He was going to go for another walk when he realized that someone was sitting next to him.
Vic turned his head to see Dee-Ann beside him. She glared at him with her dead, soulless dog eyes.
“You got somethin’ to tell me, son?”
Livy was going through some pics she’d recently taken of the shifter girls’ gymnastics team. Although these girls could never get into the full-human sports now that testing had become so invasive, it looked as if the shifter-version sport was about to go worldwide like hockey. Which, when Livy thought about it, was much fairer to the full-humans.
When the full-humans destroyed a kneecap coming off the pommel horse, their careers usually ended. When a shifter did the same thing, it was usually not from the landing but because they’d vaulted themselves too far up and rammed their knee into a ceiling beam. Yet the shifters still managed to nail the landing and were healed within twenty-four hours. So . . . yeah. Not fair to the full-humans.
“Hey!”
Livy looked up from her pics and at Blayne. “Hey.”
“You’re coming to the bout tomorrow, right?”
“Am I?” Livy asked. It was decided that Livy would only come to derby bouts that impacted the championships. Last she’d heard, tomorrow’s bout was simply a fund-raising thing. Something casual between the teams that Livy’s competitive “win or die” nature tended to ruin.