“What’s your beef with Jane? Poetry and Austen hater? I’m beginning to agree with your friend Halle,” I tease.
“I don’t have beef with her; I just think Darcy is a dick.” I can’t help how loud the laugh is that launches out of me, because of all the things I was expecting her to say, it wasn’t that. “You’re laughing, but I’m right. Any man who says, “she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me,” deserves to be thrown from his horse into a pond, not to get the girl.”
Aurora spins to look at me and even under these terrible lights she’s mesmerizing. “I could never say that about you, sweetheart.”
I will never get tired of being able to bend down and kiss her freely. It’s that feeling of instant relief that has me thinking about how soon college restarting is and the fact we’re going back to the same place when camp ends. I stroke my thumb against her cheek and enjoy the feel of her pulse against the palm resting on her neck.
“Why? Because I’m so handsome?”
I shake my head, running my thumb along her bottom lip as she pouts up at me. “No, because I could never describe you as tolerable.”
Her jaw drops instantly, hand reaching for the closest book to hit me with as I laugh, fighting to pull her close to me. “No, get off,” she snaps as I bury my head into her hair and kiss her neck. “I’m mad again.”
I totally forgot someone runs this store until they clear their throat behind me. Aurora and I both turn, her hair ruffled and cheeks flushed from our playfight. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “Can I help you with anything?”
I’m about to say no, but Aurora beats me to it. “Hi, yes, you can actually. My husband and I are looking to open a strip club here in Meadow Springs, do you happen to have any books on business?”
“I think I’d like to own a bookstore one day,” Aurora says as she eats another mouthful of chocolate chip ice cream. “Maybe that’s what I’ll do when I finish college.”
After terrifying the bookstore owner with Aurora’s elaborate strip club plans, ones that were so well thought out I’m not convinced they were thought up on the spot, we’ve ventured to the other side of the street to The Little Moo, a cute ice cream shop.
“Move here, open a rival bookstore, join the community commitment to nonsense, or whatever it’s called, sell dirty romance books and scandalize the townsfolk.”
“I love scandalizing people,” she says proudly. “And what are you going to do while I’m running my bookstore and corrupting the masses?”
“I’ll open a rival bowling store to rival the rival bowling stores, obviously.”
Aurora snorts loudly, immediately slapping her hand over her mouth and nose. “You’re going to get us kicked out of the MSCCTIOIA.”
“We’ll start a rival one.” I shrug.
“You’ve gone mad with power. I’m so glad you’ve thought this all through though, because I don’t think Meadow Springs is on the NHL roster.”
I scrape up the last of my ice cream, immediately eyeing hers. “I don’t want to play professionally anyway.”
Her eyebrows practically shoot into her hairline. “What, why? I thought it was every athlete’s dream to play in a major league?”
Aurora’s response doesn’t bother me, because it’s the one I get every time the topic comes up in conversation with someone. “I have no desire to be famous and I don’t love hockey enough to give up my privacy.”
“But why?” she says, her face more serious.
I can’t tell her it’s because I’ll always be worried someone will dig into my family or that the money I’ll have will make my dad more relentless. I shrug, but I can tell she’s waiting for an answer from me.
“I don’t know, Ror. I appreciate a low-key life, I suppose. I love my teammates and of course I love hockey, but I’m not sure I’d have even tried to play at collegiate level if it wasn’t the thing that got me a full ride.” She spins her spoon in her ice cream bowl and I know instantly I’ve said something wrong. “What? Why do you look like that?”
“My family is well known, Russ. Like, famous-level well known. Elsa is essentially a socialite, she’s in the tabloids all the time, and my dad is known all over the world because of Fenrir, so there are quite a lot of people who know who I am. Plus, my parents had this super messy public divorce.”