Page 22 of Iced Out Mate

“Yeah, they’re beautiful,” I said, crouching down and admiring the pretty red flowers.

“These are the snapdragons,” he gently explained. He pointed at a tall bunch of odd-looking flowers.

I gave an embarrassed chuckle. “Duh. Yeah, I knew that, was just testing you.”

He crouched down next to me, smiling. “Gardening is one of my hobbies. Helps get me out of my head. My mom loved flowers, too, so it helps me feel a little more connected to her.”

“What are her favorite flowers?”

“Sunflowers. My dad said she loved them. He would always have the house filled with them.” There was a soft sadness to his voice that explained more than words could.

He’d lost his mother. It was a heartbreaking realization. “She passed before I ever got the chance to meet her,” Miles added.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my condolences being the only thing I could offer in that moment. There was a deep river of pain in him that I could feel as though it were my own, but now wasn’t the time to wade into those waters.

Miles offered me a sad smile. “I just planted some sunflowers today actually. But seeing these makes me want to grab some snapdragons from Home Depot after work tomorrow.”

“So why are they called snapdragons? Are they sassy?”

“Huh?”

“Snap? Like, you know…” I snapped my hands and tilted my head and felt quite dumb at my silly joke.

But if Miles thought it was stupid, he didn’t show it. Quite the opposite. That shy and reserved smile of his grew wider. “Not exactly,” he said, “but I do like your reasoning.” He leaned forward and gently held one of the red flowers. “They’re called that because if you look from the side, they kind of look like dragon heads. And, watch, give me your hand.”

I held my hand out. He took it in his. My entire world flipped on its axis at the touch. I inhaled sharply but he didn’t seem to notice as he guided my hand to the flowers, traced the lines of my fingers with his, placed my thumb and pointer finger underneath one of the flowers. “If you squeeze—gently—then its mouth opens and closes.”

He applied a soft pressure against my fingers. I did as he said, pressing on the flower, watching as the snapdragon opened and closed its bright red jaw.

“Whoa. That’s pretty neat,” I said.

“They’re my second-favorite flowers.” He didn’t move his hand from under mine. The moment between us was loaded. My gaze dropped to his lips, just as his did to mine. This touch, this connection, it all felt right. I yearned to explore it. Not just with my hands but with my tongue and my lips and my heart.

And so I started to lean in. A kiss, it would only be a quick kiss. And Miles wasn’t moving away. He leaned in too. His lips were almost on mine, his hand still holding mine, my body still aching for his⁠—

“I will grab you beer,” Soren’s gruff voice sounded from around the corner of the house.

Miles and I separated, getting back to our feet just as Soren turned the corner.

“Oh sorry. You two need privacy?”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose as Miles shook his head—a little too vigorously. The answer was, of course, yes, please. Fuck yes, I needed to be alone with this man for longer than five minutes. But I kept that to myself and instead asked, “Want to see if they’ve started playing any games?”

He nodded, his gaze still pinned to my lips. “Yeah, let’s go play.”

Chapter Ten

Pack Introductions

MILES

The Jenga tower crashed with the roar of a thousand suns exploding all at once. I held up a single piece as everyone sitting around me in the living room burst into claps and laughter. I’d never been good at this game, but it didn’t matter, not when I was having this much fun with a group of people I’d really only just met.

Driving over to Emmy’s house had me tapping anxiously on the steering wheel in silence, my brain buzzing so loudly that I couldn’t even play music. I was nervous about meeting the rest of the pack. Sure, I was Emmy’s friend and quickly becoming Dylan’s, but that didn’t mean the others had to accept me.

And what if they didn’t? What would that mean for my established friendship with their alpha and my budding relationship with another one of their pack members?

Shifters had all kinds of hierarchies at play, depending on the type of species they were. Some were loners, like tigers. Some were matriarchal and family-led, like elephants. And some were pack animals. With wolf packs, hierarchy mattered but so did the opinions of everyone who ran together. I’d never been part of a pack, always on my own even when I’d been asked to join one in the past. That time, meeting the pack had felt very low stakes. I hadn’t been nervous at all.