Neve (Silver Skates #3) - Helen Scott Page 0,41

I’d kissed Neve at Silver Skates.

I wanted to go back in there and kiss her again, to have the courage I’d had that night, or that Niklaus had had tonight when he strode out of the locker rooms and just started making out with her. The number of times I’d replayed that kiss in my head was, frankly, ridiculous. As the door to the apartment building closed behind me though, I let it close off the thoughts of Neve and her perfect body and lips that demanded to be kissed.

Instead, I focused on work, what I should have been focusing on this whole time if Neve hadn’t been distracting me. She wanted to interview the whole damn town, and as much as I thought the idea was a little crazy, I also thought it had potential. Which was why I found myself sending out emails at almost ten o’clock at night, asking some of the people I knew in Silver Springs if they would be available to be interviewed.

I figured we could set up as many as possible for the next week and then start running the interviews the week after. Of course, that would mean we would have to get the rest of our shit together, getting the other stories ready, getting the advertisers lined up, all of that. I wasn’t sure that Neve actually knew anything about running a paper, but it had been just me and Samson for so long now that we could both get the paper ready to go with our eyes closed and one hand tied behind our backs.

Thinking about the paper also gave me the unfortunate reminder that even if Neve was my mate, she was also my boss. How was I supposed to navigate a relationship like that? Would she be my boss at work and my mate at home? I mean, if I was actually interested in pursuing this thing. Which I wasn’t.

The walk home was brisk and helped clear my thoughts, but no matter what I did, they always seemed to come back to Neve. It stayed that way all night. Even as I was trying to sleep, I found her starlight smile invading my dreams, her wide, gray eyes watching me from somewhere or another as she tried to figure me out. It wasn’t unpleasant to be the center of her attention, at least in a dream.

As I made my way to work the next day, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would find her waiting for me again. She’d looked so sassy sitting there with her coffee and laptop open, a single raised eyebrow as she both challenged me and welcomed me to the office for the day. I knew she’d also been nervous, which was understandable, given my horrible actions the last time we saw each other.

She wasn’t waiting for me though. Instead, I found an empty office, and as much as I didn’t want to acknowledge it, I felt a pang of something like loneliness at being the only one there. I didn’t want to stop and examine that emotion or its cause though, so I began pulling my stuff from my bag and settled down with my coffee and laptop.

To my surprise, a couple of the people I had asked about interviews had time today, so I set up the interviews and was in the middle of putting together the list of questions when the woman in question walked in. She looked positively sinful in a cream sweater that clung to her in all the right places and a pair of black skinny jeans. It was probably the most casual I’d seen her dress, and I liked it. It made me wonder what it would be like to spend the weekend with her. Was she a lazy Sunday morning kind of person? How did she like her eggs? Or did she prefer waffles?

No.

This was not going to happen. I was supposed to mate another snowshoe hare and start a family, one that would make my parents proud, not that they were around to see it. Not going there either.

“I have a couple interviews set up for later today with Silver Springs residents. Would you like to come along? You’d actually have to sit through the interviews this time, so I understand if you don’t want to join me.” Why did I have to add the second bit? Hell, why did I say any of it? I could have just done the interviews peacefully by