Page 2 of Amelia and Her Prince Charming
“Amelia,” she replied with a smile that lit up her entire face.
“And how do you know my brother?”
“We’ve had some classes together.”
The words hit me like a puck to the chest. They were true, technically. But it was more than that too. Study sessions at the cafe once a week. Inside jokes. Text messages and walking to classes. We’d even gone to every single classic movie at the campus cinema together for extra credit in our writing class.
“What’s your major, Amy. Can I call you Amy?”
“Sure.” She looked down, and her lashes swept her cheeks shyly. I’d never seen that expression on her face before. “I’m majoring in English education.”
“Then how in the world do you two have classes together?” Shiloh asked with a chuckle.
Because I’d added a literature class to my heavy anatomy and physiology workload every semester. And not just because I wanted to have a class with Amelia and needed an excuse to keep seeing her. “You know I love literature.”
Was it a recent love? Maybe.
Dylan’s gaze on me was sharp and knowing, but Shiloh didn’t notice my stretch of truth. Amelia seemed to fill his entire sphere of vision too.
“Hey, you still have thirty minutes left,” Shiloh reminded me, but something in my face made him pause, and he stepped closer, his voice low. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I was going for unbothered, but it came out abrupt.
Shiloh opened his mouth to say something else, probably to end the whole thing, but I yelled out to a group walking by, “Vote for me!” to cut him off. I wasn’t going to wimp out in front of Amelia.
Amelia asked Shiloh his major, and soon he was telling her about hockey. Dylan joined in for a while, but then he got a phone call that distracted him.
Over the next half hour, I caught snippets of their conversation and noticed how they kept drifting closer and closer together. At one point, he took her hand and was studying her fingers as they spoke. At another, she pulled out her phone, and they texted each other their numbers. She glowed in a way I’d never seen before.
When my time was finally up, and every limb in my body had succumbed to numbness from the cold, Amelia and Shiloh leaned into a lingering hug and promised to see each other Friday night.
Amelia floated toward me next and gave me a distracted side hug.
“You’re freezing,” she said, rubbing my arm. “Get warm, okay? I need you healthy to brainstorm myGreat Expectationsanalysis with me.”
Shiloh sauntered over, but his dazed gaze remained on Amelia as she walked away. “I just met the girl of my dreams.”
No, he met the girl ofmydreams. I could tell him that. How I was working up the courage to ask her on a date. How she made me feel more known and seen than any woman I’d ever met. How being close to her lit me up inside.
But I didn’t say anything at all because Amelia deserved someone as incredible as her—someone exactly like my brother.
Chapter 2
Amelia
10yearslater
Hockey’s Favorite Widow Seen Without Her Wedding Ring?
Weddings are a time for love! And it may be that Amelia Blaire—wife to the late-Shiloh Blaire, center for the Professional Hockey League’s Peaks—is ready to find someone to heal her heart. Our sources say she’s been spending a lot of time around members of the Peak’s hockey team, and they all flew to Winterhaven together for the wedding we’ve been anticipating for months. Could a secret romance be brewing between Amelia and a hockey player? Follow us to stay updated on all Peaks gossip!
—Hot Goss Magazine
DeathByMoosesoundedlike the title of a cozy mystery novel, not what I wanted written in my obituary.
The enormous moose standing half the length of a hockey rink away snorted in my direction. White puffs escaped his nostrils in the cold night air behind Winterhaven’s Italian Cafe and American-Style Pizzeria, locally known as the Icy Asp.
All I’d wanted was a breather from endless condolences about Shiloh. This week needed to be about our friend’s wedding, not about my loss. I also needed an escape from the tantalizing scent of pizza I couldn’t eat but never stopped craving—no matter how much someone claimed their gluten-free version tasted exactly the same.
