“Don’t ask me. I’m still in shape but nowhere near playing condition…”
“Not to mention you look like a cross between a college professor and a lumberjack.”
“Lumberjack? How the fuck did you get to lumberjack?”
He stepped back and waved his hand while looking me up and down again. “Maybe because Paul Bunyan is walking around naked.”
“I’d pay money to see that.”
“Not while dating my son, you won’t.”
“I won’t apologize to you for that.”
“I didn’t think you would, but you need to know…”
“Anything you know about him, you need to keep to yourself. If he wants me to know, he’ll tell me.”
A small smile turned up the corners of his mouth, and he nodded. “Good. And don’t be sharing shit with me. I don’t wanna know what kinky ass shit you’re doing with my kid.”
“Fair enough.”
“I have a question, though.”
My stomach flipped, wondering what he could want to know.
“I’m biased. I hoped to get an unbiased assessment from you…”
“He’s as good as you think. One of the best I’ve ever seen.”
Mikal’s face bloomed. “Do you know he’d never even watched a game until he came to live with us? He’d never been inside a barn. Never been on the ice.”
I laughed. “He told me he nearly killed himself the first time he skated.
Mikal lost it, his hand running over his head. “He stepped out on the ice in skates way too big with a stick for someone half a foot taller. He stumbled, fell forward on the stick, ramming it into the boards. Broke a couple ribs, one nicked a lung.”
“Jesus, he doesn’t do anything by half measure,” I said laughingly.
“No. He doesn’t. He is slow to trust people. He just started calling Anya and me Mama and Tata. He couldn’t bring himself to use Mom and Dad. At least not consistently.”
“Mikal…”
“I’m only saying this because once I calmed down, I realized what I saw when I walked into his room.”
We’d both been asleep. At most, he caught me with my hand on Aiden’s leg or Aiden’s hand in mine.
“And what was that?”
“Trust. Aiden trusts you. He doesn’t trust anyone easily. He doesn’t make friends with most people. It’s why he did JUCO. He could stay at home and still go to school. But tonight, he fell asleep in a room without a deadbolt with someone else in the room with him. So, I can’t be too put out by your… relationship, because you’ve made him feel safe and that’s… well, I couldn’t ask for much more.”
My poor boy. The little he shared with me… well, I’d never been so close to committing a felony. I wanted to fuck someone up. Bad.
“From the look on your face, you feel the same way I do about what he’s been through, and I doubt I know even half what’s been done to him.”
“Aiden says it’s in the past and he’s dealt with it, but…”
“We haven’t.”
“Yeah.”
