Laughing, Ash playfully batted her hands away, holding up his own in surrender.
“Mom, you win! I’m full of shit.”
“Damn right I win, kid. I didn’t teach twenty-eight five-year-olds ten months out of the year for thirty years for nothing. It’ll take a lot more than that to pull the wool over my eyes.”
Offering me a wink first, Valerie brushed the imaginary dirt off her shoulder to show how little wit it took to out-joke her son.
I struggled to keep the shock of watching them interact off my face. If I’d crash-landed on an alien planet and they’d asked me to play hockey with them, I would have been less shocked than finding out about the banter-filled, obviously loving relationship Ash had with his whole family.
Talk about intimidating.
Wanting just a taste of what they had, I surprised myself by speaking unprompted.
“Valerie, I’ll just say that not everything he said was made up. I do really have Ash’s rookie year poster on my wall. His debut in the NHL coincided with a tough start in junior rep hockey for me. Something about knowing that he was out there, only seven years older than me, doing something so much harder than dealing with an angry coach and locker room pranks, helped me a lot,” I explained, swallowing hard.
“Now that’s the best thing I’ve heard in years, Caden.”
God help me, I don’t know why I didn’t just leave it at that.
“The, uh, the thing about choosing the number seventeen because that was Ash’s number, was true too,” I admitted.
My ears promptly burst into flames, telling them the secret that I’d never uttered out loud before.
“Shit, really, Cade?” Ash asked beside me.
Turning to face him, I pressed my lips together in a shy smile and nodded, not able to say it twice.
“I’m not going to say that isn’t the most adorable thing I’ve heard in years, Cade, because it simply is. Sorry if that embarrasses you, but a little bit of teasing is par for the course around here. Don’t worry, I won’t share anything with the others, even Shane, unless you want to tell them the story yourself.” Genuine affection infused her smile as she continued. “I’m a big believer in free will and that we shape our lives through our choices, but when I listen to you and think of howyou ended up in each other’s paths, it feels like fate played a role, too.”
Linda patted my knee and stood, looking down at us once more.
“Well, Asher, you’re off the hook for a Christmas present this year. This boyfriend of yours just gave me something no money could ever buy.”
I sat silently, stunned by her openness. She walked across the hall to the kitchen to join Ash’s dad, sneaking up behind him and tickling his sides so that he splashed soap suds all up his sweater.
Ash, observing both his parents laughing together, turned to press his mouth to my ear.
“See? I told you they’d all love you.” He grinned. “Now I need hear all about this poster. That’s so fucking hot. You’d better be ready to give me every single detail, sweetheart.”
twenty-nine
ASHER
Though the 401 was moving faster on the drive home from Niagara, my very important passenger was more restless than earlier that afternoon.
No one had done anything too weird. It had been a typical loud, chaotic Landry family birthday party.
My heart warmed at Liv’s happiness at my presence. It meant as much, if not more, to me to be free of the demands of a regular NHL season. Even my mostly serious, brilliant sister-in-law looked slightly misty-eyed when we’d arrived.
Yeah, my mom had gotten all mushy there at the end, but Cade hadn’t seemed too weirded out by her no-nonsense kindergarten teacher personality.
It had been more than clear that everyone had been charmed by his shy sweetness.
But maybe it had all been too much for him, and the overwhelm was hitting him as he sat in my Jeep’s passenger seat.
God. I hope he liked them. I needed him to know that as a couple, I wanted him in every part of my life.
The knuckles of my left hand tightened on the wheel while I forced the fingers on my right to stay relaxed where they lay entangled with Cade’s on his muscled thigh.
