The familiar thud of her walker hitting a wall or two on the way to the door made me cringe. The little post-war style house I’d grown up in had such narrow hallways that it was hard for Mom to navigate her more stable, but larger wheeled walker through the house.
thirty-six
CADEN
“Caden?” Mom’s voice was muted through the glass of the storm door.
“Hey, Mom.”
The flick of a latch had Ash and me stepping back to accommodate the wild swing of the metal door that had never had its tension repaired and was therefore a hazard to any person knocking.
My mom looked between us a few times, lingering briefly on our joined hands before offering me a slightly uncertain, but warm smile.
“Come in, both of you. Then Caden can introduce us properly. It looks like we have something to talk about, eh?”
Feeling as though my feet had suddenly decided that staying on the porch meant not having to face whatever my mom thought about my relationship with Ash, I squeezed the rusty doorframe tightly to force myself inside.
A soft touch on the back of my shoulder blade let me know that I wasn’t hiding my apprehension well at all.
“Whatever happens, I’m not going anywhere, okay?” Ash’s breath tickled my ear as the whisper of his words reached me.
I could only manage a jerky nod in reply.
God, why hadn’t I thought more about this part of the visit? I’d been so wrapped up in the million ways my dad could make my life so much worse that I hadn’t given myself space to consider how much it would hurt if Mom turned me away before we even got started talking about hockey.
Backtracking toward the kitchen with her walker, Mom stopped midway so she could open her arms to me. It was such a relief to see her as mobile as she had been before her fall that I kicked off my shoes onto the front mat and went to hug her immediately, leaving Ash lingering just inside the door.
“I missed you, Caden.” She spoke quietly as she gave me a gentle squeeze.
“Me too, Mom. Are you okay?”
I returned her hug much more gently than I would with Ash or Kait. I could feel she had lost some weight since her time in the hospital.
“It’s a good day today, honey.” Her face was free from the strain of the pain she experienced during most of her flare-ups.
Stepping back so she could see my face properly, I shoved my hands into the pockets of my sweatpants before yanking them out again to lace my fingers together. The light tremor running through my hands had me fighting to keep them at waist height and not cross my arms over my chest protectively.
“Um, yeah, Mom. This is Asher Landry. He is, or was, I guess,” I shrugged my shoulders helplessly, looking at the slightly frayed seam on the left shoulder of her sweater rather than directly in her eyes. “My temporary offensive line coach, but uh now, he’s my boyfriend? Partner?”
The corners of my vision prickled with dark spots as I lost the battle of control over my nerves and brought my arms across my chest to wedge a hand into each armpit.
“And I’m bisexual. Or pansexual, maybe. I. . . just love Ash, okay? Everything else, I’m still trying to figure out.”
The last couple of words were hoarse as they left my lips. An anvil to the chest would have left me with more air in my lungs than the anticipation of what my mom might do.
Unprepared to handle whatever look had appeared on my mom’s face caused by my truth explosion, I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed my back against the plaster wall behind me.
The silence that dominated the narrow front hallway didn’t bode well for me.
“Hey Cade, sweetheart,” Ash’s clean, fresh scent washed over me as his arm snaked into the small space between the arch of my lower back and the wall. The button on the cuff of his jacket scraped against the slightly coarse texture of the plaster until his hand came to rest on my opposite hip. He didn’t say anything else as he pressed his side firmly against mine, resting his whole hand against my abdomen.
I gave myself a few seconds to feel the expansion and contraction of Ash’s torso with his deep breaths. After spending so much time with Ash over the past months, my body had learned to effortlessly match his slow inhales and exhales.
Peeking through my barely open eyelids, I spied Mom staring back at me with soft eyes and a smile she seemed to be keeping at bay.
My shoulders dropped down from my ears, resulting in my body pressing more fully into the cocoon of Ash’s body that he’d created for me.
“Shit. Sorry about that, Mom. I should have texted you earlier or something. But this is Asher Landry. And Ash, this is my mom, Melinda.”
