Issa pulls a jersey out of her bag, holding it out in front of me. I try to take it from her, but she waves me away, instead gathering it up in her hands and then lifting it over my head. Ducking slightly, I help her guide it down over my shoulders, and then she’s smoothing it along my torso, looking mighty proud of herself.
Glancing down, I see it’s a team jersey, the hockey stick wielding devil now emblazoned across my chest. Part of me wants to be a brat about it, but he’s staring at me so intently, I’d feel bad if I ruined it for him.
So, instead, I blow him a kiss even though I feel silly doing so. He grins, skates backwards a few feet, his hands making a heart over his chest. He spins around smoothly, raises his stick, tapping his back with it as he skates away, and I do a double take at what’s written there.
Logan-Rafferty
“What in the—” I mutter, truly thrown by a gesture that would’ve taken a lot of planning and coordination to pull off. Because they don’t allow players to put any old name on the back of their game jersey. It has to be their legal name.
He changed his fucking name.
I’m not gonna cry.
I am not going to cr?—
Of all the grand gestures the man could come up with this is a new one. And even though I technically loathe surprises, I don’t exactly hate it. My heart pitter patters in my chest, the ache that’s lived there for so long suddenly sparking with a renewed warmth that takes my breath away.
Issa’s elbow in my side draws my attention away from Ren, who’s now standing with his team, waiting for game time. “Pretty cool, huh?”
I sit heavily, suddenly exhausted, turning to look at her. “Did you know about this?”
Issa purses her lips, looking across me at Declan. Then she says, “Maybe you better ask him.”
I look at Declan, open my mouth to ask him but he cuts me off, “Now, don’t be mad at Ren.”
I raise my brows at him. “And why would I be mad at Ren?”
Declan shrugs, but then Issa reaches across me, smacks him on the arm. “You better fess up, Declan.”
Declan eyes his wife warily, and I smile at their sudden shift in power dynamic. At a glance, I take Declan to be a potentially overbearing, dominant man. But the more time I’ve spent with him has revealed a man who is so enamored with his wife, I’d bet he’d even crawl to her if she asked him to.
Sighing, Declan reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket. He pulls out a small yellow envelope, and hands it to me. “Here.”
Tentatively, I take it, then turn it over in my hands a few times while I eye him curiously. “What is it?”
“Your updated legal documents.”
Slowly, I open the envelope, remove the contents. My license. My passport. Both with the same name.
Cassidy Logan-Rafferty.
“He changed my name?” I manage to ask even though my breath is stuck in my throat. “Ren changed my name.”
“Well,” Declan responds. “Technically, I did.”
My eyes fly to his. “Youchanged my name?”
Now he’s beginning to look a bit unsure of himself, a fact I find rather amusing because I consider Declan to be rather unflappable.
“Declan’s a dumb ass,” Issa interjects. “And he’s very sorry.”
He glares at Issa, sputters, “Don’t go putting words into my mouth,wife.”
“What words would those be?” she asks sarcastically, “Because you are a dumb ass and you better be fucking sorry.”
I hide my smile behind my hand, uncertain exactly what is going on, but enjoying their bickering far more than I should. Eventually, they quit snarking at each other and Declan turns to me and says, “Ren asked me to assist in getting the name change taken care of. So, I did.”
Issa is glaring at him still. “And?”
