“I’m aware.”
“Sorry. I know he’s my teammate and all, but I can’t stand him. Especially with how he treated Piper.”
“And how do you feel my daughter should be treated?”
“Like the princess that she is.” The words come out faster than I expect. I don’t need to blow smoke up Piper’s dad’s ass, but it’s true.
“Good.”
“Duncan was a dick to her. I will never hurt her like that.”
Not if I can help it. Even if I don’t deserve Piper. Piper is goodness personified. She’s sweet, kind, caring, and sexy as hell. I’m not even in the same league as her.
“You better not. Otherwise you will have the entire wrath of the Fields family coming down on you.”
“The entire family, sir?”
He gives me an assessing glare, nodding his head. “Yes. We will do whatever it takes to protect her from getting hurt again.”
I swallow down the last of my drink. It’s always the quiet ones you have to be worried about.
“I understand. It is not my intention to hurt Piper.”
Again with the assessing glare. This is why I never went home with any of my past girlfriends. If you can even call them that. It’s not like I gave in to the bunny lifestyle of hockey, but I had the occasional steady woman that I kept around.
Too many issues to want to make things permanent with anyone.
“Good.” Jackson swallows down the last of his drink before heading back to the kitchen. Not before stopping in front of me. “I like you, Cash. Don’t let me down.”
I smile into my drink. It felt like a test I had to pass tonight. Piper’s family means everything to her. Even if this thing isn’t real, I didn’t want to be a dick to her family.
I guess she’s rubbing off on me in more ways than I thought.
Dessert is already being tucked away into containers by the time I head out to the kitchen.
“We’re going to head out,” Piper tells me, smiling at me from the counter.
“What, no dessert? I want to try some of your famous apple pie.”
“It’ll keep.” She bounds over to me. “I’m ready to go.”
“Wait!” Piper’s mom calls out. “I want a picture of you three before you go.”
Piper rolls her eyes but walks over to the tree to get Puck situated. He would follow any command she gives him.
“You know what this means, right?” Noah asks from beside me.
“What?”
“Welcome to the family.”
Chapter Seventeen
CASH
By the time we get home and get Puck situated with a bone, the need swirling between the two of us is palpable.
“That was the longest twenty minutes of my life,” Piper tells me, walking backward up my stairs.
