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“I would have come to a game earlier if I could have gotten away from work. But when your last note said this was the final game, I moved some things around.”

I nodded. “Thank you. For moving some things around. This means a lot to Adonis.”

“For the record, my son didn’t tell me about being on the team.”

“I know.”

Mr. Ariti stared down at me. For just a few seconds, he hadn’t seemed like he hated me. But he suddenly looked annoyed again. “Where did you get that necklace?”

“What?” I reached up and touched the dove.

“Did my son give that to you?”

I nodded. “Yes.” It almost came out as a question.

Mr. Ariti lowered his eyebrows and looked back over at his son.

“It was a gift,” I added. I didn’t understand why he looked so upset. Crap, had Adonis actually stolen this?

Mr. Ariti glanced at me again and it looked like he was just confused by me. He cleared his throat. “You must mean a lot to my son if he gave you that. It belonged to my wife.”

I reached up and touched the dove again.

“My nickname for her was my dove.”

For some reason I wanted to cry.

“I hope for my son’s sake that you’re nothing like her.”

I suddenly felt cold. All I knew about Adonis’ mother was that she left. And I wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m not,” I said. “I love your son.” It should have been weird that I was telling Adonis’ father this before I told Adonis himself. But I needed Mr. Ariti to know.

He stared at me for another moment and then nodded. “Good.”

“Hey,” Adonis said and wrapped his arms around me. He placed a kiss on the side of my neck. Normally his arms chased away the cold. But I had to force myself not to shiver.

Adonis looked at his dad. “Maybe the three of us can go out to dinner? So you can get to know each other?”

“Your friends are waiting for you,” Mr. Ariti said. “Go have fun. We can go out a different night.”

Our friends were indeed waiting for us at the bottom of the bleachers. Going out to celebrate had been the original plan. But Mr. Ariti showing up had changed everything.

“Oh,” Adonis said. “Yeah, sure. A different night.”

I had a feeling that when Mr. Ariti said that, it usually meant never. But hopefully things would be a little different now.

“Besides,” Mr. Ariti said. “I already approve.” He smiled at me. “Nice to meet you, Sophie.”

“Nice to meet you too,” I said.

He patted his son on the back. “Great game, son,” he said and then walked down the bleachers.

Adonis smiled. And then he turned back to me. “What did the two of you talk about that won him over so quickly? He’s not an easy guy to please.”

I believed that. I reached up and touched the dove again. “He told me that this belonged to your mom.”

“Oh.” Adonis cleared his throat. “Yeah. I probably should have told you about that. But it was really cute when you thought I stole it and...”

“Your dad called her his dove?”