2
The answer, apparently, was go to Kaira’s bedroom to see the lehengas hanging in her closet, all presents from her biological grandparents. “This one is my favorite,” she said, petting a pink-and-yellow skirt with a glittering hem.
By the time Jordy got home, Kaira was fed and chill and she and Rowan were cuddled up on the couch watching one of her favorite movies. Apparently she and Jordy had an obsession with Bollywood romances.
“Hey, you two,” Jordy said from the den doorway. He was leaning against the frame, arms crossed in an unfairly attractive way. “What are you up to?”
“Showing Rowan the best movie ever! Daddy, did you know that Rowan’s grandpa comes from the same place as my birth daddy?” She bounced in her seat, all wide-eyed innocence.
“I did not know that,” Jordy said with a raised eyebrow at Rowan.
“Three of my four grandparents are Pakistani,” he supplied. “We talked about how that’s next to India and a lot the same.”
“Ah.” Jordy didn’t look bothered by the fact that Kaira had told Rowan all about her parentage. In fact, a small smile was tugging at his lips as he headed over to the couch. “So you two have been bonding.”
“Yes! Rowan and I made nankhatai—they’re Indian cookies—and we ate them with chai.”
“Because we’re not heathens,” Rowan agreed.
“Yeah, we ate them right. And now we’re watching K3G because Rowan has never seen it!” She snuggled into her dad and got reabsorbed in the movie as a dance number started.
“A true tragedy, I know,” Rowan said in an undertone to Jordy. “I could have been enjoying this English-dubbed genius ages ago.”
Jordy chuckled. “She’s a bit too young for the subtitles, unfortunately, and neither of us speaks Hindi.” That would make pronouncing the movie’s full title— Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham —particularly challenging for a six-year-old. No wonder she called it by a nickname.
“Alas, me neither. Which is why I don’t watch much Bollywood.”
“Ah,” Jordy said. He was watching Rowan with that look that said he wanted to ask and wasn’t sure if he could. Rowan decided to rescue him.
“I only speak Urdu and English. And also Latin, though admittedly there isn’t a lot of listening or speaking called for with that one.”
Jordy stared at him. “Latin?”
Rowan shrugged. “I did mention my private-school-and-nanny upbringing, right?”
“So you learned Latin in elementary school in the twenty-first century?”
“What can I say? I was a weird kid.”
Jordy chuckled, and damn, that was unfairly hot. “Noted.”
Once the film was over, Jordy scooped up Kaira and left to run the bedtime routine, so Rowan got a jump on cleaning up after their day.
He was throwing the last of the toys into the toy box when Jordy reappeared.
“Must have been a good day. She went out like a light,” Jordy said as he slouched onto the couch. “Good job tiring her out.”
“Ha, thanks. I think it was a mutual tiring, to be honest.”
Jordy laughed. “Welcome to life with a six-year-old.” He waved the remote at Rowan. “Wanna see what’s on TV?”
“Sure. Just maybe no badly dubbed musicals?”
“Well, you’ve really tied my hands here, Rowan, but if you insist.”
Jordy turned on the TV and picked cable. Rowan couldn’t remember the last time he’d watched live TV. He wasn’t aware anyone under thirty even had cable.
“How does CSI: Toronto sound?”
“Um, like a cheesy spinoff of a cheesy spinoff of a cheesy show?”
“Right,” Jordy drawled, “but do you wanna watch it?”
Rowan shrugged. “I’ve never seen it, but I’m not against crime procedurals.”
“Crime Procedural Spinoff it is, then.” Jordy winked and clicked on the show, and as the characters swanned about collecting clues, Rowan realized he couldn’t wipe away his smile.
ROWAN DIDN’T know what he expected from life at the Shaw residence, but this wasn’t it.
His general experience with people in Jordy’s tax bracket was that they handed off as much work as they could to hired help and had cold, sterile homes. In contrast, Jordy was a hands-on dad who didn’t expect a perfectly kept house. He liked to let Kaira do things for herself, even if that meant they didn’t get done perfectly—too much toothpaste on the toothbrush, missing a few Cheerios when sweeping up spilled breakfast cereal, dressing in an outfit even a rodeo clown wouldn’t touch.
But even if Jordy wasn’t your typical rich dad, the house did have the trappings—the full nanny suite, for example, and the butler kitchen.
And, most distressingly, the pool.
In theory, the pool was great. In practice….
“ Please come swimming with us,” Kaira begged. She was already decked out in pink-and-yellow polka dots and a lime-green sun hat. “It’ll be fun! You have a bathing suit, right? If you don’t, you can borrow one of my daddy’s!”
“I have a bathing suit,” Rowan promised. He absolutely wanted to get into Jordy’s pants, but not like that.
“Yes!” Kaira whooped. “Okay, we’ll be in the pool. Bye!”
“Not until I get there,” Jordy yelled back over his shoulder as her bare feet slapped against the patio tile.
Kaira had already stopped at the edge of the patio, six feet from the pool’s edge, and sat down on a chaise longue. “I know, Daddy!”
Jordy turned his body so he could see her. “You don’t have to,” he told Rowan. “She’s got to get used to you saying no to her sometime.”
“It’s thirty degrees outside and more humid than a bowl of soup,” Rowan said. He would love to get out of the house and get some exercise, but he wasn’t playing Ultimate in this. “Swimming sounds great.”
And it did. Truly. Rowan went down to his bedroom, put on his suit, grabbed a beach towel from the linen closet, and went outside, thinking of nothing more than getting some much-needed exercise in this heat wave.
And then the heat wave attacked him personally.
Rowan was just innocently leaving the house, sliding the patio door closed behind him and shifting from foot to foot to keep the hot pavement from burning his soles. But he was still only two meters from the house when all the breath whooshed out of his lungs.
It wasn’t like he’d forgotten Jordy was attractive. Rowan had seen him sleep-rumpled and scruffy before his morning shave, sweaty from his home gym workouts, and dressed to the nines in an actual tuxedo, and somehow he had never had to excuse himself to ice his crotch.
Unfortunately, none of that prepared him for Jordy crouching half-naked in waist-deep water as his daughter scrambled onto his shoulders, only for him to push up suddenly to his full height, tanned muscles glistening as water cascaded down his body, and launch a squealing Kaira several feet through the air. Rowan assumed she splashed down safely in the pool, but she might as well have achieved orbit for all he knew. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Jordy—from the triangular patch of hair between Jordy’s collarbones and his nipples, or the smaller diamond-shaped one below his navel, or the definition in his chest, or the extremely generous curve of his ass.
Merciful gods. He might have whimpered.
Then Jordy turned toward him, absolutely beaming as Kaira dog-paddled back toward him and clung to his arm. “Rowan! Come on in, the water’s great.”
Rowan was having an out-of-body experience. At least, he thought hysterically as Kaira’s spirited climbing of her father almost resulted in a wardrobe malfunction, he’d had the foresight to carry his towel in front of him.
Clinging to the tattered remains of his composure, he picked his way across the hot cement, dropped his towel on a lounge chair near the diving board, and cannonballed into the water. With any luck, the cool water would keep him from embarrassing himself.
It worked, mostly. Having a six-year-old chaperone-slash-dictator didn’t hurt either. Kaira kept them both busy throwing, if not herself (Jordy), then rings onto the bottom of the shallow end for her to retrieve (Rowan). She cajoled them into racing, and Rowan lost spectacularly. She wanted to show off her handstand technique, which was admittedly impressive, though she had the advantage of the water holding up 90 percent of her body weight.
Finally Kaira’s energy waned and she dragged a butterfly-shaped floatie into the pool to lounge on. Between the sun and the water and the tremendous energy Rowan was expending restraining himself from licking Jordy all over, he was pretty zonked too and was considering an early afternoon nap.
So of course, before he could make any kind of escape, Jordy turned those beautiful brown eyes on Rowan, smiled, and said, “Can I ask you something?”
Rowan knew he must have heatstroke, because the first thing that popped into his mind was yes I bottom , but he managed to say, “I’m an open book” instead, like a semi normal person.
Jordy pillowed his head on his hands on the side of the pool and asked, “Why a librarian?”
It was an innocent question, on the surface. Rowan had heard it enough times from his parents, laced with derision and scorn, so he normally had an instinctive gut-punch reaction. But Rowan felt the weight of Jordy’s gaze on him like the heat of the sun, and that light was pure warmth and curiosity.
Oh yeah. Definitely heatstroke.
Rowan skimmed his fingers across the surface of the water. “I usually tell people I’m a nerd who likes learning and organizing.”
Jordy hummed and turned himself over, supporting himself with his arms on the sides of the pool and his chest up to catch the sun, as if he were a giant solar panel. “But that’s not what you’re going to tell me?”
Rowan glanced at Kaira—now wearing her towel like a cape in the pergola and drawing sidewalk-chalk rainbows—and then back to Jordy. “My first friends were books,” he said finally, voice lowered. “We had a big house and no close neighbors, and my parents weren’t all that interested in spending time with me, so… I guess that’s where it started.” He paused, feeling a little too bare under Jordy’s assessing gaze. “I am actually a nerd who likes learning and organizing, though. I, uh—I guess people don’t ask you why you became a professional hockey player?”
“Not when they actually want to know the answer.” He shook his head, and a lock of damp blond hair fell artistically over one eye. Rowan bit down on the urge to brush it aside. “Everyone assumes it’s the money or the fame. The standard PR answer is that we just love the game, and who wouldn’t want to play it forever?”
Rowan licked his lips. “So what’s the real answer?”
“I like playing, of course, but one of my favorite parts is being on a team, being part of something. Working with others to create something and being around a team all the time? It’s good.” He shrugged as if it was no big deal and not terribly adorable that his favorite part of his job was hanging out with his friends. Pink tinged his cheeks, and Rowan didn’t think it was from the sun.
“So always the family man, huh?” Rowan joked.
Jordy rubbed his nape and shrugged. “I guess so. I’ve got three younger sisters, so chaos and people were kind of a fact of my childhood.”
“Kinda the opposite of mine. So I guess the single dad thing is maybe not a surprise, then?” he asked tentatively.
“Yeah, maybe not.” A helpless smile spread across his face as he watched Kaira coloring.
Rowan cleared his throat, suddenly unable to keep his questions to himself. “So, she mentioned the other day that she’s adopted and biologically your sister’s. I wasn’t prying or anything, but I hope it’s okay that—”
“Rowan, I’ve never wanted or tried to hide where she came from,” Jordy said gently. “Sanna and I broke up because we wanted different things. So when my sister got pregnant right around the time we started the divorce process, it felt like more than just a sign. She was also still in high school.”
“She’s lucky she had such an awesome brother, then.”
“I’m the lucky one. Kaira is the best thing that ever happened to me.” The sincerity in his voice, the affection on his face, arrested Rowan’s tongue. This effortlessly hot-like-burning man had a loving heart that only made him sexier. Rowan needed to get out of this pool before he offered to bend over or drop to his knees.
IN THE week that followed, one thing became clear to Rowan—either he was an idiot or he had a previously unrecognized masochistic streak. Living with Jordy Shaw was just about the dumbest idea he’d ever had, and not because the Shaws made for bad housemates or the job or pay was unlikeable. No, the problem was the opposite. Living with Jordy and Kaira was shockingly nice .
Sharing living space just kept being easy. Between the library and Kaira, Rowan wasn’t exactly chafing at the quiet, predictable routine of Jordy’s household. In fact, the early nights and quiet neighborhood were a blessing. And when it came to chores, Jordy and Rowan had fairly complementary skills and preferences. Rowan enjoyed cooking, more so now that he had a kitchen worth writing home about, and although Jordy was a decent cook, for practical reasons he preferred cleanup. Rowan never minded hoovering, but Jordy hated it as much as Rowan abhorred folding laundry.
But like any life change, this one had a few growing pains. Jordy sometimes forgot Rowan didn’t know everything Janice knew, and Rowan found it hard to not feel like a guest. Not to mention that he wasn’t used to living with other people—certainly not people who were six years old and under four feet tall.
Setting boundaries was a whole other beast when the other person didn’t have an adult’s understanding of what they were or the reasons for setting them. Also when you didn’t fully want to set boundaries because the munchkin was so cute with their big brown eyes as they begged you to join them for breakfast.
Honestly, Rowan hadn’t known he’d enjoy so much domesticity.
Not everything was sunshine and unicorns. All the innocent family time was counterpointed against the absolute torture that was being in close quarters with someone so delicious and so out of reach. Living with Jordy meant seeing him bed-rumpled and grumpy before coffee or sweaty and flushed after a workout. The first time he ran into Jordy as he left his home gym, his skin glistening and his cheeks flushed, Rowan’s knees almost buckled with the desire to lick Jordy everywhere.
Jordy blinked obliviously at Rowan, took one AirPod out, and said, “Hey, I didn’t hear you come in. Kaira is out with Clement still but should be home for dinner. Meet you in the kitchen in twenty?”
“Uh, yeah.” Rowan waited for Jordy to nod and head upstairs, and then he dashed to his apartment. He had twenty minutes to solve the urgent issue in his pants and clean up the evidence.
Living with Jordy was doing wonders for his libido, not so much for getting his daily eight hours. Because another one of Jordy’s maddening habits? Inviting Rowan to join him on the couch in the evenings as he watched another documentary… or CSI: Toronto . Jordy had a totally endearing love of weird documentaries and seemed to be on a mission to watch every single one posted to Netflix. Rowan couldn’t decide what part of the whole situation was more attractive—the way he paid such close attention to everyone, making commentary to Rowan as they watched, or his habit of lounging on the couch in soft-looking sweats, occasionally knocking his knees or feet against Rowan’s.
On his sixth night at Jordy’s, Rowan lay in a puddle on his stupidly comfortable borrowed bed, his orgasm still buzzing through his limbs, and stared up at the ceiling with fatalistic dismay. It was a toss-up, really, what would break first—his dick, his composure, or his vibrator.
ASKING ROWAN to move in with them was the best impulse move Jordy had ever made. Rowan was amazing with Kaira, and he brought stability into their lives that they wouldn’t otherwise have after Janice’s abrupt departure.
Which meant that when Jordy left for a day of meetings and practice, he didn’t worry about having to leave his phone in his bag for several hours.
“How’s Kaira?” Sully asked. They stood side by side on the ice, tucked out of the way against the boards, watching Coach run the offense drill with the second-line D. “She doing okay with the nanny swap?”
Jordy had called Sully in a panic the day Janice gave notice, and Sully had promised he and Adrianna would have Jordy’s back. He’d told them he found a temporary replacement, which would ease the burden on him and Adrianna tremendously, but he hadn’t given a whole lot of detail.
“She’s great. She adores Rowan. Don’t tell Janice, but she might like him better.” Kaira didn’t really, but Rowan was the shiny new toy, and she was clearly enamored.
“Rowan. Rowan,” Sully said slowly. “Wait, wasn’t that the name of the snack you brought to that charity thing last month?”
Sometimes Jordy regretted having a friend with such a good memory. “Please don’t reduce my daughter’s new nanny to a quick bite.”
Sully hooted, but quietly enough not to attract attention. “It is! Shaw, you cliché. Are you going to woo the nanny? Seduce him after the kid’s gone to bed?” He gasped theatrically. “Or have you done it already?”
Jordy rolled his eyes. Sully knew better. “You caught me. Pressuring the guy who now lives at my house—because he became suddenly homeless after finding black mold, mind you—to sleep with me is definitely my style.”
“Yes, we all know you’re too much of a goody-two-shoes. But come on, your life is a Hallmark movie and I want to watch it.” He tucked his stick under his arm so he could bring his mitts together in prayer. “Please, Jordy?”
“I’m not going to live my life to act out your weird romcom fantasy.”
“What about for Adrianna? Or Rowan? What if he wants to star in his own Harlequin? Have you asked him? Maybe he wants to play house and make you dinner and get bent over—”
“Sullivan, Shaw, get over here!”
Saved by the bellow.
Jordy skated off, ignoring Sully’s disappointed huff.
He managed to put his home life completely out of mind and focus on his job all afternoon, and he didn’t think about Rowan and Kaira or how their day was progressing until he was back in the locker room, gathering his stuff.
He blinked down at his phone to see the dozen new messages from Rowan. While they guy liked to talk, he usually didn’t inundate Jordy with updates.
The most recent was still popped up in his notifications. Please tell me you’re home soon. Jordy swallowed back his initial panicked thoughts. Maybe Rowan was passing along an excited message from Kaira, who wanted to share about her day. There was no reason to worry.
He opened his chat with Rowan and scrolled up.
Kaira is mad at me and I don’t know what I did wrong.
Okay, now she’s really mad. Help?
Jordy grabbed his bag, flung it over his shoulder, and headed out, eyes glued to his phone.
Oh god there are tears. What do I do?
Seriously Jordy
She’s lying facedown on the carpet and refusing to move
She won’t eat lunch no matter what I make
But is it worth crying over spilled juice?
That text was followed by a picture of dark red juice all over the floor. It resembled a bloodbath scene in a film with comically bad effects.
She’s in her room sobbing
Jordy you need to come home
She hates me
Everything is horrible
I don’t know what to do
Please tell me you’re home soon
Jordy hopped into his car, turned it on, and was about to put it in gear when he thought to text a quick On my way .
When he opened the door from the garage, the first thing to greet him was the sound of hysterical sobbing and yells of “I want my daddy!”
“He’s on his way, poppet,” Rowan wheedled, sounding teary himself.
Well, fuck.
Despite knowing that Kaira was perfectly safe, Jordy couldn’t slow his rabbiting heart or hurried strides into the den, even if he wanted to. The sight that greeted him hurt his heart. Kaira stood crying in the middle of the room, clutching her stuffed armadillo and staying out of reach of Rowan, who sat dejected and miserable on the couch, still reaching out for her despite her clear fuck-off body language.
“Daddy!” Kaira cried when he stepped through the door, and Jordy crouched down and pulled her into his arms. “Daddy, I missed you!” She burrowed in as if she could actually climb into him for safety and warmth.
“Shh, peanut,” he murmured into her hair. “Did you have a rough day?”
Kaira hiccupped and clung tighter.
Jordy shushed her and rubbed her back. When he looked up and caught Rowan’s eye, he suddenly felt like he should be giving Rowan the same treatment. He sat with slumped shoulders and tugged at his shirt, thousand-yard-staring at the wall while worrying at his lip.
“Hey,” Jordy said softly.
Rowan’s eyes snapped to his.
“You need a break. Go have some of that disgusting water of yours, maybe grab something to eat or go listen to music or whatever you need to decompress. I’m going to put this one to bed.”
It was a little early for bedtime, but Jordy was pretty sure nothing would salvage this day for Kaira. She needed a hard reset, which would only come from a solid ten hours of sleep.
The bedtime routine took longer than usual since Kaira was extra clingy, but she finally passed out halfway through the second reading of her third book, and Jordy gently extricated himself from her octopus arms, kissed her good night one last time, and crept out of her room.
He found Rowan in the kitchen, slumped over at the breakfast bar with his head in his hands.
Jordy grabbed a water from the fridge, and Rowan’s head shot up.
“I’m so sorry,” Rowan said, voice rough. “You must hate me. She hates me. This was a horrible idea—”
“Woah.” That train of thought needed to hit the emergency brakes. “Kaira doesn’t hate you, and this wasn’t a terrible idea.”
“Jordy, did you not see the texts? They’re a pretty good chronicle of why this was a bad idea.”
“No, they are a chronicle of a very bad day —a thing that children have, just like adults, because they’re people.”
“Jordy, she hates me.”
Jordy blew out a slow breath. Rowan might be used to children, but he wasn’t used to living with one. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Rowan threw up his hands dramatically. “As you know, she was totally fine this morning until you left, and then everything I did was wrong.”
“Okay. Like what?”
“Like I couldn’t feed her.”
“So you forgot where the kitchen was?” Jordy prodded, because he needed Rowan to get over his drama and start answering the questions.
“She asked for Cheerios, but I poured the milk wrong, so she wouldn’t eat them. So I made her toast, but the jam was all wrong.” Rowan tugged at his hair.
Jordy raised an eyebrow but didn’t point out that Kaira was not picky in the slightest about either of those things. He didn’t think hearing that there was no secret milk or jam rule would comfort Rowan right now. “Then what?”
“Then we tried to color, but I kept picking the wrong colors, so we switched to My Little Ponies, but apparently I don’t know the correct way of moving around horses. She wanted to watch TV, but I said no because you always say no to morning television, and she stomped off to her room.” Rowan huffed and looked up at Jordy with wide, distraught eyes. “Is it bad I was almost grateful for her self-imposed isolation?”
“Definitely not.” Jordy would have been equally relieved. “I’m guessing lunch was just like breakfast.”
“Yeah. I made her sandwich wrong and cut the carrots wrong and then gave her the wrong juice.”
“Is that what ended up on the floor?”
“She threw it,” Rowan said bleakly.
Jordy winced. “What did you do?”
“Sent her to her room. Then cried about it.”
“No kidding. I probably would have too.”
Rowan shook his head. “You probably wouldn’t have ended up in this situation to begin with. She loves you and you know what she likes.”
“She likes,” Jordy said slowly, “raspberry fruit juice. The one she threw on the floor? It’s her favorite. Trust me, that wasn’t about the juice.”
“Okay, maybe not, but everything else.”
“Rowan, it was a bad day. They happen to kids too. Only when you’re six, your emotions are bigger than your body, and your brain can’t regulate them. Sometimes when a kid wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, they stay that way, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He shrugged. True, today sounded especially bad—Jordy hadn’t seen one like it in a while—but given all the changes in Kaira’s life recently, one day of regression wasn’t too surprising.
“Okay, fine, so she was grumpy, but you could’ve done something. You did do something.”
“Sure, but if I’d been here all day, I wouldn’t have been much of a magical cure. Or maybe we would have sat and cuddled all day. Who knows? But the fact that she wanted her dad doesn’t change the fact that she was being an irrational six-year-old who was also kind of a dick all day.”
Rowan barked a surprised laugh. “Can you call her that?”
Jordy shrugged. “Who’s gonna tell me I can’t, her dad?”
That got another short laugh, and Rowan dry-washed his face. “Okay, I concede that maybe I didn’t completely fail at looking after her today. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t a terrible idea. I fell apart in the face of rage-filled child.”
Forcing himself to approach this logically, Jordy considered what he knew of the day so far. “Did you yell at her?”
“What?”
“When she threw juice all over the floor and you sent her to her room. Did you yell at her? Strike her?”
“No!” Rowan looked horrified. “Of course not. I’m not a monster. I just told her to go and then had a quiet meltdown.”
“So my child was a total hellion today, and you were patient enough to make her two breakfasts and lunches, you kept trying to play with her despite her constant criticism, and you didn’t take the easy road and turn on the TV because you wanted to respect the boundaries I’ve established.” Though honestly, after today, Jordy wouldn’t have been upset about it if Rowan had put the TV on. Sometimes you did what you had to. But Kaira probably would’ve thought Bluey was too blue today anyway. “You kept your cool. You didn’t yell or scare her.” Jordy cocked his head and said gently, “I’m not sure anyone could have handled it better. From where I’m sitting, it looks like you managed remarkably well for someone who’s never lived with a six-year-old before.”
“Not yelling at a kid is not a medal-worthy achievement,” Rowan protested.
Jordy hooted. He didn’t want to be mean, but—“Says the guy who’s never lived with a two-year-old. Or a four-year-old. Did you know that stage is called the Fucking Fours?”
Rowan laughed too—another point for Jordy. “No. Seriously?”
“Oh yeah. It’s like the Terrible Twos but with more vocabulary and sass. I’ve never felt more judged in my life, and my job involves regular performance reviews from journalists and all of Twitter.”
“Wow.” Rowan wiped his face again and sighed. “Okay, so maybe a day spent with an unhappy kid made me a tad melodramatic.”
“Hmm.”
“Oh shut up. She threw her juice on the floor.”
“Yeah, I’ll give you that one as being especially bad.” Jordy winced again, then figured he might as well throw himself under the bus for Rowan’s sake. “I should have seen today coming, honestly. Not exactly this, but I should have realized things were going too smoothly and braced us for some bad days or some regression. It’s pretty common for kids to react to changes by acting younger or wanting to do ‘babyish’ things. So being a brat and demanding her dad even though she knows he can’t come home? Not exactly out of left field.”
Rowan slumped. “So what you’re saying is that there will be more days like this.”
“Not necessarily. This might be it. Or she might spend a day asking to cuddle or be carried. Last year, after my season ended and I was home more, she carried her armadillo around everywhere for a week and sucked her thumb.”
“That just sounds fucking adorable. I’ll take that next time.”
“If only we got to choose. Chaos and unpredictability are the only constants of parenthood.”
“So, get used to it?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to say it quite like that….”
“Har har. Those of us who didn’t get yelled at all day don’t get to be mean.”
“What exactly do you think happens to me at a practice?”
“Oh, fuck off,” Rowan said, but it lacked any heat. In fact, Jordy would say he sounded fond.
Warmth filled Jordy’s chest, and he smiled. “Come on. Let’s go sit on the couch and watch some of your bad TV, and you can tell me what you like on your pizza.”