Chapter 36
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.”
“Mrs. Kelly, it’s so nice to meet you.” Ash stroked my stomach over my hoodie and made to slide his right arm back out from behind me so that he could presumably shake her hand.
“Stay right where you boys are. No need to move on my account, Asher. I don’t think we need to stick with any sort of formality, do we, Caden?” she winked. “Asher, call me Lynn. After all, you’ve been a member of the family for years now,” she teased, her tone wry.
Oh fuck! In all my worries about telling Mom about Ash and still having to face my dad, I’d forgotten about. . .
Mom continued before I could interrupt. “After all, I’ve been looking at him all dressed up in his very first Titans uniform for about eight years. Every single time I went into your room to dust or borrow your old laptop, there was Asher,” she laughed.
An echoing rumble of amusement radiated from Ash’s chest directly into mine, causing me to turn my attention to my superstar boyfriend. The grin that took over Ash’s face was magazine-worthy. One snap of that face and he could launch a hundred brands and completely take over any market.
Unfortunately, Ash’s glee about this situation would remain a private way for him to tease me for years to come.
“Oh my god, Mom. Why would you do this to me?” I moaned, as I let my head drop back slightly to lean against Ash’s shoulder.
They both started chuckling. The traitors.
“It’s not that funny!” I protested, secretly thrilled that the tension of my announcement about my sexuality and dating my temporary assistant coach seemed to have dissipated from the hallway.
“Why wouldn’t I do this to you is a better question, Caden? You don’t pass up opportunities for fun, young man. Goodness knows there’s more than enough stress to go around.” Mom waved that small amount of melancholy away before smiling at both of us again.
She pushed her walker forward until she could reach the back of my hand, where it had migrated to rest on top of Ash’s.
“Thank you for telling me, Caden. I know that had to be hard for you. Let’s go sit at the table because I think this news does warrant a conversation. Even if I’m so pleased for you that you found someone who, from what I’ve seen so far, seems to care about you very much.”
“There’s nothing that matters to me more, Lynn. Truly.” Ash’s voice was steady.
With a satisfied nod, Mom pivoted her walker in the direction of the kitchen, making her way down the hall while Ash and I followed.
Mom locked the brakes on her walker before using the now-stationary frame to help her slide into one of the four wooden chairs around my parents’ small kitchen table, then wavied us into the two seats across from her.
“Crap, Mom. I’m sorry. How’s your hip? Does it hurt to walk still?”
From the moment we’d stepped into the house, it seemed like I’d been grasping at tendrils of everything I needed to say without getting any of it out properly.
“Caden, calm down. My hip is fine. Better than the old one. Titanium joints really are the way to go. I’m considering going back to the surgeon and asking him to replace a bunch of the others that are definitely past their warranty date.”
She winked at Ash, which had him chuckling.
I narrowed my eyes as I looked between them.
“You two are entirely too comfortable while I’m over here freaking out,” I said, forcing a teasing tone. They didn’t need to know that I was ninety percent nervous and ten percent thrilled that Mom at least seemed cool about everything I’d said so far.
“You could have the decency to show a smidgen of worry over there.” I nudged Ash’s elbow with mine where they rested next to each other on the table. “Meeting the parents and all that? But I guess once you’ve faced a room full of sharp-eyed reporters, everything else is minor in comparison.”
“Hey! Lynn said I was already part of the family, right?” He nodded at Mom and I couldn’t resist sticking out my tongue at him which only served to make him laugh harder than before.
“But seriously, Cade.” His hand slide across the worn surface of the table to cover mine, lacing our fingers together.
“This is about you, okay? I’ll be at your side while you say the things you came here to say.
Don’t get me wrong, Lynn. . .” He made eye contact with Mom across the table.
“I am thrilled that you seem so chill about our relationship.”
“Of course. I’m sorry if there was any doubt before now.
” She glanced briefly at Asher before turning her full attention to me.
“I hate to think you were hiding your feelings for so many years, Caden. I love you for all that you are, and who you’ll become.
Nothing—and I mean nothing—will ever change that, do you understand? ”
She hasn’t heard you’re quitting hockey and leaving them without the monthly income that they count on yet, said the unhelpful voice inside me.
Her lower lashes glistened with so much emotion that every part of me wanted to believe her. I hated that there was still a part of me waiting for her to announce that I wasn’t good enough, the way Dad had hammered into my head all these years.
All I could do was nod.
“You both seem very happy and comfortable with each other. But my mom alarm is going off inside my mind. Before we talk about anything else, I need to ask you about how you plan to navigate the fact that Asher is technically your coach, Caden? Aren’t you concerned that it’ll look like an abuse of his position you to have formed a romantic relationship? ”
“Mom, I swear, Ash did everything he could to avoid getting involved with me. I was the one who pursued him. I already told Coach Wilder the same thing. I’d never let anything hurt Ash’s reputation.”
Despite the vehemence of my words, my voice was thick with the fear that my mom would think Ash took advantage of me when he’d fought to ignore his feelings for so long.
“Honey, I believe you. You look happier and healthier than I’ve seen you in years.
The way Asher treats you with such care, it’s easy for me to see that what you have is real.
But the rest of the world doesn’t know you, and even though Asher’s played professional hockey for more than a decade, they don’t truly know anything about him either.
I want you to be prepared to deal with a bumpy road as more people find out about your relationship.
You’re going to need to be sure inside yourself and believe in what you have with each other to figure out everything with the league and head office, especially since the Titans continue to assure hockey fans that Asher will be back with the team next season. Unless that has changed?”
My spine smacked against the back of the wooden chair as I slumped back into the chair. Mom’s words were like a heat-seeking missile. I gently disentangled my fingers from Ash’s to shove my hands into the front pocket of my hoodie, worrying the tips of my fingers of both hands with my thumbnails.
“I don’t want to overstep, Cade. But I’ve pretty much been thinking about this since the day we meet, sweetheart. Is it okay to share some of that with your mom?” Ash spoke softly beside me, bringing his hand beneath the table to let it rest on my thigh.
I nodded, grateful for him to take the hot seat for a couple of minutes. I loved Mom a lot, but I was going to need to sleep for a week to recover from this conversation alone.
You still have to face your dad. You’re not even half done.