Chapter 54
FAST FORWARD
Dev
I’m almost home from the rink after a shutout, thank you very much to me. I bound up the steps to my home in Pacific Heights, still high on the game, when my phone pings with a group text.
I stop in my tracks.
Hell, my heart stops beating.
It’s her. Yes, we’ve been talking. Yes, we’ve been texting. But the preview pane has me all kinds of hopeful. I click it open faster than I stopped that shot flying toward my face tonight.
Aubrey: You know those scenes in the movies when there’s a montage to show the passage of time?
Yes. Fucking yes.
I reply, though, in the way she’d want me to.
Dev: Yes, like in a Christmas movie when they show a Christmas party, a tree farm visit, and a stop at the Christmas fair. Go on.
Ledger: Are you saying it’s Christmas, Aubrey?
Aubrey: It seems my calendar just went into fast-forward mode.
Best. Gift. Ever. But just to be sure, I write back.
Dev: So it’s ten months from now…now?
Aubrey: If you guys want to see a football game with me Sunday night it is.
Our answers land simultaneously. Yes.
I punch the sky, then once I’m inside, I call Garrett and I waste zero time. “I’m wild about your sister.”
He sighs heavily, but it’s not an annoyed sigh. It’s more like a tell me something I don’t know sigh. “I figured as much.”
Some things in life are just simple.
* * *
But I do give him a hard time that weekend as I’m getting ready to meet Aubrey. “It’s your fault,” I say on the phone as I trim my beard in the mirror.
“I did not intend to set you and Ledger up with her,” Garrett grumbles.
“And yet you did. Admit it. This was your grand plan.”
“Yes, Dev. You figured me out. On my sister’s wedding day, I was really hoping to hook her up with you two clowns,” he says.
“The evidence says so,” I say as I set down the trimmer, then run a hand over my stubble.
“I never planned to be a matchmaker.”
“It could be a new calling,” I say, since this is too fun. Hell, everything is too fun. Life is fucking good. I have a date with Aubrey tonight.
TEN MONTHS EARLY.
And there’s no way I’m going to let her slip through my fingers. I’m keeping her, dammit.
“Why do I put up with you?” Garrett groans.
I could keep hassling him, but that time has passed. I turn serious, like I was when I called him last night. “Seriously, I appreciate you being cool about this.”
“Was I supposed to be an asshole?”
“No. But you weren’t, and I’m grateful,” I say, meaning it from the bottom of my heart.
He’s quiet for a few seconds. “I’m grateful she’s dating…a good guy. A couple good guys,” he says, like those words don’t quite fit.
But they don’t not fit either.
“I’ll treat her right.”
“I know,” he says.
“We both will.”
“I know that too.”
I say goodbye, then head to the garage and hop into my car. I head to Ledger’s place to pick him up because we have business to take care of.
Once he gets in the car, I turn to him. “You know what this is?”
He’s as stoic as he’s ever been as he says dryly, “A date?”
“Yes. But it’s also the start of a future with her. We’re not going to lose her. We’re going to do everything we can to keep her.”
He rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”