40. Chapter 37
Mari
“ W e’re doing something brave today.” Chance stood about a metre away from the door, a navy blue cap on his head. Somehow those gorgeous eyes looked like they were sparkling .
“Good morning to you too.” I ran a hand through the curly mess my hair had entangled itself in. The movement didn’t go unnoticed, apparently, since those shining eyes flared.
“Go and get dressed. I’ll wait.” He smirked, walking inside. “Your nan around?”
I gave him a light shove into the wall, and he chuckled.
“Your relationship with my nan is beyond weird.” I looked up at his face, his dimple popping on his right side.
“She’s an important lady,” he countered. “I’d hate to be on her bad side.”
“I thought I heard you.” As if on cue, Nan’s head poked around the corner. “Good morning, dear. How are you going?” Nan waved a hand, gesturing for Chance to follow.
“Oh, I’m excellent , Marilyn. How’re you doing?” He shot a cheeky smile my way before heading into the kitchen.
I rolled my eyes, failing to hold back a smile myself.
~
Twenty minutes later, my hair was pulled into a knot on the top of my head and I was in a black Knock’s tank and some denim shorts, ready to brave whatever Chance had planned for the day … and the summer heat outside.
I stood in front of the mirror and gazed over my reflection. It was impossible to stop the small smile that made its way onto my lips. It had been a long time since I’d put effort into my appearance for someone—or even wanted to. I smirked at the low dip of my tank top.
Oh yeah, eat your heart out, Chance Riordan.
I crept down the stairs, past all of the framed photos that lined the walls, hearing the laughter and chatter of a professional UFL fighter and my grandmother.
“Well, when my daughter and I first moved to Soggla, we certainly never expected this was the way our life would turn out.” There was a faint distance in Nan’s voice at the mention of my mother.
She never spoke of being sad, but the devastation of losing her only daughter cut deep.
I had only been young when she passed, but there had always been a hole that stayed.
A hole that was mirrored by the little things my father, Al and Nan kept around.
The consistent growth of baby’s breath around the house being one of them.
“We all seem to have a story like that, don’t we?” Chance replied softly.
“Oh, definitely,” Nan answered. “I could never complain about things that have happened in the past. I live a beautiful life with the one person on this earth who means more to me than anything ever has.”
“I’m assuming she got her name from you?”
“Yes, not so subtle is it?” She laughed.
“I tell you what, Chance. I never knew I could love anyone or anything as much as I love my daughter until my granddaughter was born. Labour came on too quickly to call. Leah had her in the offices at Knock’s—though it went by a different name back then—at the end of an evening wrestling class.
Elijah and I held her legs and Al caught Mari. ”
I stopped short of the kitchen, taking a wider berth from the creak in a certain floorboard.
“Knock’s holds more history than what meets the eye. It feels like uncovering a tomb.”
“It’s more than just a gym, dear. Elijah wrote his legacy letter to ensure that for as long as Knock’s was standing, it would never be ‘just a gym’.”
I walked around the corner. Nan’s coffee cup was nearly empty, and Chance’s was half full.
His was black—just like I had mine. Nan’s cup told me he had spent most of the time talking.
Gus lay peacefully on top of Nan’s red velvet slippers, getting sleepy drool all over the left one. Though he gave me sleepy side-eye.
Nan looked up from the table and smiled at me. “You look nice, bubbles.”
My cheeks reddened at the nickname she usually only used when it was just her and I around.
Usually, my ass.
“Thanks, Nan,” I mumbled, grabbing a keep cup from the cupboard and pouring the last of the coffee into it.
“Bubbles?” I could hear the fucking smirk on his face before I saw it.
“Oh, just a little nickname from when she was little,” Nan replied, copying Chance’s teasing smile.
“You’d think she would have deemed I’d grown out of it by now.”
Nan tsked her tongue at me. “Your bubbles phase is one of the most wonderful memories I have of you as a child. You need to keep the nickname, so I never forget.” She smiled over at me with a wink, the emerald green eyeshadow shimmering on her lids a mirror for her eye colour.
I huffed — she’d rigged the situation emotionally and won.
“Well, on that note, bubbles .” Chance grinned. “We’d better hit the road.”
“Have fun you two.” Nan pressed a kiss to my cheek and squeezed my hand as she moved to pour the last of her coffee down the sink.
~
“So, are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked, staring out the window. The trees alongside the long stretch of road out of Soggla were usually nice and green at this time of year, but we’d missed the big storms we usually had. Everything was so dry and arid.
“If you tell me where the nickname ‘bubbles’ came from?” He compromised, sending me a sly smirk.
“I guess you can just drive me unknowingly to my doom then,” I replied, sighing dramatically.
“I told you. We’re doing something brave,” he said, one hand on the wheel, the other on the gearstick of JJ’s old, beat-up ute.
From where I was sitting, the dent he’d put on the front bumper the night we stole Gus seemed deeper than I remembered. The green leather on the seats was peeling and cracked, and the once navy blue exterior was now closer to the colour of the clear sky above us.
“Brave like bungee jumping? Or brave like visiting a haunted house?”
“Brave like seeing your dad.”
My heart stopped.
“My dad?” I asked with a mouth as dry as the grass outside.
“You told me you were worried one day he’d die and you’d regret all of the time you missed with him. Well, no time like the present.” He shrugged and picked up speed at the 100 sign.
We stayed silent for the next few minutes, passing by all the farms and acreage properties on the outer-town line. The cows had gone to lay in the shade and horses had moved themselves under trees.
God I wish I could just lie there with them .
“And this has nothing to do with the fact that my dad is your idol?” I narrowed my eyes at him, and he laughed.
“I wish I could say it was.” He was full-on grinning at this point. “But, no, Sunny. This is all about you.”
The way he said you melted me in ways I couldn’t even begin to explain.
“So what’s the brave thing you’re doing today then?” I asked.
He took a deep breath in through his nose and his eyes glassed over.
“The brave thing I’m doing today is in a bag in the back of the ute. I’ll show you when we get back to Soggla,” he said.
Though from the expression on his face and the way he was talking, I couldn’t help but feel as if he was trying to promise himself more than me.