Chapter 21 #2
“Hi!” Ally cries, acting like the Fishers are her long lost best friends.
She runs up and wraps her arms around Mrs. Fisher, giving her a hug.
Mrs. Fisher tenses, her mouth forming a perfect O as if she’s silently screaming in horror.
I have to look away so I don’t laugh. “It’s so good to see you again,” Ally continues, flopping down on the couch.
Fisher shoots me a bemused look, and I wink at him.
“Sorry I didn’t come out to greet you earlier, I’m just so tired from work last night. Didn’t get home until three,” Ally continues.
“Oh?” Mrs. Fisher raises her perfectly penciled brows. “What is it you do, dear?”
“I’m a dancer,” Ally says. Then, she shoots Mr. Fisher a charming smile. “Let me know if you want to come see a show while you’re in town.”
Fisher coughs, his eyes bugging out, while his father practically chokes on his own saliva. The purple in his cheeks darkens even further, but I smile to myself as I realize he’s at a loss for words right now. The plan is already working.
“I’m so proud of her. She’s won dancer of the month the past three months running,” Noah adds, puffing his chest out with pride.
“That’s…quite the achievement,” Mrs. Fisher says, clearly uncomfortable as her eyes swim with alarm.
“Well, she is the best breakdancer in the state of California,” Noah says solemnly.
Ally nods and starts doing some ridiculously bad pop, drop, and lock it move.
Mr. Fisher stares at her, confusion all over his face, and I smile. Serves him right for judging her based on his own assumption about her work.
Beside her, light begins to dawn in Fisher’s eyes as he clues in to what we’re doing. The corners of his mouth twitch.
“But not as big an achievement as us making the playoffs this year,” Penn chimes in. He lies down on the floor and props himself up on his elbows so he’s gazing at Fisher’s mom. “Are you planning on coming to our game tonight, Mrs. Fisher? I’d love for you to see me score.”
How he manages to keep a perfectly straight face as he says this, I’ll never know.
Fisher’s mother stares at Penn. If she could make any expressions with her face, I’m sure she’d look horrified right now—and mildly turned on.
She collects herself quickly, though, blinking and turning away from Penn’s smolder. She puts her nose in the air and sniffs. “I find hockey rather uncouth. And I really don’t wish to sit among the unwashed masses at a sporting event. Those places must be crawling with germs.”
“Oh, they’re crawling all right,” Penn says.
Fisher bites his lip, clearly trying not to laugh.
Warmth pulses through me to see the light gleaming in his eyes once again. Light his parents have done everything they can to extinguish. I’m glad they haven’t succeeded.
Fisher’s dad jumps in on the hockey talk like a lion on a zebra carcass, finding his voice again. “Hockey isn’t a real job. One injury and you’re done.”
They can ignore me all they want, pretend I don’t exist, but I’m married to their son, damn it. Sure, this marriage might be temporary. But right now, I’ve taken a vow to be there for him, for better or worse. And these people are the worst.
“Well, hockey’s not your son’s only job,” I announce, and every head in the room swivels to look at me.
Mrs. Fisher eyes my sweatshirt in disapproval.
Mr. Fisher looks at me with that arctic, disapproving gaze, like he’s never been called out by a mere woman before.
But Fisher smiles, and that’s all that matters.
I laugh, all sweet and innocent. “That would be embarrassing. Imagine, only being a professional hockey player who not only made the playoffs his first year in the NHL, but scored the winning goal in his last game, and assisted the winning goal during the game before that.”
Fisher’s mouth drops open as he stares at me in shock, and I grin. I’ve been studying. And it’s clearly paying off.
Mr. Fisher turns to me, and it takes all my willpower not to cower at his blazing glare. But I don’t. He might think I’m nothing, nobody, but he’s the one who’s morally bankrupt. Something all the money in the world can’t fix.
“And what, pray tell, is Archibald’s other job?” he asks, looking down his nose at me.
“He works for me,” I reply, not afraid anymore.
I’m here to win—for Fisher. “In my culture, husbands work for their wives. The wives are the matriarchs, and the husbands worship them like goddesses; wait on them hand and foot. Fisher starts every day now by brushing my hair one hundred times, before he writes me ten affirmations about my infinite beauty.” I blink up at Mr. Fisher, silently praying he’s not an expert on Thai relationship culture, because I’m talking total shit right now.
“The Thai way has a much higher success rate of marriages working out than in the North American way. You should try it.”