AFTER THE THUNDERBIRDS game, all anyone seemingly wanted to talk about was Leif “Thor” Sorenson’s slapper to the balls of Thunderbirds’ defenseman Ethan Higgins. I felt sorry for Higgins, but I had to admit to being glad the hockey world had shifted the focus away from me, Luke, and the homophobic incident in Minnesota.

Higgins had hit the ice like a tree falling in the forest, only no one had bothered to shout “Timber!” He was practically as big as a tree, too. As if a slap shot to the balls wasn’t bad enough, hitting the ice from that high when he probably wasn’t bracing himself for the fall…

Ouch. Seriously…ouch.

Just thinking about taking a ninety-plus-mile-an-hour slap shot to the balls was enough to make my eyes water, so I’d been shocked to see him back on the ice later in the game. It served to prove the old adage that hockey players were tough as nails, though. I hoped for his sake that they’d at least given him some sort of numbing shot to help him get through the rest of the night. An ice pack would help, but I doubted it’d be enough for me if I were in his shoes.

Besides, I wasn’t sure I could stand to hold an ice pack on my balls for long enough for the numbing effects to help. Ice and certain body parts didn’t seem to be a good combination.

Koz had organized a bunch of the guys to go out after the game. He’d invited some of our former teammates who were now playing for the Thunderbirds to come along, as well. But I wasn’t in the mood.

I’d much prefer to spend some time with Luke.

Instead of letting Koz drag me into something I didn’t want to be part of, I shot off a text message to Luke once I’d showered and finished up all my post-game responsibilities, asking what he wanted to do. There was a part of me—not a small one, either—that hoped he’d suggest coming over to my place and spending the night.

I was prepared for him to shoot me down, for any number of potential reasons. Things had to be different between us when we were in Portland than they’d been on the road. And the fallout from our social media scandal and the incident in Minnesota was bound to still be affecting him. It’d probably be fucking with both of us for a long time to come. Shit like that could change a person, and not always for the better.

I hoped it was serving to draw us closer together—helping us to see what was truly important and block out the rest—but that remained to be seen. Neither of us had really had enough time to process it yet.

I wasn’t quite prepared for the response I got, though.

 

Luke: Mom wants you to come over.

 

Wait, what? Why did Laura Weber want me to come to her house? She’d never been one to demand my presence anywhere or for anything. Even when they’d had that barbecue in the backyard, I’d been invited, not ordered to appear.

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. But still, I sent him a quick reply.

 

Me: When? This weekend or something?

 

Luke: Nope. Now.

 

Me: Tonight?

 

Luke: Yep. Tonight. Now.

 

Me: For real? You’re not shitting me, are you?

 

Luke: She’s serious. And when Mom decides something, we have to do it whether we want to or not. That’s the way it works in my family.

 

Me: If that’s what you want, okay.

 

Luke: Not sure if I want it, and I’m even less sure you should. But one thing about my mom is she always gets her way. You might as well just learn that now if we’re going to be together. So I guess we’re going.

 

Me: I guess we are. Meet you at my car in 15?

 

Luke: Done.

 

I finished cleaning up and changing clothes as quickly as I could, and then I headed for the parking garage. Luke was waiting there for me. I stole a quick peck before we climbed in, even though I wanted a hell of a lot more.

“You seriously don’t have any idea what this is about?” I asked, pulling out of my parking spot.

“If I knew, I would’ve told you. Mom’s kind of cryptic about things sometimes. She’ll tell us in her own good time.”

We didn’t talk much on the drive, but it was a comfortable sort of silence. My radio was blaring some classic pop tunes from the eighties, some of which Luke knew all the words to even though they were from before he was born. Maybe we should’ve stuck around for karaoke that night before the season started, after all. I made a mental note to take him back to a karaoke bar sometime—without his sisters and my teammates. It could be fun if it was just the two of us.

By the time I pulled into his parents’ driveway and shut off the engine, we were both feeling relaxed and ready to face whatever Laura might throw at us.

Luke let himself in the front door without bothering to knock. That’s not something I would have ever done at my parents’ house now that I was an adult. I was an outsider as far as they were concerned—not family. Certainly not someone who could feel free to come and go as he pleased. But then again, Luke did live here, at least for now, so I supposed it wasn’t such a surprise.

When we walked into the living room, Laura was on the couch with her shoes off and her feet up, one arm draped across the back of the cushions. A bottle of red wine waited on the coffee table alongside two wineglasses.

“Hey, baby,” she said, grinning when she saw her son. “Your sisters are in the kitchen. I need you to go help them.”

“Help them with what?” Luke asked warily. He shot a glance in my direction, as if to ask what was going on.

But this was his family, not mine. He probably had a much better idea than I could ever come up with. I shrugged.

“Just go,” Laura said. “I need a word with Cole, and that means I need you to clear out.”

I raised my brows at him in question.

He shook his head. “Dad’s a lot scarier than she is, though. You’ll be fine. She’s probably just planning to ply you with wine and grill you about your intentions or something.”

Laura scowled at her son. “I’m not plying anyone with wine.”

“Mm hmm,” he murmured, but he was already heading for the kitchen. “That’s why you’ve got two glasses there, right? Because you’ve started drinking out of two glasses at the same time?”

She playfully tossed a pillow at his retreating form. Once he was gone, she turned serious eyes on me. “Have a seat, Cole. You and I need to have a talk, and I don’t want us to be interrupted.”

No matter how shitty my parents had been, I’d been raised to have good manners. When a lady told me to do something, I did as I was told.

So I sat. But at this point, I was far more wary than curious.

She uncorked the wine bottle and poured two glasses, wordlessly offering one to me by holding it aloft with a questioning look. Luke might have been right, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

Still, I accepted the glass when she offered it to me. “Thanks,” I said, taking a cautious sip. Not that I expected poison—I just didn’t know what she wanted, and I had no intention of getting so drunk that I gave her anything I didn’t plan to.

But she didn’t keep me in suspense for long. “David told me that you’ve asked Luke to move in with you.”

I almost choked on my wine, which would’ve been a damn shame, because it was a really nice Shiraz. I did appreciate her getting straight to the point, though.

“I did,” I replied once I’d managed to swallow the wine without incident.

“Do you intend to marry him?”

“I’m not— We haven’t talked about that yet. And to be honest, I think it’d be better for me to talk about these things with Luke before I talk to anyone else. He deserves that much.”

She took another sip from her wineglass, eyeing me shrewdly over the rim. “Fair enough. What about kids?”

This time, even though I wasn’t prepared for the impertinence of her question, I kept the fluids from going down the wrong pipe. I set the glass down on the coffee table, shaking my head. “Do you really think I’d answer that when, again, I haven’t talked to your son about it yet? Besides, we’re not at that point yet. We’re talking about living together. That’s all.” So far…

“Do you want them?” she demanded. “Gay couples can adopt these days. It’s happening all the time.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Is that something you’d want? A family? With Luke?”

I wanted a family, yeah. Kids weren’t something I’d ever allowed myself to think about, because I’d planned to avoid relationships entirely until I was out of the public eye. But I had to admit, I liked the idea of starting with parents who cared—like the Webers clearly did—and maybe some siblings like Katie and Dani, even if Dani tended to shove her nose into places she had no business shoving it.

My chest ached with wanting those things. I wanted to belong. I wanted to have people who cared as much for me as I did for them. As much as Luke’s family clearly cared for him. I wanted a mother who meddled and a father who blustered and threatened, and I even wanted sisters who got on my last fucking nerve. I wanted an extended family who would come over for a backyard barbecue on the spur of a moment and accept whatever decision I made for myself, my future, my family.

I wanted a family. A real family full of people who cared more about me and what was going on in my life than they did for appearances and how that would affect their corporate dollars.

I wanted what Luke had so much it hurt. And I wanted even more of it—with him.

But for whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to put that into words. They stuck in my throat, strangling me and making my eyes burn.

Without hesitation, Laura set down her wine and crossed over to me, wrapping me up in her arms. “Okay. It’s okay. You don’t have to have an answer right now. But just know that if you two decide it is something you want, you’ll have our complete support. We’ll do whatever it takes to make sure of it. Because we love you and we want you to be happy.”

Luke and Dani came back into the living room then, with me close to becoming a puddle in their mother’s arms. They stopped short, and I quickly separated myself from Laura and tried to get my shit together.

“What the hell, Mom?” Luke demanded.

“She’s fine,” I said before he could go off on her. This wasn’t a reason for him to be mad at his mother. It was one of the best things I’d ever experienced. “It’s fine.”

He scowled.

“Promise,” I said. “It’s really okay.”

Eventually, he let it go—at least for now—and we all sat around drinking Laura’s wine and talking. Well, all but Dani. She looked grumpy as she sipped on flavored water while we played Cards Against Humanity together. Babs, Harry, and Webs eventually joined us—and then the game turned really inappropriate.

Admittedly, it felt a bit awkward to play a game like that with Luke’s parents. At least it did at first. But before long, I started to let go of my inhibitions and recognize the experience for what it was.

For the first time, I was truly being accepted as part of this family.

There wasn’t anywhere I’d rather be.

LATE THAT NIGHT, lying in bed together after we’d shared mutual blow jobs, I rested my chin on Cole’s chest and stared up into his eyes. He’d started to let his facial hair grow like he sometimes did during the season.

I liked the scruff. I liked it a hell of a lot.

For that matter, I liked just about everything about this man. Yeah, I’d had a massive crush on him for a long time, but getting to know the real Cole was so much better than my idealized version of him. He wasn’t just a hot hockey player with a job I wished I could have. He had scruff I liked feeling against my balls. He was kind and thoughtful. He helped me to see the good I had going on in my life.

Hell, he was responsible for so much of that good.

But there was a deep thought creasing his brow as he stared back down at me, the blue of his eyes almost black in concentration.

“You look awfully serious for a guy who just got off,” he said, brushing my hair off my forehead.

I could’ve said the same to him. Still, serious? Yeah, I supposed I was feeling serious. It was hard not to be lost in thought after what I’d walked in on earlier at my parents’ house.

“What’d Mom want with you tonight?” I asked.

“Same as your dad.”

“She wanted to tell you not to be an asswipe?” I couldn’t keep the drollness from invading my tone.

He laughed. “Not exactly.”

“Then what, exactly?”

“I guess you could say she wanted to know my intentions as far as you’re concerned.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Pretty serious,” he replied.

“She wants to know when you’re gonna put a ring on it? Sorry. She can be a bit pushy about that kind of shit. I don’t expect—”

“Not in so many words, no,” he cut in. “And she wasn’t exactly pushing me. She’ll let us figure this out on our own.”

I scoffed.

He chuckled. “She will. But it was…different than with your dad, I guess you could say.”

“Different how?” I kept absentmindedly stroking the smattering of hair on his chest.

He captured my fingers in his and forced me to stop. I focused on his eyes. They’d gone dark with intensity, and he didn’t blink, didn’t do anything to hide from my scrutiny.

“Different in that she wanted me to know that I can have a family now if I want it. With you,” he added.

“She wants grandchildren. She’ll do anything for grandkids.”

“It wasn’t about kids or whatever. She didn’t get into that much. It was more about the rest of it.”

“You mean she said you can have an interfering mother, an overprotective father, and a couple of sisters who get on your last fucking nerve at least once every few hours?”

“Not in so many words.” But his grin confirmed it.

“They’ll all annoy the shit out of you soon.”

“I can’t fucking wait.”

“I’ll remind you of that when you’re ready to strangle Mom because she won’t keep her nose out of our business and wishing something would cause permanent damage to Dani’s vocal chords.”

“And I’ll remind you how awesome they are when we take our kids to backyard family barbecues at your parents’ house to play with their cousins and we all drink wine and play Cards Against Humanity in the kitchen after the kids have passed out together in the blanket fort your dad builds for them in the living room.”

“Our kids?” I asked. I kind of liked the sound of that. Cole would be a good dad. The way he’d been looking after me for the last couple of months proved it.

“We don’t have to decide anything about that yet,” he hurried to say. “But I just started thinking about it while I was talking with your mom. I mean, we haven’t even talked about us being an us yet, let alone—”

“I want us to be a thing,” I cut in.

“Yeah?” His grin was sexy as hell.

“Yeah. I mean, we don’t have to put a ring on it yet, but—”

“But we’re together,” he said. “You and me. We’re going to do this.”

“Might as well, since the whole world already saw us making out in the hall of a hotel.”

He caught my lower lip between his teeth and kissed me hard, his tongue making a quick swipe into my mouth to tangle with mine. In no time, we were both panting for air and hard again. He fisted his hands in my hair and let out a fierce, possessive sound when he broke off the kiss.

“I want you to move in with me,” he said. “I want to come home to you every night.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I even want your mom sticking her nose in our business all the time, and your dad threatening me about being an asswipe when I screw things up with you. And I want your sisters annoying us all the time. I want it all.”

“Good. Maybe I’ll let you deal with them so I don’t have to.”

“You’ll still have to,” he said, but he rolled over so he was on top of me, pinning me to the bed. “We’ll deal with them together. I want a family, Luke. I want your family to be my family. Even when they annoy the shit out of both of us. Hell, especially then—because it means they care.”

“I’ll leave you to deal with them,” I said. But I was laughing so hard because this was the best way to spend an evening ever.

“Deal. Whatever you want. Because I want you to be my family.”

“I like the sound of that,” I said. I liked it more than I could say.

“I think I love you, Luke.”

“You’d better. Because I’ve been in love with you since before I knew it would be okay. Maybe in lust, not in love—at first. But still.”

“You had a crush on me?” he asked, and his grin was kind of cocky, but it was a hot sort of cocky, not a turn-off sort of cocky. I doubted there was anything Cole Paxton could do that would ever be a turn-off for me. Everything he did only seemed to rev me up more than I already was.

“That was kind of how I realized I was gay,” I admitted. “Couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“I’m going to file that one away for later.”

“For later?”

“Yep. For when I need ammunition to convince you to marry me or something.”

We were both laughing when I kissed him again.

I could get used to this. I could absolutely get used to this.

And there wasn’t a single reason why I shouldn’t.