AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He snort-chuckled. “I fell in love with you in that diner after the first cold look you shot me, so I just had to start playing hockey, too. But after that, when I joined the Titans, you were already there.” His smile widened. “Northwood, the team house, all of it was familiar because of you. Your stories made me want it.”
“Back then, I didn’t know I had that power,” I said.
“No, you had no clue,” Asher agreed. Thinking about that unavoidably reminded me of Eileen, my former stepmother and the person who very nearly put an end to this relationship in its infancy.
I had forgiven her for the things she had flung at me in anger easily enough. None of it had mattered once I’d found Asher behind the team house and promised him my heart. Asher, on the other hand, took his time with the process. To this day, things weren’t as they had once been. In some ways, it was better for Asher that Eileen wasn’t the highest authority on all things right and wrong. In others, I worried that he missed his mother, but he couldn’t completely get over the injustices of that one terrible day.
The thing Asher hadn’t yet realized, but I knew, was that whenever Eileen treated me well, Asher’s opinion of her grew more positive. If I pressed him on it, he would probably reject the idea, but I knew it without asking. His distant, faded anger wasn’t for anything she had said to him. He grudged her words against me.
We let the evening pass as if we had nothing else to do. It was like meditation in that it left me feeling whole afterward. We ate, cleaned up, had more wine on the porch in front of the house, and talked about the future rather than the past.
Often, I remembered some moments from Northwood and certain people who had never truly left my life, even after we had drifted across the map. Beckett and his family, starting with Caden and extending far out with all the relations that came along the way, were often the first people to hear all the news from my and Asher’s lives. His old roommate, Phoenix, and his blind-date-turned-fiancé were in that group, too. We stayed in touch with all the Titans from our time at Northwood. We watched their career paths change, their lives take shape, and their futures grow brighter.
We were lucky. All of us. Even when some dreams died, others burst to life. We all had a place to call home and people to call friends. And what mattered most of all to me, I had a man to call mine.
When Asher and I locked up the house and went upstairs to the bedroom we had remodeled to fit our needs, I watched him undress for bed. He was flirtatious and joyful as he stripped down to his underwear, knelt on the bed, and crawled toward me with a determined look in his eyes. “That dinner was delicious,” he purred.
“Was it?” My voice was as deep as ever.
“It’s only fair if I bring the dessert.” The wolfish grin on his face was enough to take my breath away. When the long, wavy locks fell over his brow and the sides of his face, I was his. I swept him around until his back landed on the bed, and my body was on top of his.
Asher laughed out loud in surprise, never getting used to my speed, and my heart stumbled at the sound he made. That happy laughter that had hardly changed throughout the decade of knowing him was everything I had ever wanted to hear. It was the sound that gave me life. It was worth every fight and struggle. It was the laughter I would go to battle to protect.
When I kissed him, feeling like I had never kissed him before in my life and like we were doing everything anew, I understood once again what it meant to have a family and a home. It wasn’t this place and it had nothing to do with blood or paperwork. He was my whole world. It was as simple as that.
“I love you, baby boy,” I whispered over his sexy lips.
“I love you more,” he teased.
For saying that, I tickled him until he screamed. He wouldn’t get to compete with me there.
We rolled in the bed, playing with and pleasuring one another until our bodies were spent. Even then, I couldn’t stop holding onto him. We had gone through the tough days of separation and obligations. No more. I wanted him with me. And if it didn’t happen in the year to come, he would just travel with me anyway until we could make it work for us both.
I knew, deep in my bones, that we were set for life. It was as natural to me as expecting the sun to rise again tomorrow. Asher and I. What else could there ever be? Without him, it all became meaningless. But when Asher batted his long eyelashes at me and shared a smile that punched dimples in his face, my heart was full of so many warm, incredible feelings that I had to wonder how they all fit in there.
I held him as we dozed off. In the slumber during the night, with the scent of his shampoo entering my nostrils, I dreamed the sweetest dreams. And like always, those dreams were pale and faded compared to seeing him in my arms when I woke up. No dream of a happy future could match reality.
Asher and I had carved for ourselves exactly the future that we wanted. All that was left for us to do was to enjoy every moment of getting there.
The End.
