My Favorite Mistake, page 13
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, even though I do. “Cas isn’t like that.”
And the thing is, even if she’ll never believe me, I actually do think that part’s true. Cas isn’t like that. He would never do what Thad did to me—I know that with bone-deep certainty. In fact, despite this whole Vegas-marriage circus, he seems like the type of guy to get married once and stick with it for life. It’s a shame I fucked that up for him.
“All men are like that,” my mother says in the exact tone of voice I’d imagined her saying that phrase a few minutes ago. I nearly allow my snort of laughter to escape me but just barely keep it in while I muffle the phone. “Every last damn one.”
“Did you need something, Mom?” I prompt her, hoping we can maybe cut this short. It’s been a long day of decisions, and I only have a teaspoon of patience left for this. “Otherwise, I need to go make myself dinner.”
It takes another half hour to get her off the phone, but while talking, I decide to just order delivery instead of dealing with the random assortment of frozen meals and dry goods in the kitchen. I’ve never been more thankful when the doorbell rings.
Chapter Thirty-One
Caspian
“Okay, so here’s what’s going to happen.” Hadley claps her hands together as she looks Rys and me over. “First, we’ll get a few shots of Rys and you skating together, then we’re going to sit you down and play a little game—kind of like The Newlywed Game, that old TV show? Just some light trivia about each other.”
It’s around ten in the morning and I’m freshly released from one of the assistants who had been making my post-morning-skate-shower hair look good. Rys doesn’t get mobbed by any assistants because she arrives looking perfectly camera-ready.
She’d been surprisingly chill when agreeing to this, but I can see she’s nervous now that she’s here. I’m not sure if taking her hand would be welcomed or not, so I just hover nearby. She reminds me of my younger brother Heath. Last night she was studying all the answers for the trivia. Like Heath, she asked me to quiz her until she got every answer right.
I… I decided not to study, and as a reward for knowing all the basics about my career and the little people know about my private life, we had mind-blowing sex. No one should say I’m not a thoughtful husband. I know how to distract my wife.
“If there’s anything you’re uncomfortable with at any point, let me know,” Hadley says to Rys, her eyes serious and sharp. “It’s my job to make you look good, and happy people always look good.”
It’s a line I’ve heard before, and I smile at Hadley over Rys’s shoulder in thanks. I know she’s going above and beyond for us here, and I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve it. I’m one of the worst interviewees on the Orcas, but I guess years of not actually complaining about taking an intermission interview have added up in karma points.
She leaves me alone with Rys for a moment while she runs off to grab a pair of skates for Rys.
“You ever skated before?” I ask.
“Um…” She trails off. Her eyes have gone a little squinty as she thinks about it. “I’m positive I have. Am I positive when I last skated? Absolutely not.”
“I’ll keep you upright,” I promise her.
“You’d better,” she says. “If my butt touches the ice, you’re in so much trouble, mister.”
I click my tongue at her and push her toward the tunnel where Hadley has just re-emerged with a pair of skates, a t-shirt, and thick socks she must have snagged directly out of the gift shop based on the huge Orcas logo on them. Rys takes them in good humor, holding up the t-shirt to reveal a shirsey with my name and number on the back. And damn, I hadn’t even thought of what it would do to me to see her wearing my number. Suddenly this whole situation just got a lot hotter for me.
Rys ducks into one of the athletic trainers’ small offices to quickly change, and when she comes out, Hadley reaches to knot the t-shirt in the back, pulling it tighter against Rys’s breasts. I can’t help but let my eyes linger.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Rys hisses at me as soon as Hadley, apparently satisfied with the wardrobe change, walks back over to the small crew.
“Like what?” I smirk as she huffs her way over to the bench to start pulling on the socks and skates.
“You know exactly what.” She waves one of the socks at me threateningly.
I laugh and get down on one knee before pulling up her right foot and helping her wiggle it inside. I tighten the laces with a lifetime of ease and then move on to the other skate. She’s ready to go in minutes. I sit down next to her and pull out my own skates from the gear bag I’d dragged out here earlier.
“Is this going to make my feet hurt?” she asks, frowning down at her skates.
“Probably,” I say cheerfully, standing up from the bench. “But if they do, I promise to kiss them better later.”
She takes my extended hand with a grumble and wobbles unsteadily next to me as I walk her to the boards. Hadley and the crew are all set up with some mats out on one side of the ice and some empty space at the other end for us to skate.
“You want us to just skate?” I holler over to her.
Hadley throws me a thumbs-up and says something to one of the camera guys, who also gives me a thumbs-up a moment later after checking his viewfinder. I turn back to Rys.
“You ready?” I ask her. I open the boards and step onto the ice, anchoring myself before offering her my hands again. She takes them, looking more skeptical by the moment, but still gingerly stepping onto the ice. “Easy does it.”
Her legs splay apart almost immediately, but it’s easy enough to keep her upright as we grip each other’s wrists. It only takes her a lap or two before she lets me skate beside her instead of in front of her, still wobbling, but upright enough to at least be comfortable clinging to the boards instead of just me.
“Just a few more spins around, and we’ve got it,” the camera guy calls out.
“Hold her hand!” Hadley adds.
I laugh and turn to Rys, very theatrically offering my hand to her. She takes it with a mock bow, and I swing our joined hands between us as she still holds on to the boards with her other hand.
“You want to go fast one time before we’re done?” I ask.
“How fast?”
“I’ll make sure you don’t fall or hit the boards.”
“Ugh, fine.” She gives me both of her hands again, and I start skating backward.
As soon as I have some more maneuverability, I take off, pushing her forward and then turning us so I have my back to the boards. We hurtle across the ice, and she shrieks, but holds on tight until I pull us to a stop and let her tiny frame run into me so I can pull her into a hug. I laugh as I pull her off the ice for a second.
“Oh my God, Cas, that was way too fast,” she says, and it’s so quiet in my ear that I hope it’s just for me, and no mics picked it up. I love the way she says my name. I think if I could, I would make it so no one else could ever hear her say it.
I put her back down and gently push her toward the other end of the ice. We take a few minutes to take off our skates and put our shoes back on before we’re put in two high director’s chairs that are right in front of the home goal. We get through our trivia game with a decent showing and lots of giggles from Rys when I pull faces at her while the camera’s on her and not me.
“It’s going to be really cute, you guys,” Hadley promises as we wrap up. “It’ll probably be out tomorrow or the next day, and we’ll show it up on the Jumbotron.”
“On the Jumbotron?” Rys’s eyes bulge so big I think they might pop out. “I thought it was just for like…social media.”
Hadley laughs. “It’s for both. We have to fill all those commercial breaks and intermissions with something. Besides, a lot more people follow us on social media than could ever fit in the arena.”
“Getting stage fright now?” I tease Rys.
“No, just…” She casts her eyes around the empty stands of our much smaller practice facility. “It’s a lot of people.”
“It’ll be good,” Hadley promises.
“Okay, yeah.” Rys nods her head as if she’s still convincing herself. This time I take her hand and slide our fingers together with a squeeze. She squeezes back hard and keeps our hands intertwined. “You keep promising that, but every time, I feel dragged deeper into a rabbit hole.”
“As long as we’re together, it’ll be fine,” I promise.
Not sure what I just pledged, but I’ll make sure that she doesn’t get hurt.
Not at all.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Rys
Obviously, when dating Thad, I’d gotten used to the rhythm of him going on road trips constantly, but somehow with Cas, it’s different.
Maybe it’s because I’m actually in Cas’s house and we speak to each other daily, seeing how empty it is while he’s gone, whereas my relationship with Thad had been long-distance more than not.
Not being with Cas is a little spooky. The entire house has large glass windows everywhere, and even though I know no one can see in at night, it’s still a little disconcerting. We’re surrounded by woods up here, making it feel more isolated than it actually is. In reality, we’re only a short ride away from the city center, but it feels like I’m in the middle of nowhere, alone.
Maybe the night’s loneliness is what pushes me to volunteer to take two puppies that need a home. It was only going to be a small Maltese mix. But then there’s this pup with beautiful, huge, brown eyes that convinced me to take him home too. I’m only human, after all. No one can resist a Newfoud-wolfhound puppy pout. No one.
I’m thankful Leyla listened to me and set up a pet store next to the animal clinic. Before I place them in my car, I buy everything they need and order a couple of kennels for them. Training them to sleep in their kennels while we wait for someone to adopt them will be good.
We spend the first night in the living room. The following day, Lincoln has a couple of kennels in the SUV.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.
“Yesterday, you refused to put them in the trunk. I thought it might be easier to convince you if they have a safe place where I can transport them. How long are you keeping them?”
As I put the little girl in her kennel, I answer, “Not sure. They’re too cute. I bet someone will adopt them as soon as we post their pictures on the website.”
“When is that going to happen?”
I tap my chin. “I’m guessing she’s about five weeks old and he… I have to do the medical examination today. He might be eight weeks old and—”
“You like him?”
“Yeah, but I doubt Caspian wants to have them as guests for long,” I confess. Saying the words out loud reminds me we didn’t talk last night. He didn’t even text me to wish me a good night.
It’s okay though. We’re not together and what we have is casual. However, repeating that doesn’t do the trick. I miss him, and I’m a little hurt.
When we get to the office, Leyla is there looking at some charts.
“If I knew you’d be here, I would’ve come earlier,” I say, heading to the office.
“I heard you took a couple of puppies.”
“Like one does when they need a foster home,” I answer, setting them in the dog beds I bought yesterday.
“What are you calling them?” she asks me as she picks up the little Maltese princess and cuddles her.
One perk of being a veterinarian is that bringing your dogs or foster animals to work is no big deal.
“For now, he’s ‘big boy’ or ‘precious boy,’ and she’s ‘princess’ or ‘little one,’” I admit. I make a kissy noise at the big boy, and his head flops in my direction. He’s so cute I wanna cry.
“Big boy needs a big name,” Leyla says in a baby voice. She sits down in one of the rolling office chairs while cuddling with the princess. “Are you leaving them here tonight?”
“No,” I say quickly. “They’ll be with me until we find a good family for them.”
“Your husband okay with that?” she teases. She’s been enjoying referring to Cas by only “your husband” even though I know she knows his name. I think she likes to see me squirm every time she says it.
“I don’t need his permission to bring a dog home,” I shoot back. Which is true. I mean, he told me the last time I could bring them, and he wouldn’t care. Plus, Cas is too cute to be objectionable.
“I’m thinking Leonidas or Apollo or something appropriately fierce and warrior-like.” Leyla swerves back to the topic of names.
“Too easy,” I say, discarding them immediately.
“What was his intake name?” she asks, looking up from where she’s grabbed both of his front paws in a shake.
I scrunch my nose up.
“Spork?”
“Like the Star Trek guy?” she asks.
“No, that’s Spock. Spork like…spoon-fork? I don’t know.”
“Oh, big boy, you definitely need a better name than that, don’t you? And you, little one, should be Camilla or Annie.” She returns to her baby voice and kisses the puppy’s nose. The puppy looks nonplussed about the entire situation and blinks sleepily at us.
“I might not name them since they’ll be leaving soon,” I almost pout.
She snorts. “I doubt they’ll leave your house.”
“How can you say that?”
“You’re fostering two—they’re going to bond like brother and sister, which will be super cute. When it comes to adoption, it’s going to be tough to place them together and you won’t want to split them.”
I huff. “You’re wrong.”
“Uh-huh. If you’re right, I’ll give you fifty dollars. I should get going,” she says, setting the little one next to the big pup. “I came to Portland with Pierce. He needed to check on a client. We have a day date.”
“Where are the kids?”
She grins. “Uncle Beacon and Aunt Grace came home yesterday. They offered to babysit. Let me know how things go when Cas gets home.” Leyla sighs dramatically and pouts first at me and then at the puppy. “Good luck with your new children. I’ll see you when it’s time to do the official paperwork.”
I roll my eyes at her.
“I put fifty dollars on her keeping the dogs,” Leyla says loudly, to no one in particular.
Is there some kind of office pool going on? I don’t even ask.
“They are just fosters,” I insist.
“Foster fail in the making,” Leyla claims. “That’s what happened with my dogs. I tried to get this hot guy to adopt Buster—I knew they were perfect for each other.”
“What went wrong?”
She smiles. “I ended up adopting both, Buster and Pierce.”
I burst into laughter. “I had no idea.”
“That’s how we met, he brought him to the animal hospital I was interning for, and one thing led to another.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen to us.”
She pats my arm. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”
Everyone in the hospital volunteers to watch the puppies while I’m doing consultations. The day is long, but thankfully, I arrive home a little before seven. I find the boxes of everything I ordered online the previous day. I have plenty of time to get everything set up in the house for the puppies, including some child gates and toys to keep them contained and occupied.
Cas would be home sometime tonight. I still haven’t heard from him, but I don’t think much of it. There has to be a good reason why he hasn’t called me. I don’t think this is over yet, is it?
Princess and Big Boy look at me, and I don’t know if they’re worried, or they just need to go out to the backyard. I do the latter and ignore the worry cemented in the pit of my stomach.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Caspian
As I drive home, I feel the tightness on my shoulders disappear. Yesterday was stressful as fuck. Dawn Spearman, better known by my siblings as the mother, finally caught up to me. I’ve been avoiding her calls and texts since the Vegas wedding. I’m ashamed to admit I blocked her number.
If I have to choose between her and Rys, well, Lysander told me to choose Rys. I don’t understand why, but he told me to be extra careful. He might not be thrilled about my marriage, but he understands Rys matters to me—a lot.
Last night, when the game ended, my mom was in the locker room. Talk about embarrassing and shameful moments. I’m the captain of the team and my mother is waiting for me. Thankfully, the coach ushered us to a private office where she gave me an earful. I had to take her to dinner.
Knowing Helicopter Dawn, I took drastic measures and erased Rys’s information from my phone and all our texts. Even her pictures. I adore my mother, but she is worse than a CIA agent. I don’t know if she tried to snoop in my things, but it’s better to be safe than having Mom nag my wife.
Of course, my mother wanted to know more about Rys, and during dinner, she interrogated me. I didn’t answer much. Though, the conversation made me wonder what was going on between her and Fern because she blamed her for what’s happening to the family.
I have no fucking idea if there is something going on, and no one has told me.
Other than the headache after our dinner, I didn’t say good night to Rys or talk to her at all. I could’ve called my agent, Mills, or Leyla to get her information, but I didn’t want to explain myself. It’s already too fucking awkward to have my mother in the locker room.
When I arrive home, the lights in my living room are still on. I sigh with relief, knowing that Rys is both home and still awake. She’s in the kitchen waiting for the microwave when I walk in from the garage. She smiles brightly at me, her whole face lighting up, and it makes my stomach flip.
I greet her with a lingering kiss and an arm around her waist. When she pulls back, she’s still smiling. “You’re home.”
