Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
I grit my teeth, annoyed that I have to choose between being a good son and a good neighbor.
Skylar steps in and says, “I’ll just catch a bus back to my place. It’s not a problem.”
My mother lifts a hand, her diamond ring glinting in the autumn sun as she waves us off. “Don’t let me get in the way. You two need to figure out how this whole dating thing is going to work,” she says, like she’s been plotting this for a long time. And honestly, she probably has. She brandishes her phone like it’s a prize. “I’m a pro with Uber after this morning.”
“Mom, I’m driving you,” I cut in. It’s about the principle now. She rappels into my life like a CIA agent, then exits at her whim. I’m driving her because, one, I need to wrest control from her, and two, well, she’s my mom, and as much of a bull in a china shop as she is, I love her. But I also don’t want to leave Skylar in the lurch.
I raise a wait-a-minute finger and step away from them to open my Uber app and order a Green ride for Skylar. When I’m done, I say, “There’ll be an Uber for you in a few minutes.”
Skylar’s smile is warm and genuine. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
Mom fights off a cat-like grin.
A few minutes later, a car in the same model as mine pulls up, and Skylar arches a brow at the electric vehicle. “Nice choice,” she says.
I give her a nod, one that says, I get it. I feel the same.
She slides into the plush back seat and waves as the driver pulls out of the lot. I watch her until the red car slips onto the road and out of sight.
I turn back to Mom. “Ready for the airport?”
She’s staring at me, arms crossed, lips twitching like she just swept the high-roller table in Monte Carlo.
“What?” I ask.
“Fake date,” she says with an arch of her brow. “Hardly.”
She’s seen right through me, but I push back. I have to. “It is a fake date. You literally just set it up. I’m doing it for you,” I insist. But am I too insistent?
She squeezes my arm, nodding in solidarity. “Keep telling yourself that, darling.”
The woman knows me too well. “Mom, did you want a ride?”
“I did offer to take an Uber,” she points out.
“And if I’d let you take one, I never would’ve heard the end of it.”
“Ford, you should’ve driven Skylar. I can tell you want to spend time with her.”
I let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Mom. Car. Now.”
With a too-pleased grin, she slides into the passenger side. Once I’m behind the wheel, she says, “She’s nice.”
Something she never said about Brittany. Something I’m grateful to hear, even though there’s nowhere to go with it. There’s no room in my life or my hardened heart for romance, even with someone…nice.
“She likes you too,” I say as I pull out of the lot and head along the main drag toward the highway.
“Well, she has very good taste,” my mom says, then smiles my way, giving me a knowing look before saying, with genuine affection, “I mean it.”
She’s not only saying Skylar has good taste in liking her. But I can’t touch the other meaning—that Skylar might be into me.
Focus. Just focus.
I grip the wheel tighter and put all my concentration onto the road. But out of the corner of my eye, I see Mom peering sharply at my to-go cup. She picks it up and inspects it as I drive. “This is…interesting.”
I say nothing. Just clench my jaw. The cup could open up a can of worms.
She clucks her tongue, grabs her reading glasses from her purse, and taps something into her phone. Probably looking up the dog on the cup. Probably learning Simon Side-Eye’s “mom,” the woman benefiting from his potential OnlyPaws page, is indeed Skylar. I brace myself for an inquisition.
Instead, Mom chuckles, then fights off a grin as I near the Golden Gate Bridge once more. She clears her throat and says, “Like I said—hardly a fake date.”
But a fake date is precisely what it has to be. Because if it’s fake, it can’t fall apart. If it’s fake, then there’s no risk. No messy emotions. No future to ruin.
“Mom, do you honestly think I want to get involved again? My life is busy. I’m focused on hockey. I have an opportunity to go out on top. You know how much that means to me,” I say seriously. I need the reminder as much as she does.
She gives me a sympathetic look, letting down her mother-knows-best routine. “I do, sweetie. I really do. And I want it for you—I want all the best, all the time for you.” She was there through my early career, cheering me on at Minor League games, lifting me out of funks, always believing in me. Hell, she let me come live at home in the off-season when I was twenty-two, twenty-three. When friends of mine had pro contracts and I was just…hoping.