Page 106 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)
Thirty-Five
Cas
Jules was sleeping in my arms.
Ethan was across the hall, tucked into the bed in my guest room.
Both the doors were open, just in case Ethan woke up and got scared, and the nightlights I had bought to make sure Ethan could find the way to my room were switched on. Jules and I had also both gotten dressed.
The life of a parent, I supposed.
I wasn’t complaining. The woman I loved and the woman who loved me back was in my arms. The kid I’d fallen for just as deep was sleeping soundly across the hall.
Life was fucking sweet.
And I got to enjoy it while I was awake, sunshine glimmering through my bedroom windows, the slow and steady breathing of my woman on my throat, my pup sleeping at my feet (because Sparky might be getting older, but he sure as fuck made sure he made it up the pet stairs that I had bought and kept at the bottom of my bed to sleep at my feet any time I was home).
And I got to enjoy all of that for approximately five minutes.
Because then I heard my front door open.
And my mom’s voice echo up the stairs.
“We’re here!”
Fuck .
I’d forgotten they’d invited themselves over for brunch.
Because, like an idiot, I’d let it slip that I was dating someone.
Okay, well, it was less idiot and more that I’d forgotten my mom had scheduled a family dinner because Sam and Margot were in town until my mom had called with the details yesterday.
At which point, I’d tried to flake since I’d offered to watch Ethan, but my mom could sniff out excuses and deceit like a bloodhound.
She hadn’t bought the pretext of me bowing out. Not for one second.
With those sniffing skills she’d obviously come to the right conclusion—that I was dating someone and it was serious—and had invited “my woman” to join in on the family dinner.
At which point, I’d had to confess that I really couldn’t join in because Jules was working and had a son, and Ethan and I were having a sleepover.
This hadn’t garnered any protests.
In fact, my mom had been in rapture.
My mom liked kids (obviously, since she had four of her own), and she couldn’t wait to meet Ethan and finally be a grandma. She even had her Grandma Name picked out already.
Because apparently that was a thing.
Anyway, my mom had decided to come over and cook us brunch. Well, she’d decided on breakfast first, because she could hardly wait to meet Jules and Ethan, but when I’d mentioned that Jules worked late, breakfast had become brunch.
Which was something I’d been planning on telling Jules last night.
Because I didn’t care how ramped up my mom was, if Jules wasn’t ready to meet the chaos that was my family, then I’d put my mom off.
Only we hadn’t spoken.
Because that conversation with Ethan had happened, and then the laundry room had happened, and then we’d tucked Ethan into the guest room, and then we’d gotten naked in my room.
And I’d figured we had time to talk about it that morning. After all, my family wasn’t coming over until?—
I rolled, Jules making an adorable sound of protest as I moved, and saw that?—
Fuck.
It was eleven-thirty.
“Oh. Hi, buddy,” I heard my mom say. “I’m Luca’s mom.”
“Who’s Luca?” I heard Ethan ask from downstairs.
Apparently, the kiddo had gotten up already.
Then again, it was eleven-thirty, so that wasn’t too surprising.
Also, a fact that had me moving, slipping out from beneath the blankets, grabbing my phone from the charger.
A glance at the screen showed that my mom had texted and said they were on the way over.
Fuck .
Julie was going to kill me.
“Luca is Cas,” my mom said as I was rounding the bed, kneeling next to it, and gently shaking Jules, really wishing my parents didn’t have a key to my place to take care of Sparky when I was out of town.
“Do you like Cas?” Margot asked, and heaven help me with annoying sisters.
“Yup! We watch movies and eat popcorn and stay up late.” A beat. “Oh, and he takes me skating, and I got to watch him play once!”
“You did?” my mom asked.
“Yup.” Complete with that pop at the end. “It was the best day ever.”
Fuck. The kid killed me.
“Who are you?” Ethan asked in the semi-polite way of five-year-olds.
“Margot. I’m Cas’s sister, and this is Sam and Kathy, his brother and other sister.”
Jules. Was. Going. To. Kill. Me.
“Jules, sweetheart,” I urged, shaking her shoulder. “Wake up, gorgeous.”
She buried her face in the pillow. “Mmm? Just a few more minutes, baby.”
God, I’d love to wake her up slowly, to kiss her gently and?—
“Is your mom around, honey?” I heard my mom ask as I called Jules’s name again.
We didn’t have time for slow.
“Yup.” A beat. “She and Cas are upstairs sleeping.”
Shit. Fuck.
“We stayed up late last night watching movies and my mom works late and needs sleep”—something that I had mentioned the day before when we’d planned on letting Jules sleep in while we took Sparky on a walk (this was supposed to have happened before my family came over for brunch)—“and Cas works hard too, so I figured he needs sleep too.”
“Jules,” I said more firmly this time, and finally—thank God, finally —her eyes peeled open.
“That’s really kind of you, honey,” I heard my mom say, her voice echoing up the stairs, right into the open door and making my woman’s eyes go instantly alert. “Do you want to help me make some cinnamon rolls while we let them sleep?”
“Okay!” Ethan said.
Which was the point that Sparky finally seemed to clue in that the house was currently full of people he hadn’t gotten the chance to sniff yet—and that some of those people were his favorite people (those favorite people being my mom and Margot).
As such, Sparky popped up like the puppy he hadn’t been in years, bounded down the stairs at the bottom of the bed and took off down the hall.
A soft woof .
Skidding feet and claws.
My family and Ethan greeting my pooch.
Then I was turning back to Jules, whose face was pale and eyes were wide. “Who’s talking to my son?” she whispered.
I winced. “My family,” I whispered. “With everything that happened last night, I kind of forgot to mention they were coming over for brunch.”
“Brunch—” She glanced to the side and then her eyes widened further. “It’s eleven-thirty.”
“I know, gorgeous,” I said, smoothing my hands up and down her arms. “And I’m sorry to spring this on you, especially with them already here?—”
“It’s eleven-thirty. ”
“I know?—”
Her hands came to my cheeks as she sat up, the blankets falling to her waist. “No, honey,” she said.
“It’s eleven-thirty and I—” A shake of her head.
“I’ve never slept that late,” she whispered.
“Not ever .” She jiggled my head. “Never, honey, and I don’t think I’ve felt this rested in…
well, probably since I was old enough to start working. ”
A bolt of anger through me.
I hated that for her.
But I didn’t have time to express that hate.
“You’re not freaking out,” I pointed out, needing her to focus on the situation at hand.
She still held my cheeks. “You love me. I love you. I think your family will see that.” She sent me reeling with that , from her calm acceptance of my family’s invasion.
Reeling considering how long it had taken for me to get her here—and how much her calm, quick acceptance of my family being there today meant for us and our relationship, how much it meant to me in that moment. Then she stood up and took my hand.
“Come on, honey,” she said softly. “Let’s go downstairs.”
I found I couldn’t move.
Not when my love for her was expanding to epic proportions, not when it was burning through me.
She leaned in, touched her lips to mine. “Ethan is down there.”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“And he’s making cinnamon rolls with your mom.”
“Yeah,” I whispered again.
“And…” Her eyes went hopeful even as her expression became unfathomable. “And I’ve never made cinnamon rolls with a mom, honey.”
I inhaled.
Then I whispered “Yeah” for a third time before releasing her and going to my closet, pulling down a sweatshirt for her (another she would probably steal). It was cold in my house in the mornings.
Since she’d followed me in, I tugged it over her head, then took her hand, led her downstairs.
“Let’s go make cinnamon rolls.”
Because Jules deserved to do everything .
But she especially deserved to make cinnamon rolls.