Page 66 of The Waiting Game

“Look, Grandma,” Felix said earnestly. “The playoffs are hard enough. It’s not going to help the team if Jonah and I are stressed during every away game about how you’re doing back home. You’re helping us.”

Jonah stifled a laugh. Jesus, he was really playing it up big with his wide eyes and sincere look. Apparently, it worked too because Grandma Ji-min softened.

“Well, I suppose if it will help you and the team …”

“It will,” Jonah assured her. “Absolutely.”

“Then you better win it! I’m getting too old for these early playoff exits. I want to see you both raise a second cup.”

“We’ll do our best,” Jonah promised.

She pointed at him. “And we need to find you a husband. Did you text Tyson?”

“No. I’m going to tonight.”

“Good!”

He held up a hand. “But not to ask him on a date. Even if I had time to date during the playoffs, I wouldn’t ask him out. I’m not interested in him.”

“Then find somebody else. Because I want to walk you down the aisle.”

“I want that too,” Jonah said. Because he couldn’t imagine marrying someone without any of his family there.

Without the woman who’d raised him walking beside him to meet his groom at the end of the aisle.

“Well then you need to hurry up,” she said. “Maybe I won’t survive this. Anesthesia is very hard on the body and I am getting old. Or maybe these tests will find something much more serious. We don’t know how long I’ll live. I don’t want you to be alone when I’m gone.”

Oh God, she was really hitting him with the big guns, wasn’t she?

“I won’t be alone,” Jonah protested. “I’ll have the team and Felix.”

“All good,” she said. “But it’s not the same as having a husband. You know what Cho and I were to each other. I want that for you. And you can have that! Cho and I fought so hard to make sure you could get married to anyone you wanted!”

“I want that for me too,” Jonah said, tears pricking his eyes. He’d been twelve when gay marriage had become legal in Canada and it had meant everything to him to know that his grandparents had done as much as possible to make that happen. “But I—I can’t manufacture that out of thin air! You two set the bar too high.”

“You can find it,” she said stubbornly. “You just need to open your eyes and know where to look!”

Jonah frowned, not sure why she was being cryptic about this. Or why her gaze landed on Felix of all people.

“I’m doing my best, Grandma,” he assured her.

“Well you keep trying and I’ll let you boss me around about my heart.”

“Deal,” Jonah said.

“Okay.” Felix pulled out his laptop and opened it. “Now, this is what I’m thinking …”

It took a bit of a fight, but between Felix and Jonah, they finally got a plan in place.

Grandma Ji-min’s neighbors, friends, and the SAPs would take turns driving her to appointments, cooking meals, and keeping her company.

Felix had set up a Discord server solely for organizing everything and while it was a little chaotic now that people were trying to join and figure out how it worked, he was hopeful that in a day or two he could turn it over to someone like Jordan’s girlfriend, Natasha, who was both organized and good at wrangling people.

But after that, as Jonah got Grandma Ji-min settled in bed for the night, Felix wandered outside.

For days, or maybe even weeks, he’d been feeling a strange, sort of jittery restless energy building inside him.

And the earlier conversation had only strengthened that.

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