Page 21 of Return to You

“He did, but it seems he’s made a miraculous recovery because after a minute of grumbling he said he’d see you at the rental office at noon, just like you’d arranged. But I told him that you were playing hooky and that I would meet him there.”

“But I can’t. I still have so much to do.” She looked around the laundry room as if all of the tasks she needed to accomplish were there. “Next week is spring—”

“—break,” Kade finished. “I know. And I also know that after the season starts, you’re not going to be able to take a day like this off. You deserve a break, Ali. And unless you want to be wearing a Garfield shirt and cutoff sweat shorts for your girls’ day, you better hustle, woman.”

Her left cheek hollowed as she bit the inside of her lip. It was a decision-making tick she had. He knew that she wanted to take him up on his offer but she was fighting herself. Weighing the pros and cons.

“You know what, let’s do this the Walsh way.” Kade made a fist with his hand and hovered it over his palm.

Her lips pursed for a moment and then in true Walsh form, she got into rock-paper-scissors formation. Something Ali didn’t know was that Kade had studied Ali’s game over the years. He’d witnessed she didn’t have a poker, or in this case, a Roshambo face.

If she was going paper, her eyes squinted. When she went rock her nose flared. For scissors, she would blink. It wasn’t an exact science but they were fairly reliable tells.

They hit their hands to their palms three times and he saw her nose flare so he laid his hand flat. His paper beat her rock.

“Best two out of three,” she instantly challenged.

“You do realize that you’re betting against taking a day off?”

“Best two out of three,” she reiterated without a moment’s hesitation.

“Fine.”

He knew he was taking a gamble, but he decided to throw the second round anyway. Her nose flared again but he went scissors. Her rock beat his scissors. She let out a victory “whoop” and he knew he’d done the right thing. If she lost by a landslide, it would’ve put a damper on her excitement for the day. She was that competitive.

In round three, Ali blinked and he went with rock. His rock beat her scissors.

The tip of her nose twitched as she scrunched it in defeat. It was damn adorable and Kade wanted to tell her but he refrained.

“Alright, loser—“

“Hey!” She slapped his arm playfully.

“Sorry, defeated party,” he rephrased as he clapped his hands. “Chop chop, Jess is going to be here soon and I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little scared of her.”

Ali’s head fell back as she laughed and it sounded even more melodic than the oldies he’d been listening to.

“I’m serious,” he teased. “I spent a good fifteen minutes writing and rewriting my text before I sent it to her to ask if she was free today.”

“Shut up.”

He was joking about being scared of Jess, but he hadn’t been kidding about the text part. He knew that Jess would do anything for Ali so it wasn’t that he was scared to ask her to take Ali out on a girl’s day. He was worried that in this case she’d be all too happy to kill the messenger.

“I’m surprised that you didn’t have one of the twins ask her.”

“You don’t send a boy to do a man’s job.” He puffed out his chest and pounded on it once with his fist closed.

“That’s right, I forgot, you’re the Bad Man of MMA.” Her smile was a mile wide as she spun on her heel and practically skipped up the stairs.

Even though she’d protested, he could see that she was excited at the prospect of having a whole day off. It might’ve taken him longer than he’d wanted to make it back home, but now that he was here, his only goal was to keep her smiling. He wanted her and the twins to look forward to life again. It’s what Patrick would’ve wanted and Kade was going to do everything he could to take care of his best friend’s family and honor his memory. One rock-paper-scissors at a time.

7

“I still can’t believe McDreamy is dead.” A wistful sigh fell from Ali’s lips. “Even all these years later.”

“Damn you, Shonda Rhimes!” Jess said as she dramatically shook her fist in the air.

Ali chuckled as she stabbed her spoon into her carton of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked and snuggled into the large cushions on Jess’s sofa and watched Meredith Grey ‘dance it out.’

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