Page 114 of Ice Dance Hockey

But win or lose, he’s there. He believes in you. And you know he’s not going anywhere. That’s why Merc’s so revered by us all.

“Thank you,” I say. “For everything, big brother.”

Chapter23

Fight for Us

Rhett

Igot a flower on the wall. As was to be expected, most of the Meyer household has fallen in love with me, but the flower was a surprise. It’s a yellow flower with pink sparkles in the center and my name and age written on the wall beside it.

It sits next to the Logan flower, right where a Rhett flower should be.

I took a picture of it so I could look at it from time to time. Every little thing with Logan has me soaring. Things like this might be Logan-adjacent, but still connected enough that I associate them with Logan.

After a successful prank gone soft, Logan hopped in the shower and Theo presented his idea for a candy store he wanted to run online. That surprised me. I expected something along the lines of a lemonade stand.

I already knew I was going to reject him on principle with his first proposal. One of the most important lessons you can learn about business is how to handle rejection. But he’s six, so although I did reject him, I went through the holes with him, and his new assignment is to come up with solutions so that he’s prepared to try again.

But I’m genuinely intrigued by his idea.

Mercy couldn’t even be mad. Theo was occupied for longer than his standard five minutes, focused on a project he’s interested in.

“You’d better give him some money for his project, Elkington,” Mercy said.

“Of course I am.”

“But not too much.” He’d clearly forgotten just how much money I have for a second.

I scoffed at him, but the truth is, I’ve already sent an email to one of my web designers. Theo Meyer’s Awesome Candy Shoppe will be up and running by next month.

Once Logan was out of the shower, I stole him, and we left for a walk that’s taken us to Pacific Spirit Park, a forested batch of hiking trails surrounding the University of British Columbia. The nights have been shorter, and the sun sets around eight pm on our side of the world, nearing the middle of August.

Some people on the path recognize me, but I’m shielded by a ballcap and sunglasses to maintain some anonymity. People stare and some pull out their phones, but they don’t intrude upon our alone time.

I want to broach a topic with him that we’ve been avoiding. It’s the same one Mercy and Jack have been avoiding.

Our sandalsthick-thockas we navigate the moist terrain. A sheen of water covers the forest, fresh from the morning’s short rainfall before the sun came out again. The heat remained the whole time.

“Do you want kids?” he asks, beating me to the introduction of important conversations. “Not with me. In general.”

“Generally? Yeah. I’ve always wanted a large family.”

Thethick-thockof our sandals is louder as the air around us becomes void of all sound.

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,” he finally says. “Logic dictates that if we don’t have common desires, we should call it quits before we get too attached.”

No one is around, so I plaster him against a tree, with his arms over his head. “I’m already attached, Logan dear. You can leave over my dead body.”

He shivers but a shy smile curls his lips.

Satisfied that I’ve cleared that up, I take his hand and tug him along the dirt pathway. “If I desire children and you desire not to have children, we’ll see what shakes out. We’re young. One of us could change our mind. Anything could happen.”

“I’m going to go against my nature and not worry about it because if you even think about leaving me, I’m going to dismantle your McLaren and sell the parts.”

I love all the signs that my beautiful scorpion is alive and well in there.

“I want to talk about New York. I want you and Jack to move in with me.”

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