Page 8 of Chasing You

Adele chuckled softly and shrugged. “You know what? Why the hell not. That sounds amazing, and I could use a night off from the kitchen.”

Ridge nodded, then stood up and set his chair back where it had been. Before he reached the door, he turned and cast Adele a hesitant look. “So, you, Gage, and…your friend, right?”

“Yeah. Kash’ll be home,” Adele said. Everyone was walking on eggshells around him, and he was starting tohate it. He knew Kash had to detest it, but he was also keeping himself out of everyone’s line of sight, no matter how hard they tried to include him. “I’ll make sure he comes down for dinner.”

“Sweet. We’re both off tomorrow. You cool if I bring Ina?”

“Always,” Adele said. “And I expect to see her more when I’m suffering from an empty nest.”

“You can play grandpa. Get some practice in,” Ridge said with a wink, then let himself out before Adele could throw something at him.

It was one thing to label himself a pop pop. He wasn’t wrinkled enough or grey enough for the rest of the world to see him that way, damn it.

“Honey, I’m hoooome.”

“In here, dearest,” came a voice from the living room. It was familiar, but it didn’t belong to his son or to Kash.

Adele poked his head around the corner and smiled when he saw Lucas sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table with a big white sheet laid out over it. He recognized the braille D&D map he and Gage had been working on for the last six months.

“Is my wayward son home?”

Lucas wrinkled his nose. “He went outside to take a call. He and that douche are fighting again, and I told him to take that crap outside so I don’t have to hear about it for the thousandth time.”

Adele sighed. For a while, he thought Lucas and Gage were going to fall apart as friends. It had been glaringlyobvious Lucas had a massive crush on Gage, but his son’s taste in partners was…not the best.

Adele was really hoping it was growing pains or some sort of learning curve he was developing.

Luckily, Lucas had gotten over his crush because Gage was on his third boyfriend in half a year and probably on the verge of another breakup, and Adele was grateful he didn’t have to be the one comforting him for dating jackasses. He’d quietly celebrate that he wouldn’t have to worry about shit going wrong when Gage went off to school.

“Wanna make an ice cream bet on how many days this’ll go on until he calls it quits?” Adele asked.

Lucas stuck his hand out, not quite in the direction of Adele, so he adjusted his stance for him. “I call three days.”

“Do you know something I don’t?” Adele asked before shaking on it.

Lucas shook his head with a laugh. “Just working on my statistics game. Or patterns? I never remember which is which. I got a C minus in statistics last year.”

“I cheated my way through all my math classes,” Adele told him, and he took Lucas’s hand, giving it a firm shake. “I’m going with tomorrow night.”

Lucas wrinkled his nose. “I’m working.”

“That’s okay. I’ll stop by the store and grab some Jamocha Fudge pints, and you can come by after. Relieve me of my shift.”

“What shift? Dude, donotgo work for my dad,” came Gage’s voice from behind them.

Adele stepped aside to give his son room to move past him as Lucas snorted. “Bruh, like they’d hiremethere?”

“I would totally hire you,” Adele said. “But I couldn’t let you drive the truck.”

“Donuts in the parking lot?” Lucas bartered.

Adele rubbed his chin. “Maybe in the SUV.”

“Does it have sirens?”

Adele laughed. “Yeah, bud. Loud ones.”

“I’m sold. When do I start?”

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