Page 33 of Hot Rucking Canadian

“That’s true.”

Although not by much. Mama had me when she was young. She wasn’t even fifty to Travis’s forty and… “Hey, you’re closer in age to my boyfriend than you are to me.” I eyed my mother.

She continued to grin. “I wondered how long it would take you to figure that out. I don’t care. I just want you to be with a man who makes you happy.” She pointed her fork at Travis. “He makes you happy.”

I swallowed. “Yeah, he kind of does.” I exchanged a glance with Travis.

“Me too.”

He offered that shy smile of his that I loved so much. So many little things about him called to me. His smiles—so rare and therefore meaning even more when he offered them. The way he ducked his head—a shyness I found adorable. His keen sense of curiosity—he tried to hide it, but he loved learning new things. He used that knowledge whenever he could. But only with me, as far as I could see. He was afraid of letting people know he was smarter than they perceived him to be.

“So use condoms and be safe.” Mama popped the last of her roll in her mouth.

Travis choked on his asparagus.

And we were off.

Chapter Thirteen

Travis

How I survived Thanksgiving dinner at Mama’s was quite beyond me. On top of the lecture about safe sex, she’d also given broad hints about not hurting herbaby, living a clean life, being good to the environment, and taking care of myself.

In vain, I tried to explain that I expended a lot of calories at work, and that was why I was scrawny. I didn’t mention my mother’d been wraith-like. Always slender. Not in a bad way—she’d just been willowy.

I took after her.

She never discussed my father, and I’d learned, very early on, never to mention him. As I grew older, and understood child support, I wanted to demand I be allowed to track him down. Even I recognized how hard my mom worked. My father had gotten my mother pregnant—he should’ve been held responsible.

Only after she died, and I found her journal, did I discover she’d been raped by a stranger.

The few times I’d asked questions now haunted me. But I’d been a child. She’d been right to keep this from me when I was too young to understand. Maybe when I was old enough, she’d figured I didn’t need to know. But she’d drilled into me about respecting my partner, the importance of consent, and how I could do real damage if I wasn’t careful. I hadn’t been great with my partners in those first years after I discovered gay sex—but I’d also never taken what hadn’t been freely given.

“Travis?”

“Uh, yeah?” I rubbed my eyes.

“Hon, we’re home.”

Only now did I realize we were in the parking garage of his condo.

I liked how he called ithome. He meant his place, but I hadn’t had a real home since Mom died. My apartment in the eastside was just a place to hang my hat. “What are we to each other?”

He frowned. “You mean like an actual title?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I told Mama I was bringing home my boyfriend. I don’t do that often…well, like at all. I needed her to know how special you are to me. She overplayed her hand, though. Her lectures—” He chuckled. “—yeah, discreet isn’t her strong suit.”

“I like her. A lot. She cares about you. Wants to protect you. You need to treasure that.”

He chuckled. “Oh, I do. You should see her when she comes to my games. She yells as loud as the fans half her age. She’s always shouting at the refs if she thinks they made a bad call.”

“Like the time you took an elbow to the throat?” He’d told me about that time. The idea terrified me because I’d once seen a brawler nearly kill a guy by doing the same thing.

“She wasn’t there that game. But when the guy only got a yellow card, I thought Becca was going to lose her shit. Everyone knew it should’ve been a red card. Automatically. But I guess theref had a bad angle. Whatever. I have to say, the other player gave me a wide berth for the rest of the game—which we won handily. Becca could barely speak she was so hoarse.”

“You love that woman.”

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