Page 114 of The Evening Wolves

“I think asking why you chose to drive over a hundred miles on icy roads in the dark without letting anyone know where you were or what you were doing—Mother, come back here.” As she moved into the living room, he called after her, “It’s a perfectly legitimate question.”

John-Henry was wiping his eyes when Emery glanced over at him. He dredged up a smile, and it felt a little closer to real when Emery put an arm around him and pulled John-Henry against him. After a few moments, John-Henry said, “I’m good.”

Emery kissed his hair.

“And we’d better get in there before Colt, Ash, North, and Jem eat everything in sight.”

It turned out, that wasn’t really a possibility. In addition to the range of takeout that everyone had contributed, Cora had brought all the food from John-Henry’s birthday meal. More importantly, she’d also brought champagne and prosecco. The options ran the gamut from Emery’s General Tso’s—which he was guarding from Jem—to the McDonald’s french fries—which Jem was guarding from everyone—to the birthday quiches. Auggie and Theo handled the drinks after Noah and Rebeca produced plastic champagne flutes, and Colt put some music on. Not the rap that sometimes threatened to shake the house down, but a Christmas playlist that hummed quietly in the background.

John-Henry slipped into host mode without even really thinking about it; it was something he did, something he knew how to do without even needing to put it into words. Theo was still in the kitchen after the drinks had been served, John-Henry noticed, reading on his phone. North was also reading on his phone as he picked over the nachos.

John-Henry got a glimpse of North’s phone and said, “We’d be doing better if Tarasenko hadn’t gotten injured.”

North snorted. “We’d be doing better if we weren’t eating shit.”

Grinning, John-Henry said, “Theo, want to weigh in on that?”

“He’s not wrong,” Theo said, lowering his phone. “One player shouldn’t make or break a team like this.”

“It’s still early in the season. We’re not doing that badly.”

“Are you kidding me?” North said.

At the same time, Theo said, “You’ve got to be joking.”

“We’re the defending champs.”

“We just won the Stanley Cup.”

John-Henry smiled and held his hands up in surrender. “I expected you guys to say it was all Binnington’s fault.”

North’s look was flat disbelief. “Do you have any fucking clue what you’re talking about? Theo, for fuck’s sake, help me out.”

After they had both—thoroughly—told him how wrong he was, John-Henry found a way to slip out of the conversation and leave them to hash out every mistake the Blues had made so far this season.

In the living room, Shaw and Auggie were on all fours, crawling around on top of blankets that had clearly been brought down from Evie’s room. Evie and Lana were giggling and throwing potato chips at the two men, while Tean was trying to make himself as small as possible in an armchair, his nose in a book.

“What in the world—” John-Henry began with a laugh.

“Daddy!” Evie screamed. “You’re ruining their house!”

He dutifully straightened the blanket he’d messed up.

“We’re playing magical zoo,” Shaw said.

A grin streaked across Auggie’s face. “I’m a rhinocerwhompophant.”

Biscuit sprinted into the room and chose that moment to bite Shaw’s elf leotard, or whatever it was called, and try to drag him down to the floor. The girls laughed even harder as Shaw said, “Oh no, it’s the vicious woolly fangtangler! Help! Help!”

It was hard to tell, as Shaw continued to be mauled by Biscuit, how many of the cries for help were real and how many were pretend.

Perching on the arm of Tean’s chair, John-Henry said, “I bet you have to play games like this with your girls all the time.”

Tean looked up, blinked, and adjusted his glasses. Then he glanced at Shaw, who was being thoroughly dominated by Biscuit, and smiled. “Jem always has to be the tigerocious maximus.”

“I bet you could tell these girls how to wrangle a vicious woolly fangtangler.”

Smile widening, Tean set aside his book. “The woolly fangtangler’s only weakness is when little girls—”

---