I smiled. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. “She doesn’t remember that she loved me. I’m not winning her back. I’m winning her for the very first time—again. Nothing is a given. I’m well aware, but I’m working my ass off here. As any man should be if he wants to keep a woman like her.” I cupped my brother’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t worry about me, Ty. I’m in this for the long haul. This isn’t a fight I’m willing to lose.”
Exhaling and looking at the ceiling, shellshocked, he shook his head. “I still can’t believe you got her back. Mom’s gonna bawl her eyes out, ya know.”
I chuckled. “Mom cried when she thought I was dating someone else. She’s gonna be damn near hysterical when she finds out it’s her precious Remi.”
Tyson nodded. “Heads up, here she comes.”
Remembering I was supposed to order drinks, I lifted a finger to catch the bartender’s attention. “Don’t fuck this up for me, okay?”
“Oh, I won’t fuck it up. I’m about to embarrass the hell out of you though.”
“I would expect nothing less.”
Remi traced her fingers over my back as she nabbed the stool on the other side of me. She slid it around so she was wedged between me and my brother, her thigh touching mine. “Okay, now where were we? Bit of a bed wetter, huh?”
For the next two hours, Tyson told Remi every mortifying tale of my youth. And seeing them together, so genuinely happy and normal… I loved every fucking minute of it.
Bowen
“It was good,” I repeated for the tenth time while carrying our plates to the kitchen.
Remi followed after me with the water glasses. “You are such a liar. You could barely swallow.”
“My throat was dry.”
“Yeah, from my crusty chicken breast. I told you that you didn’t have to finish it.”
I scraped the remnants of the most taste-bud-disintegrating meal I’d ever had the misfortune of consuming into the trash and then placed the dishes in the sink. “No, the chicken was delicious. The breading on the outside was just extra crispy. No biggie.”
“The breading?” She set the glasses on the counter. “That wasn’t fried chicken, Bowen. It was grilled.”
I bit my bottom lip, fighting back a laugh, and stared at her. I couldn’t quite decide if she was genuinely upset she’d ruined her first attempt at cooking me dinner or if she was just embarrassed. Either way, I felt bad for her. That didn’t make the situation any less humorous though.
After closing the short distance between us, I wrapped her in a hug. “You know I love you, right?”
“Well, I knew you did before I forced you to eat that travesty of a dinner. Now, I’m not so sure.”
A bellowing laugh shot out of me before I could hold on to it. “It’s going to take far more than some bad chicken for me to stop loving you.”
She buried her face in my chest. “Well, there is still time. I brought all the stuff to make my dad’s famous loaded ooey-gooey brownies. He sent me a copy of the recipe, but you saw what I did to the risotto.”
“Risotto? Dear God, I thought that was mashed potatoes.”
She slapped my chest, but I chalked it up as a win because it finally earned me a laugh.
Then she groaned, adorably frustrated. “Gah, you’ve cooked me so much amazing food recently. I really just wanted to make you something for once. I even made enough for leftovers so you could take it to work with you for lunch tomorrow. Now, we’ll have to feed it to the dogs.”
There was no way in hell I was subjecting either of my dogs to that kind of torture. Not only would it be animal abuse, but a trip to the emergency vet after they choked on it was not how I planned to spend the rest of my evening.
I wasn’t about to tell her any of that.
Swaying us from side to side, I said, “Babe, you do not need to repay me for cooking every night. I enjoy it. So relax. It’s not a big deal.”
She put her chin on my chest and peered up at me. “I was really looking forward to ooey-gooey brownies.”
“So make ’em.”
“You say that now, until I turn them into bricks and you break a tooth.”
I grinned. “Rest assured, I have amazing dental insurance. Hockey players make missing teeth look cool. I could pull it off.”
She squinted at me for poking more fun. I felt little remorse for damaging her ego though. She and Tyson had dragged me through the mud the other night, so I couldn’t resist giving it back as good as I’d gotten it. But my girl must have really wanted some chocolate, because she didn’t bother defending herself.
She walked to the grocery sacks she’d been carrying when she arrived that afternoon and started unloading all the baking essentials, including a disposable tin pan.
