Home and Away (36 page)

Christian was also ready to go, already wearing his socks and pants, and, like Callum, was only in UnderArmor from the waist up. He held the white jersey between his hands, staring down at the SHAW printed there. Callum knew the green jersey would be the same, both with the Morrison crest on the chest.

“Just bring them both with you and we’ll pick teams later,” Callum said, his voice hoarse.

Christian looked up at him, still holding his shirt, and broke Callum’s fucking heart all over again. “I wish it said Morrison.”

Callum towed Christian in against his chest. “Me, too, kid. Me, too.”

Once Callum could face his family without humiliating himself, he put Christian’s hockey skates over his shoulder with his own and joined the stampede to the back door, making sure Christian had a hold of Oliver in the crush. The herd moved out for the rink, walking single-file through the woods at the back of the property, sticks laced with pads, and skates over their shoulders. Oliver rode on Callum’s hip, Christian up with Angus and Duncan, laughing at something Callum could only hope was vaguely appropriate for a twelve year old to hear.

The Berkshire Academy Ice House was a familiar and welcome site. Almost as much a home to Callum as his parents’ house. They all fit in a single locker room to draw teams and positions. Christian would play defense on the same team Callum would play right wing. Christian, who was used to playing forward, gamely took to his new position and huddled up with the rest of the green jerseys to plan their game.

Callum looked around the arena, searching for Rupert. His mother and Oliver sat in the stands, waving green and white pompoms. His brothers, Duncan and Lachlan, wrestled into goalie gear.

“Are you paying any attention?” Kieran jabbed a pointy elbow into Callum’s gut. “I’m not going to be able to win this if my right wing’s head isn’t in the game.”

“Where’s Rupert?”

Kieran’s smile was gleeful. “He’s getting changed. Come on, he’ll be out in a minute.”

Callum’s dad dumped a bag of pucks on the ice and the warm ups began with the scattering of little black biscuits across the ice. Callum stopped to double check Christian’s helmet was fitted correctly, then sent him off and turned to start his skate.

He was arrested by the sight of Rupert practically running out of the locker room with the confident gait of a man long used to wearing skates, his smile wide as he burst through the open door and out onto the ice in his brand-new black-and-white-striped referee’s shirt. As always, he was the embodiment of grace as he flew across the ice. Then he turned, executing a perfect pirouette, and Callum’s mouth fell open.

“Jesus Christ,” came Rhian’s reverent whisper at Callum’s elbow.

Callum could only nod and stare at Rupert’s glorious, round, perfect, and, honestly,
enormous
butt in those tight black pants.

Savannah caught sight of Rupert and promptly tripped over a puck. Garrick caught her elbow, then he, too, froze. Callum’s
mother
even stood up for a better view as Rupert flew past their seats.

Chance slid to a stop at Callum’s side and spit his mouthguard into his glove. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said with frank admiration.

Callum growled, “Eyes to yourself,” then glared daggers at Rhian, who was still watching Rupert with a slack jaw and zero shame.

“
Eyes to yourself!
”

Rhian managed to look chagrined even as he burst out laughing.

Rupert, apparently oblivious, executed a series of complicated steps, nimbly working his way around and over pucks as if they were a training exercise. Kieran sighed, audible from twenty feet away. Chance frowned and took off toward his husband.

Serves them both fucking right
, Callum thought grimly. He had no doubt who was responsible for this. He’d heard all about the impromptu shopping expedition last night.

Garrick was the next to pull up to Callum’s side. “I do believe,” Garrick said thoughtfully, “that only Rupert could make polyester look that good.”

Callum was about to tell Garrick to fuck off, but then Rupert bent at the waist to scoop a puck from the surface of the ice. Callum almost swallowed his tongue.

Garrick’s knowing chuckle caught in his throat with a rough gurgle. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Callum replied intelligently.

“Let’s play!” Callum’s dad shouted. He shook his head sadly at the group standing in the middle of the rink with their mouths hanging open. “
Now.
”

Everyone snapped out of their bubble-butt-induced stupors and quickly cleared the ice of extra pucks. Most of them had barely warmed up, but no one questioned the need for the game to get underway, least of all Callum, who was seriously considering breaking the no-checking rule the next time he caught someone leering at Rupert.

Rupert made a wide and graceful arc across the ice before coming to a stop on the red line between their two centers, Kieran and Chance. For a disgustingly happily married couple, these two were infamously hyper-competitive pricks when faced with each other on the ice. Now, though, instead of glaring each other down, they both leaned back a little, just to sneak another peek.

Callum whacked his brother on the ass with his stick. Hard.

Chance smirked until Rupert dropped the puck and Kieran won it cleanly.

For the sake of Callum’s sanity, it was a good thing the game took over from there. He could admit that on a few occasions he mishandled the puck because at least half his brain was focused on the hope of handling something else in the very near future, but he didn’t completely embarrass himself.

The best part, though, was watching Christian play for the first time without his father looking on. He laughed and scrambled and skated his damn heart out with a stamina Callum couldn’t hope to emulate, and hadn’t been close to since he was a teenager. Christian was a damn good hockey player, and every single person on the ice, whether teammate or opponent, made a point to tell him so at least once.

Callum really, really loved his family. The one he was born to, and the one he had made.

He’d clung to hockey for most of his life. Made it the most important thing, superseding all else. And it had been a wild and wonderful ride.

Perhaps that was why, right in the middle of a game, he figured out what he really wanted. And how to get it.

Rupert was perfectly aware that his trousers were too tight. Honestly, how could he not be, particularly with the disturbing presence of his first-ever jock strap and cup in there with his already admittedly over-sized bum.

He’d argued with Kieran in the sporting goods store, but had been foolish enough to let it go, figuring the fabric might stretch with wear. Having never worn such high polyester content in his life, he’d had no idea just how much it would continue to
cling.

And Kieran, the sneaky devil, had assured him there was no reason to try on the cup with the pants in the store. Rupert had been so embarrassed by the entire purchasing process, and his ignorance around the equipment involved, that he hadn’t argued. He’d been terrorized enough by Kieran asking if he needed a larger size.

Fortunately, it seemed Kieran was getting some of his own back—pardon the expression. Chance seemed rather enamored with the final results of his husband’s trickery, and the longer he went on examining Rupert’s
assets
, the more Kieran scowled. Rupert felt abundantly justified when he bent to pick up a puck and canted his arse in the general direction of Chance just a little more than was strictly necessary.

What Rupert hadn’t counted on was Kieran blatantly hooking his stick around Chance’s knee and sending him sailing right into the boards on his back.

Rupert whistled so loud and long, even his ears rang. With a stern frown for Kieran, he pointed at the penalty box.

Kieran opened his mouth to protest, but it was Chance, of all people, who leaped to his feet and his husband’s defense.

“You can’t give him a penalty!”

Rupert made a show of looking down at his black and white striped shirt, then back at Chance. “Oh yes, I can.” And he’d enjoy the hell out of it, too.

Chance skated close, until he was looming over Rupert. He was a frightfully big man, almost six and a half feet with shoulders out to there. Rupert stuck his chin up and attempted to stare him down from below.

A skirmish broke out in his peripheral vision and Rupert glanced over to see Rhian and Garrick barreling down on them, ready to come to Rupert’s defense. Callum stopped them with a hand on each.

 “He’s got this,” Callum said.

Yes, Rupert sure as hell did. He raised his eyebrows at the husbands Morrison-McCormick then gave Kieran a pointed look.

“Get thee to the penalty box.”

“For what?” Kieran cried, outraged. “He’s not mad!”

“Oh, is that how it works now? He’s not mad?”

“He didn’t do anything,” Chance announced.

“He didn’t…
honestly
. He tripped you, while hooking
and
slashing. I’m not even sure which is the penalty best suited to this occasion. Maybe I should give him all three and add a boarding for good measure!”

“You will not,” Chance said, looming larger, his scowl ferocious.

Rupert slammed his hands onto his hips. “How about you go with him for unsportsmanlike conduct?”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I bloody well would, you big oaf,” Rupert snapped, pushing Chance back with both hands on his chest. “And you can bloody well give me some fadoodling space. I won’t be bullied by the likes of you.”

Chance wore a bemused smile. “Fadoodling?”

Kieran snorted and Rupert’s shoulders dropped as a grin fought its way onto his face. He shot Kieran a look. “And fadoodle you, too.”

Snickers from behind him caught his attention, and Rupert turned to see the rest of the Morrison family grinning at him.

“You’re getting pretty bad-ass, Rupert. You’ve been spending too much time with hockey players,” Savannah said.

“I suppose I have,” Rupert conceded, noticing how Garrick studied him. The last time he’d seen Garrick, Rupert had practically thrown himself into his own filing cabinet in terror. Of Callum.

Too much time with hockey players, indeed. It turned out that not only were they not all that scary, a shocking number of them hid a soft and gooey center behind their scarred-up shells.

He almost wished Alexei were here to bellow something at him. He wondered if he’d succumbed to the hockey version of Stockholm syndrome.

He was interrupted from that thought by the loud crack of Callum’s helmet hitting the ice, followed closely by his stick, gloves, and even his mouthguard—which, actually, was pretty gross.

What on earth was Callum doing?

Rupert stiffened, alarmed when Callum skated directly toward him. Rupert opened his mouth to protest whatever Callum was about to do, but then Callum’s hands landed on his hips and pushed him backwards. Years of being forced to work with a partner kept Rupert on his skates as Callum threaded them between Kieran and Chance, picking up speed until, at the last moment, he cupped the back of Rupert’s head and Rupert’s back met the immovable surface of the boards.

Then Callum kissed him, long and deep and without a care for the catcalls and hoots of laughter surrounding them and echoing from the rafters. Rupert’s hands flailed uselessly at his sides, his face on fire, until he finally gave in and kissed the stubborn, beautiful, ridiculous man back.

Honestly, he loved him so much.

By the time Callum removed his tongue from Rupert’s mouth, there were cries of unfair advantage and conflict of interest. Rupert just sighed and stared into Callum’s warm, smiling eyes.

He’d never felt safer. More cared for. Loved. And not just by Callum. Every shouted insult, accusation, and blatant innuendo warmed him.

Definitely hockey’s version of Stockholm syndrome, then.

And there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to keep it. This. All of them.

“Callum, I—”

“All right, kids, back to work!” Bruce Morrison bellowed. “We still have twenty-two minutes of hockey to play.”

Rupert looked over Callum’s shoulder and burst into laughter. “Your father has his hand over his eyes.”

Callum looked for himself and grinned. “Guess we better play before we scar the old man for life.”

Rupert agreed, promising himself he’d come back to what he was going to say the moment they set foot back in the house, even if he had to drag Callum to the bedroom to do it. He could only imagine the commentary that would generate.

While Callum put himself back together, Rupert escorted a docile Kieran to the penalty box. He kept expecting him to argue, or for Chance to jump in again, but they couldn’t seem to be bothered to do anything but smile at Rupert like he’d done something wonderful.

Callum charged into his parents’ house and up the stairs, desperate to strip off his gear and get into the shower. He didn’t know what, exactly, he was going to say to Rupert, but he was going to be goddamn romantic about it. Which meant he shouldn’t smell like old hockey socks and armpits. As a start, anyway.

By the time he’d made it back downstairs, Rupert and the boys had been pressed into service by his mother to help put out the snacks that his family was falling on like a pack of wild dogs. Hockey was hungry-making.

Callum munched on whatever was closest, which turned out to be peppers and hummus. He briefly considered running back upstairs to brush his teeth, since garlic breath didn’t seem like much of an improvement over eau d’ hockey, but then Christian was grabbing his arm and pulling him down to whisper in his ear urgently.

“Make them stop!” he hissed.

Callum looked around at his family, confused. They were loud, and ridiculous, and Angus had fewer manners than an orangutan when he was this hungry, but Callum couldn’t understand what the problem was.

“Mom, what did you put in this guacamole? It’s delicious,” Duncan said.

“Oh, it’s just something I fadoodled up,” Mary said blithely.

Christian cringed like she’d run her nails down a chalkboard. “Oh, my god,” he muttered.

Rupert came over and leaned in close. Callum barely resisted the urge to press his nose behind Rupert’s ear and inhale deeply. God, he
needed
that.

“Is something wrong?” Rupert asked.

“I have no idea,” Callum admitted. “Christian seems to have taken a strong dislike to fadoodle.”

Christian burst into hysterical giggles, further confusing Callum. “Stop it!”

“What? What on earth is the matter with you, Christian?” Rupert asked, apparently as bewildered as Callum.

“You have to make them stop saying it. You have to make
your mother
stop saying it,” he hissed.

“Saying what?” Callum asked. “Fadoodle?”

“
Yes
.”

“Whatever for?” asked Rupert.

“Oh, my god. You don’t know,” Christian said, groaning into his hands.

“We don’t know what?”

“I looked it up. I looked up fadoodle on the internet.”

“Yes? So?”

Christian turned so vividly red, Callum could feel the heat coming off his cheeks. “It’s old English. A fadoodle was a, you know…” Christian waved between their bodies. When he took in their blank looks, he rolled his eyes. “It means
penis.
And, you know, when you use it like an action, like a verb, it means you’re, well, you know,
the same thing as the word you keep replacing it with.
”

“Oh, good god,” Rupert muttered at the exact same time Callum’s mother announced, “My goodness, I love a good fadoodling.”

Christian groaned in horror. Callum absolutely cracked up.

Were it not for Rupert’s steady grip on his flailing arm, Callum might have hit his head on the table as he doubled over with laughter, wheezing with it, until tears poured down his face.

His family looked on with shock and awe.

“Didn’t he used to be the grouchy one?” Murdoch asked no one in particular.

He had! Callum had been the cranky sonofabitch no one wanted to be around because he was so miserable with himself. But not anymore. Now he was so fucking happy, he was crying in his mother’s kitchen.

Callum gasped for breath and held out a hand. “Come here, Oliver.”

Oliver, to his credit as an intelligent boy, looked at Callum warily, but he slid off Savannah’s lap and took Callum’s hand. Callum gently nudged him to Rupert’s side and put Oliver’s hand into his brother’s instead, so that both boys stood with Rupert.

Then Callum fell to one knee.

The room went completely still and silent.

“Rupert Douglas Macalister Smythe, you are the love of my life.”

“
Holy shit
,” whispered someone at the table.

“There is nothing I want to do more,” Callum continued, undaunted, “than spend the rest of my life taking care of you. All three of you.” He looked at the boys, who both appeared as dumbstruck as Rupert. “I love you. I love our family. I want to be there for your first day of school and your obnoxious teenage years, and to show your first serious boyfriends or girlfriends embarrassing pictures of you.” He met Rupert’s gaze and hoped like hell those were tears of joy. “I want to grow old with you. I want to raise these kids as ours and maybe, someday, if it’s okay with all of you, we can have a baby. Or seven. I’m sure Mike and Alexei can make room for us.”

Callum paused. Maybe that was too much? Seven was a lot. Even his mom would say so.

“So, Rupert?” Callum asked, nervous and happy and so fadoodling terrified. “Will you marry me?”

Callum couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, until Rupert’s hand cupped his cheek. “You are crazy,” he said quietly.

Which…wasn’t a yes. But it wasn’t a no, either.

Callum hung there, waiting. Heart pounding. Hands sweating. His cheek still nestled in Rupert’s palm.

Rupert smiled.

A great cheer went up, and Oliver flung himself against Callum’s chest as chairs scrapped across the floor.

Then Rupert said, “But what about Denver?”

The room fell silent again.

Callum shrugged. “I’m going to retire.”

“What?” Rupert gasped. “Can you just do that?”

“Yes, I can. And I want to. I’ve had a good run, but, god, what does it say that I won’t even miss it? You can’t leave Moncton and the Ice Cats, and the boys’ home,
our
home is there. I refuse to spend another night away from you that I don’t have to. My agent is a wizard. Anna will get it done and tie it all up with a bow.”

“That’s true,” Duncan volunteered.

“It can be her wedding gift to us. What do you say we invite everyone we know and love up into these mountains and have a big party of a wedding?”

Now Rupert frowned. “Actually, we can’t.”

“What?” Kieran gasped, voicing Callum’s horror exactly.

“We’ll have to marry in England, I’m sorry to say,” Rupert explained, and Callum’s heart started beating again. “You are, after all, an unusual choice for the next Countess of Weckfordham. It will be interesting to present you to the Queen.”

“Does he mean the Queen of
England
?” Rhian asked.

“I think he does,” Lachlan whispered.

Callum swallowed hard. “Okay,” he said weakly. This aspect of the whole thing hadn’t really occurred to him.

“Rupert, lad,” Callum’s dad called out, “can we at least wear our kilts, then?”

Oliver peeked over Callum’s shoulder. “Our cousin is the chief of the clan Macalister, Mr. Morrison. Of course we can.”

Callum didn’t think he’d ever seen a brighter smile on his father’s face. “That’s grandpa to you, young man.”

Callum looked back up at Rupert. “So, what do you say, duchess?”

Rupert laughed and fell to his knees, and Christian fell along with him, leaving them in a tight knot in middle of his mother’s kitchen floor.

Rupert pressed a sweet kiss to Callum’s lips. “I love you. You’ve given me a gift I can never repay. My family. Our family. So, yes, Callum Morrison, I will definitely marry you.”

This time, there was no stopping the cheers, or the pile-on as his family came to congratulate them.