“Sounds like a blast,” she said with a roll of her eyes. It was good-humored, though, and paired with a small smile.
The back door opened and Tank ran out. Ricky stood in the threshold, his eyes on Jordan, and the back of Asher’s neck tingled.
“J, you okay?” Ricky called out.
“Yeah.” She stepped into the circle of Ricky’s arms.
Son of a bitch.
Ricky murmured something to her, then walked into the house, his arm around her shoulders.
Shiff appeared in the doorway next, shaking his head.
“What the fuck?” Asher asked. Because seriously. What was going on right now?
“Bitches, man.”
“Shiff.”
“Sorry.”
Ash clapped him on the shoulder, watching Ricky and Jordan through the window as they chatted next to her car. “Know anyone who can play the keyboard?”
In a rare display of emotion, Shiff’s shoulders shook with laughter.
Chapter 23
I can’t remember the last time I ate a fish stick,” Asher commented.
“Really?” Gloria put the baking sheet in the sink and turned on the water, scrubbing the remnants of panko bread crumbs from it with a sponge. “I would think as a bachelor, you’d have a huge array of frozen foods at your disposal.”
“Oh, I do,” he said.
Glo peeked over her shoulder to see him cutting Hawk’s fish sticks into manageable chunks and explaining calmly that he can’t eat just yet because they were too hot. Hawk began wailing. Asher patiently picked up a piece, blew on it, and offered it to him. When Hawk cried again, Asher gave it to Tank, who ate it happily.
Hawk stopped crying and laughed.
Gloria and Asher exchanged a glance as Hawk accepted his next cooled bite from Asher without issue. Three-year-olds.
Gloria had woken from her nap disoriented and bleary-eyed. She’d listened at Asher’s closed bedroom door to two things: Hawk crying and Jordan’s muffled whining. She waited until they took to the deck and then ducked into Hawk’s bedroom.
Seeing the kid sitting there, tears dry, playing trains with Fonz, was enough to make her lose the strength in her knees. By the time Asher came back in after the hullaballoo in the living room, he’d found Gloria snuggled next to Hawk, her lips pressed to his head.
She hadn’t missed the heat and admiration that washed over Asher’s face. And she hadn’t hidden how happy she was that his little boy was home.
Home.
“I kept frozen food in my freezer in LA,” Ash interrupted her thoughts to say. “Prepared by a local organic meal place that delivers, along with my sushi and nutritional shakes, on a daily basis. Then I’d go on the road, or come to the Cove, and I gotta remember how to cook things all over again.”
“That’s why you have so much cereal,” she said, infusing her voice with wonder.
“Smart-ass.”
She grinned.
“Smart-ass,” Hawk parroted.
“No, bud,” Asher began, ready to lay down the parental law.
Gloria turned her back to the kid before she laughed and encouraged more lewd language.
They ate, the scene homey and comfortable, and Hawk, with the exception of not liking her tartar sauce—which was epic if she said so herself—was a dream for the remainder of the meal. That was saying something considering how tired he must be. What a day he’d had. Being toted on a long car ride to a theme park. Jordan had set out on a quest to prove all of them wrong—Asher and Gloria and her mother. Or maybe she’d cooked up that quest as a way to prove to herself she was a good mom.
Who knows what went on in Jordan Trudeau’s head?
What was most important was simple: Hawk was with Asher and he was safe. Nothing else mattered.
After dinner, Hawk proved more awake than he should be, watching the same cartoon three times before he gave up and closed his eyes. Then, he was out. Ash carried Hawk into his own bedroom, fully stocked with toys and everything a little boy needed, and laid him down to sleep.
Door shut behind him, Asher swaggered to her decked out in black jeans, a black tee, and black boots. He had a presence, a way of owning a room. Hell, he’d owned the entire conference center where Evan had first introduced Gloria to him. Only now, she knew Asher’s layers intimately. He was older, he was a father, and the backdrop of blue water and green hills and deep forest pines lent a comfortable, homey vibe to his badass rock god demeanor. Possibly the most intriguing thing was that he was able to pull off both at the same time.
His lips twitched at the corner, a subtle smile, and then he sat on the couch—really close. “Gloria Shields.”
“Asher Knight.”
“Known you a long time.”
Fact. She and Asher had known each other for a long time.