Page 9 of An Irresistible Force (Vancouver Vice)

She flipped her blonde ponytail and disappeared into the living room. I went down the hallway and into the bright white kitchen. There was a full spread of waffles, muffins, fruit, coffee, and bacon on the breakfast bar, and the rest of the Larson family was eating and drinking there. With their blond, healthy looks, they resembled an Ikea ad.

“God morgon,” I said, pulling out some of the Swedish Jes had taught me when we played in a World Cup tournament in Stockholm.

“Chris!” Dori, his wife, came over to hug me. “You speak more Swedish than I do.” The two of them had met in Kelowna when Jes moved here to play junior hockey. They had married young and had kids right away. Jes’s family lifestyle had always been the opposite of my bachelor one.

“His Swedish sucks,” Jes declared, as he rose to greet me with a shake and an arm slap. “The right term isgod förmiddag.”

“What? You said thatgod morgonwas good morning. Were you scamming me or something? Have I been going around saying ‘I’m a moron’ instead?”

Alexander, their youngest, began to giggle. I leaned over and high-fived him. Now my hand was sticky with syrup.

“No, but after eleven in the morning, you should saygod förmiddaginstead.”

“Too many rules,” I declared. I sat down beside Margie, the middle kid. She looked up from her phone, smiled at me, and then resumed texting. I poured myself an orange juice.

Dori nodded. “That’s what I always say when we go to Sweden. I had this vision of the Swedish as people who were totally free about things like politics, marriage, and s-e-x.”

“Cripes, Mom,” Alexander said. “I’m eleven years old. I can understand what you’re spelling.”

“Sorry, honey. Old habits die hard. Did you want some breakfast, Chris?”

“Thanks, but I ate at home. Everything looks great though.”

Jes snickered. “Chris doesn’t want to eat in case he gets a food baby. Now that he’s retired, things are beginning to deteriorate.” He was wearing tight biking clothes too, but Jes was naturally tall and thin. He had actually lost weight once he quit playing hockey and bulking up in the gym daily.

“I think Chris looks very hot in that outfit,” Dori declared.

“Mom!” Alexander protested. “Not appropriate.”

She ruffled her son’s hair. “Make up your mind. Do you want to hear about s-e-x or not?”

“I want to hear about sex. But I don’t want to connect sex with my parents in any way,” he replied.

“If your parents were not connected with sex, you would not be here,” Jes pointed out. For emphasis, he pulled Dori towards him and gave her a kiss.

“Gross.” Alexander turned his attention to his bacon and waffles to avoid all the PDA.

“Where are you two biking today?” Dori wondered.

“We’re driving up to Squamish and then biking to Pemberton,” Jes explained. We tried to do a long bike ride whenever the weather was decent. Golfing was fun, but biking was real exercise.

After Jes was done eating, we went out to the driveway to load his bike onto my Range Rover. A skinny teenaged boy with a skateboard walked up the driveway and nodded at us. That must have been who Lily was waiting for. We got in the SUV and took off.

“Jesus. Does Lily have a boyfriend already? It seems like yesterday I was giving her piggyback rides.”

“She does not have one boyfriend. She has multiple boyfriends.” Jes shook his head. “There is nothing like being the father of a teenaged girl to make you feel old. Do you know what she called me this morning? A mammal.”

“So? We’re all mammals, aren’t we?” My high school biology was pretty distant.

“No, it’s an acronym. M.A.M.I.L—Middle Aged Man In Lycra. She said it when she saw me in my bike shorts.”

Jes looked so completely pissed that I couldn’t stop laughing.

“What are you laughing at? You’re one too,” he said.

“No way, buddy. I’m not middle-aged yet. You’re the one who hit the big 4-0 last year.”

“Soon. Soon, Lucky, it will be your turn. And then I won’t have any sympathy for you.”

---