Page 49 of Canadian Boyfriend

The door swung open to reveal a thin woman with a severe gray bob cut in one of those slanted styles that was longer in the front than in the back. “Did you remember to—” The sight of me gave her pause.

“Merry Christmas. I brought a guest. Mom, this is Mike Martin. He’s my… landlord.”

I choked back a laugh. Our relationship was probably more nuanced than she wanted to get into with her mother. We’d joked about my being her “friend who kind of employed” her, and of course we’d stumbled over the wordnanny. But to hear her call me her landlord was so absurd, especially given the day we’d had so far, it made me want to cackle.

“Mike, this is my mom, Heather Evans.”

I stuck out my hand. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Evans. I found myself at loose ends this afternoon, and Aurora was nice enough to invite me to join you. I hope you don’t mind.”

Heather waited a beat before saying, “Of course not,” and that beat, that silence, said more than her words did.

Inside, I was directed to the living room while the women held a confab in the kitchen. They’d said they were going tocheck on the turkey, but I could hear them talking about me, so I eavesdropped.

“I wish you’d called ahead,” Heather whispered aggressively. “I’m not sure we’ll have enough food.”

“You’re always eating turkey for days after Christmas.”

“I like to have leftovers. And you know I like to make you a big pot of turkey-veggie chili. Turkey is one of the leanest sources of protein out there, if you stick to the white meat.” There was a pause, and when Heather spoke again, she sounded cheered. “Do you think your landlord will eat the dark meat?”

“I’m sure he will.”

“Heisvery handsome,” Heather said, as if my looks made up for some other unnamed but undesirable trait. “In a… rugged sort of way.” I stifled a snort. She should see me—and smell me—post–wood chopping. “Is he single?”

Aurora paused before saying, “He is,” and I sent her a silent thanks for not mentioning my widowerhood.

“You’d better run upstairs and use some of my concealer. Your freckles are coming through. It will be a little too dark for you, but it’s better than nothing. It’s in the top left drawer in my bathroom.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. That was not happening. I grabbed the champagne I’d brought and headed for the kitchen. “Hi. Sorry, I forgot to give you this.” Both women’s eyes widened. Yeah. It was a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, which even I knew was some fancy shit. We had a couple bottles left over from an end-of-season party Sarah and I had hosted a few years ago when the Lumberjacks had had a good run in the playoffs. I’d stashed one in my backpack at the last minute in case we needed some ammo against Aurora’s mom. What was a fraught family Christmas with the evil mother of my friend I sort of employed if not a special occasion?

“How thoughtful of you, Mr. Martin. Shall we open it now?” Heather looked me up and down, probably trying to reconcile my sloppy appearance with my bringing champagne.

“Call me Mike. And sure.”

“What is it you do, Mike?” She had no idea who I was, which was usually something that thrilled me. In this case, not so much. I found myself oddly willing—wanting—to use whatever bullshit status I had to bolster Aurora in her mom’s eyes.

“I play hockey for the Lumberjacks.”

She’d been working the cork out of the bottle, but she stopped and eyed me. “Do you now?”

“Sure do.”

She filled and distributed champagne flutes and led us to the living room, whereupon I was interrogated about how I’d met Aurora.

“Aurora’s my daughter’s dance teacher.”

“Is she now?”

What was the deal with this woman?Do you now? Is she now?Who talked like that, questioning every statement a person made? She sounded like a Disney villain. “We’re big fans of Miss Rory.”

“How lovely. Miss Miller’s is such a…” She performed the smallest of sniffs. “Special little place.”

And here I’d thought Renata was the reigning champion of saying words but having them mean the opposite of what they were supposed to mean. “Sure is.”

As we continued to talk, mostly about Aurora having moved into an “apartment” in my house, which I made sound like a legit separate unit, I realized two things. First, Aurora had been silent this whole time, a spectator while her mother and Italked, mostly about her. Second, I was starving. I hadn’t had lunch, what with the drama earlier, and it was going on four o’clock. I looked around for a bowl of nuts or something. There was nothing. I was no Martha Stewart, but even I knew to put out a bag of chips when people came over.

Since I couldn’t fix the second problem, I tried to tackle the first. “My daughter really loves Aurora’s classes. When her mother died”—I saw Heather’s eyebrows shoot up, but I pressed on, not wanting to get into it with her—“her psychologist asked her to name the two things that made her happiest, and one of them was Aurora’s class.”

“Did she now?” Heather said at the same time that Aurora exclaimed, “Shedid?”

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