Page 84 of Canadian Boyfriend

“Yes, ma’am.” Mike Martin popped up and started stacking dishes.

She smirked and turned back to me. “I cook, but I don’t clean.” When I made to help Mike Martin, she said, “Ah, ah, ah!Onlyboys clean in my house!”

“She’s serious,” Olivia said. “I never have to do anything here.”

“When you’re the only woman in a house of men, you have to draw some lines in the sand,” Diane said, blowing a kiss to the table. “Nighty night.”

“Liv, go get ready for bed,” Mike Martin said over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen. “I’ll come tuck you in when I’m done here.”

“I’m going to take your presence here as permission to take a night off cleanup duty,” Ed said, and, after wishing us a good sleep, he disappeared down the hallway.

Which left me alone in the dining room. I tiptoed into the kitchen as if Diane had invisible booby traps set to catch any feminine cleaning infractions.

“Hey,” Mike said with a yawn.

“Am I even allowed to be in here?”

He clicked on the smile. “Yes, but she’s serious about the not-cleaning thing.”

“Shenevercleans?”

“She’ll clean in the day-care setting—picking up toys,clearing up the kids’ lunches—but other than that, nope. She does all the cooking. And shecooks. She makes full breakfasts, she used to pack our lunches every day, and somehow we always had home-cooked dinners even though half the time we were eating them out of Tupperware because we were driving all over the place for hockey. She’s always said there were three of us and one of her and all of the cooking versus one-third of the cleaning was a more than fair trade-off. So my brother and I got schooled from a young age in the domestic arts—well, the noncooking domestic arts. You can see now why I can’t cook for shit.”

“Ihavealways thought you had mad dishwasher-loading skills, though.”

“I tried to hire a house cleaner for them once, but she wasn’t having it.”

I was starting to see what Mike Martin meant about his parents instilling humility in him.

He closed the dishwasher, pressed his hands against his lower back, and sighed.

“You OK?”

“Just tired.” He stretched. “And creaky from driving.” As he extended his arms toward the ceiling, his shirt rode up and exposed his hockey-player abs.Isighed.

“Hey,” he said, yawning again as he finished his porno stretch and opened the fridge. “How much would you mind if you crashed here tonight and I took you to the hotel tomorrow? I really want to crack a beer, power through this cleaning, and crash.”

“I wouldn’t mind.” The hotel had been about me not wanting to impose, but if staying here was the lesser imposition, I was happy to do so.

So I went to bed in Mike Martin’s childhood room. He hadn’t been kidding about the single bed, though I was plenty cozy. The walls were plastered with pictures of hockey players I didn’t recognize other than Wayne Gretzky. And just to prove how cool Mike Martin was, he had some pictures of women players in and among the dudes. I read the unfamiliar names: Hayley Wickenheiser, Cassie Campbell.

“Olympians,” he’d explained when I remarked on it. “Salt Lake City, 2002.Epicgame. I had a massive crush on Cassie Campbell when I was a kid.” He smirked. “Still kinda do. She’s on ESPN now.”

I drifted off to sleep under an impossibly soft quilt Mike Martin’s mom had no doubt made, next to a poster of his childhood crush, marveling over the fact that I was here.

18—DOUBLE-DOUBLE

RORY

I awoke to the sounds of happy kid babbling. I got dressed and went to the dining room, where I found Diane hanging out with a baby in a high chair and a toddler in a booster seat.

“Good morning!” she said, pausing in feeding the baby.

“Goo mornin’!” the toddler shouted.

“Mike went for a run, but he should be back soon,” Diane said.

“Mike is back.” Mike Martin strolled in all sweaty, and I was suddenly thrust back to the mall when I’d thought he was talking about himself in the third person. Could I ever have imagined then that I’d be in his house? InCanada? Guilt fired inside me.

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