Page 64 of Home Ice Advantage

“Uh, sure, okay,” Ryan said, still trying to process the conversation. “Eric...thank you?”

“Yeah, well. Let’s see how the conversation goes first before you start thanking me,” he muttered.

“Hey. With everything I’ve heard about your mom, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Shit, I have to start packing.”

Eric laughed and turned the car on again. “So maybe we should head back to your place instead?”

“Guess so,” Ryan said, feeling the weight of that shitty weekend lifting already.

He hadn’t really been expecting anything for Valentine’s Day, but this meant more than any gift or card or dinner could have. Eric had given him something he couldn’t have even imagined asking for. He exhaled, pressed his fingers against the cold glass of the window and, for a second, wondered at how quickly his life had changed in just a few months.

Eric still couldn’t entirely believe that he had done it. Was doing it. His hand wasn’t shaking when he called his mother, but it felt like it should be. Part of him still thought that maybe it might have been easier to just show up with Ryan, let her figure it out on her own. He knew she would have been fine, probably, but that wasn’t fair to Ryan.

Ryan, who had become important enough to him that Eric was breaking years of his own personal rules for the first time. Ryan, who was currently in his bedroom, playing Soundgarden on his tinny phone speaker while he packed his weekend bag. Eric could hear him singing along, his shitty, enthusiastic voice carrying.

“Éric!” she said when she picked up, delighted. “You missed your last call.”

“I’m sorry, ’Man, I’ve been busy. And I’ll see you very soon, you know.”

“I do. I’m looking forward to it. It’s been so long, tateleh.”

“I was actually calling to talk to you about the visit.”

You couldn’t put one past Rosa Aronson: as soon as the words were out of his mouth, her tone sharpened audibly. She wasn’t worried, necessarily, but she was focused in. “Is anything wrong? You don’t need to cancel, do you?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” He was shocked how calm his voice sounded. “I’m seeing someone—I have been for several months now—and I wanted to bring him home to meet you.”

In the long pause that followed, Eric died several painful deaths.

Finally, she said, “My boy, you have been seeing someone forseveral monthsand you are only just nowtelling your mother about it?”

“Maman, you heard me say he was a man, right?” With all of the fear that had built up about telling her, about wondering whether his mother’s age and tradition would have led her to disown him, it was almost a comical situation that the thing she was most upset about was that he had someone in his life and hadn’t told her. Of course it would be just his luck that his elderly mother had misheard him, now, when he’d finally gotten up the stones to tell her.

“Of course I heard that,” she said impatiently, “my hearing aid is working just fine. But you have been seeing this man for months and you have nottoldme? When I have been worrying about you being alone for so long? My darling, did you really think I would...”

“I really didn’t know, ’Man,” Eric said. The shame felt thick in his mouth, cloying and dirty. Not of who he was, but that he hadn’t trusted her to accept him. The heavy regret of wondering, now, whether his father would have been the same. “I didn’t know what to think. I’m sorry.”

There was another long pause. “No, tateleh.I’msorry. We should talk about this when you come home, but first...of course you should absolutely bring your boyfriend. I want to know about him first. What is his name? Is he Jewish? Does he have children...?” The hope in her voice was almost painful.

He thought:boyfriend?His brain immediately skipped over the word. “Thank you, ’Man. He’s not Jewish. He doesn’t have kids. His name is Ryan.”

“Ryan—Éric, youdidn’t.”

He had to laugh. Once again, in everything, his mother wasn’t worried about the fact that Ryan was a man, but that Ryan was his boss. She wasn’t wrong. “You’ll understand when you meet him, ’Man,” he said, finally. “He’s really...something.”

“Yes,” she said dryly, “considering the way you used to complain about him, he certainly must be. All right, Éric. We’ll talk about this when the two of you arrive. Do you have any dinners you’d like me to make?”

“‘Man, I don’t want you makinganydinners, I want you to rest. I’ll take you out—”

“The usual, then,” she cut him off. “I love you, tateleh. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” Eric said, although for the first time in many years, he was able to say it without qualifications. He hung up and looked at the phone screen for a second. His head was spinning, but he felt like laughing, like running into the bedroom and picking Ryan up and twirling him around in a fucking circle. The knowledge that Ryan would probably let him do it and laugh about it. Things certainly had changed over the last few months. He was still trying to play catch-up with his own life.

In the bedroom, Ryan was zipping his bag. He looked up, smiled and asked, “How’d it go?”

“We’re good,” Eric said, because it was easier than trying to explain anything else. “You’re going to have to help me bully her into going out to dinner instead of cooking, though.”

“Eric Aronson, I am notbullyingyour elderly mother intoanything—”