“Hey!” She slapped his arm playfully.
“Sorry, defeated party,” he rephrased as he clapped his hands. “Chop chop, Jess is going to be here soon and I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little scared of her.”
Ali’s head fell back as she laughed and it sounded even more melodic than the oldies he’d been listening to.
“I’m serious,” he teased. “I spent a good fifteen minutes writing and rewriting my text before I sent it to her to ask if she was free today.”
“Shut up.”
He was joking about being scared of Jess, but he hadn’t been kidding about the text part. He knew that Jess would do anything for Ali so it wasn’t that he was scared to ask her to take Ali out on a girl’s day. He was worried that in this case she’d be all too happy to kill the messenger.
“I’m surprised that you didn’t have one of the twins ask her.”
“You don’t send a boy to do a man’s job.” He puffed out his chest and pounded on it once with his fist closed.
“That’s right, I forgot, you’re the Bad Man of MMA.” Her smile was a mile wide as she spun on her heel and practically skipped up the stairs.
Even though she’d protested, he could see that she was excited at the prospect of having a whole day off. It might’ve taken him longer than he’d wanted to make it back home, but now that he was here, his only goal was to keep her smiling. He wanted her and the twins to look forward to life again. It’s what Patrick would’ve wanted and Kade was going to do everything he could to take care of his best friend’s family and honor his memory. One rock-paper-scissors at a time.