Page 194 of Only Ever You

Dad blinks. “What do you mean?”

“What if we plan a wedding?”

My jaw unhinges as I turn to look at Uncle Colton. What is he talking about?

“A wedding?” Dad asks.

A crooked smile tips up Uncle Colton’s lips. “Yeah. One where you’d get to walk Isla down the aisle. Get to have a father-daughter dance.”

Michael’s line jumps over the boards, and the crowd roars, but our dads are completely locked in on each other.

“If we do this, would you stop pouting? And stop giving my son the silent treatment?”

Dad bristles. “I’m not fucking pouting.”

“You are.” Uncle Colton snorts.

“I’m allowed to feel sad.”

“Of course you are.” His friend nods. “But if we throw a wedding for them, would you stop being sad?”

Brows pinched, I look from one man to the other. Don’t they think they should ask Michael and me first?

Dad shrugs. “Yes.”

With a diabolical grin, Uncle Colton holds out his hand. “Then we have a deal.”

Without hesitation, Dad accepts the gesture. “Deal.”

Utter bafflement shrouds me. “Excuse me?” I practically cough out. “Shouldn’t you ask what Michael and I want?”

Both men stare at me, not bothered in the slightest by my glaring.

“Dad?” I ask. He only holds my gaze, so I turn to my left. “Uncle Colton?”

He shrugs, wearing a shit-eating grin.

Hackles rising, I sit ramrod straight. “Don’t you think you should ask us first? It was our decision to elope. We didn’t want a big wedding.”

Dad squints at me and then peers around me to Uncle Colton. The smile that blooms on his face could only mean one thing—trouble. And Michael’s dad’s expression matches.

“No one is talking about a big wedding,” Dad states. “A small gathering will suffice.”

I blink. “A small gathering?”

Uncle Colton nods.

I look at my dad, then at Michael’s, my stomach plummeting. “Oh my God. You did this on purpose!”

The timing of this conversation. Me sitting between them. Their argument. The guilt-trip Dad laid on me. The handshake. None of it was a coincidence.

Dad pats my knee. “Don’t worry, baby girl. We’ll help you plan.”

Uncle Colton pats my shoulder. “It’ll be great.”

I stare at them, then at the ice, then back at them, sputtering. They played me.

The crowd around us roars, pulling my attention back to the ice. Michael takes a pass from Diaz and heads to the Dallas net. My heart thunders in my chest. He lifts his stick and then sends the puck to the back of the net over the goalie’s blocker into the far side.