Always Only You by Chloe Liese (z-lib.org).epub

Lifting my cane, I poke the butt in question. “Men have been objectifying
women for millennia. Simply doing my part to settle the score.”
Ren laughs and reaches an arm toward me. I slip inside it and lean against his
chest, getting an up-close look at the goodness on the stove.
“Well, yum. What is it?”
He grins down at me and runs his hand along my arm, as if to make sure I’m
warm. Like he doesn’t understand that he’s a human furnace, radiating
comforting heat. “Kalops,” he says.
“Kalops.”
“Yep.” With a kiss to the top of my head, he taps the spoon free of liquid and
sets it aside. “Swedish beef stew. My mom’s recipe.”
“Why haven’t I ever met your mom? Or your dad for that matter?”
Ren’s eyes shutter, and he glances away, turning toward a pot of boiling
potatoes. “Dad’s an oncologist with too many balls in the air. Mom’s been pretty
busy with Ziggy since I signed. She’s had a tough time the past few years, and
Mom doesn’t like to leave her alone. Ziggy was…in a dangerous place for a
while. I don’t think my mom’s gotten over that.”
“Why couldn’t she just bring Ziggy to a game?”
Ren sighs. “You met her, Frankie. Going to an obscure diner is about as
much of the outside world as she can manage right now. A cacophonous space
like the arena would literally make her melt down.”
I know he’s not throwing around the term “meltdown,” either. One of the
things I admire about Ren is that he chooses his words wisely, that he believes in
the power and responsibility of language.
People use the term “meltdown” cavalierly, but in reference to autism, it’s a
very specific thing. When faced with sensory overload, meltdowns sometimes
looks like an adult having a tantrum or catatonically shutting down. It’s the body
and mind doing whatever they can to put the overwhelming input to a stop—an
emotional surge protector, the mental switch when an overflow of information
trips the mind’s circuit breaker. Meltdown is a survival instinct.
“Well, I get it,” I tell him. “You know I wear earplugs during games.” My
hip twinges with discomfort and wobbles a little. Before I take a spill and make
Ren crap his pants with worry, I grab one of the stools from his kitchen island
and ease myself onto it. “Still, it has to bum you out that your parents don’t
come.”
I do a tally of the family that I have observed at Ren’s games. Freya, the
eldest, who came with some hunk with Caribbean blue eyes and black hair—
Aiden, I think was his name. Ryder and Willa of course—they’ve come the
most. Then, the older brother, Axel, who came alone and looked like he’d