Reflections on Ice Ch. 08

"I was thinking I'd love for you to meet my family, and see where I grew up."

Cassia's mind flashed back to that dinner with her friends, when they'd made all the suggestions about camping out and star-gazing in the Alberta countryside. "I'd love that, Dylan."

"Yeah? Great. I'll check out the flights and we'll see what works best."

"I like it." Cassia kissed him. "I actually had been thinking about making some changes this summer."

"What kind of changes?" Dylan reached for the sugar and stirred some into his coffee.

"Work."

Dylan looked at her, waiting for her to elaborate. Cassia looked down, feeling nervous for some reason. She'd only just started to consider a change in her career, and wasn't sure what he would think.

"Well, I love what I do, but I've been wondering more and more if I think I'll really be happy being a mechanic for the rest of my life."

Dylan's brows drew together. "This isn't anything to do with..."

"No." Cassia touched his hand and shook her head. "No, nothing like that. I've just been thinking and wondering, for myself. I can't imagine doing anything but working on cars, but what I really love, what I don't ever get to do, is rebuild cars."

Dylan's eyes widened. "Really? That's what you're thinking?"

"Yeah." Cassia grinned and started to explain. "A customer brought in this banged up old Pontiac a couple weeks ago and when we told him what needed work, he basically said, fuck it, and how much would we give him for the parts."

"Wow. That bad?"

She shrugged. "To him, maybe, but this car, it's got great bones, Dylan. I started thinking right away about how I could fix this or that, what it would look like with the interior gutted and redone, and the improvements I could make to the engine. I mentioned it to Kyle one night, and he started talking about fabrics and what materials I could use, and how they'd go together."

"Kyle?" Dylan blinked. "He's into design?"

"Yeah. That's the other thing. He finally told me why he'd left Austin." A frown drew her brows together as she recalled her brother's late night confession. "Apparently the guys on the swim team were giving him a hard time about Tyler and all, so that was a big part of it."

"Idiots."

"Tell me about it." Cassia shook her head. "But he said it was mostly that he didn't want to keep studying architecture and didn't know if he could do what he really wanted there."

"Which was?"

"Design. Not clothing necessarily, but interior and all that. Some of his classes dealt with design and he was way more interested in that than the other aspects of architecture."

"So he could help you with interiors, and colors and all." Dylan started to nod. "That's a great idea."

Cassia pressed against Dylan's side, wanting to hug him forever. He was so incredible, how he knew her thoughts before she even voiced them all. "Exactly! I'll be the mechanic and he'll be the designer. It'll be fantastic. I already talked to Dad and he was willing to let me use a bay for now, so I wouldn't even have to rent another space."

"That's great, Cassia." He bent close and kissed her, his expression excited.

"Even Tyler is interested." Cassia leaned her cheek on Dylan's shoulder, so thrilled to be able to share this with Dylan. Three months ago, she'd have been talking to herself in the mirror. Now, she felt like she had a whole team on her side, for everything.

"Tyler?"

"Yeah, he's finishing up his business degree. So he can totally help with that angle and everything."

"That's awesome. It seems like it's all meant to be."

Cassia looked up into his eyes. "Do you think so?"

"I really do." He kissed her again, lingering a little this time, kicking Cassia's heart rate into high with no effort. "I think you should do it."

"I think I'm going to." She let out a laugh and squeezed his arm and sat back. "It's terrifying, but exciting all at once."

"I know how you feel. It's how I felt after I was drafted, and before I started playing. Nerve-wracking." He turned a grin on her. "But you'll do great, I know it."

She grinned back. "I was thinking of brainstorming some more this week, really get into some details, but maybe I'll wait until after Vegas now."

Dylan nodded. "Good idea. It's a lot to plan in a week. Plane, hotel. Where do you want to stay?"

"I don't know. I've never been. Have you?"

"Only once, when I turned twenty-one." He pulled his phone out and pulled up a list of hotels. "There's the Luxor, Paris, the Bellagio..."

Cassia looked over his shoulder. "I don't really care. It's only for the weekend, and once Janis tells me where they're getting hitched, we'll pick whatever is closest."

"Sounds like a plan." Dylan tucked his phone away and gave her a look.

"What?"

His eyes narrowed. "You're not thinking of doing anything crazy while we're there, are you?"

"Crazy?" She laughed. "Like what, getting married ourselves?" At Dylan's shocked look she laughed harder. "No, Dylan. We're nowhere near ready for that."

Dylan let out a breath. "Jesus, I was talking about gambling." After another few seconds, he joined in her laughter. Yet another thing she loved about Dylan, that they could joke and laugh about something like that.

"You know what I should do, is get you to a poker table and be your arm candy one night while you wipe the table with the other players."

She laughed. "Oh God, I don't know about that. It's one thing to get lucky at a charity casino with toy chips. Vegas is a whole other ball game."

"Ball game?" Dylan arched his brows, making her laugh again.

"OK, a whole other hockey game?" She shook her head along with Dylan. "Yeah, doesn't roll off the tongue quite the same, does it?"

He leaned close, putting his lips close to her ear, which she loved. "I think we could both figure out better things to do with our tongues anyway."

She nodded and turned her head to kiss him. "Your place or mine?"

"Well, there are a few spots at my place that I've been wanting to test out."

Cassia laughed and jumped up. "Let's go!"

"God, I do love you, Cassia." He dropped a few bills on the counter and stood up.

"And I know you do."

She turned her face up for his kiss as they exited the diner. She wasn't sure how long they stood on the street corner, making out, or how many times he pulled the truck over so he could kiss her again and again on the way back to his place, but she was sure she loved every one of them.