My hand went to my stomach to settle it, but nothing helped.
“Hang on tight,” he said. “Few minutes and I’ll get you out of this car.”
It wasn’t the car, or the motion, making me sick.
It was fear.
In Chicago, I’d known the team. Garrett and I had been so close, I’d hung out with them often. Yeah, we’d been teased about being friends or more or whatever else the guys said, but I’d known them.
“I’m not sick, I’m nervous,” I admitted. “About the guys on your team. The people here.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it and hell, you know Joey won’t let anyone say shit about you.”
Joey Taylor, the youngest of the Taylor brothers. One of his older brothers, Jude, was married to my best friend, Katie.
“You’re right. It’ll be fine.” I wasn’t so sure. There was still Nadia, who he’d told me there wasn’t anything going on, but her brother was on the team. What did he know? Or think? And outside the pictures of them, he hadn’t said what had happened between them.
“You look like you’re going to throw up.”
“Yeah, well… that’s my standard look these days.”
He huffed, but there was no humor in this. Now that we were here, pulling through his neighborhood, the car slowed down and he was pulling into a driveway, three-car garage—two straight ahead, one to the left with a gated door between them—that ball of nerves in my stomach climbed to my throat.
He had to park the Suburban at an angle inside his garage in order to get it to fit and I climbed down, sliding my hands down my jeans and already hating my choice in clothing.
“It feels gorgeous.” I lifted my hands in the air, soaked in the warm weather, the sun heating my skin instantly.
“Tell me about it. Hence the reason why I want the pool.” He popped open the back of his SUV. “Which suitcases do you need immediately? Any of them? I’ll come get the rest later once we get settled and I show you around.”
“Oh, um…” I couldn’t even remember what I’d packed or what I’d thrown where outside the suitcase containing my bathroom items and my carry-on. And crap. Had I really packed everything I owned. I looked up at Garrett, embarrassed and shocked. Welcome to my daily kind of crazy. “I have no idea where anything is.”
He laughed, bent down, and brushed his lips over my cheek. “I’m not surprised. Come on. I want you to see my place.” He held out his hand and like magnets, mine found his. “I’m really happy you’re here with me.”
And just like that, the ball of nerves in my stomach popped like a balloon. Maybe all I needed was Garrett, smiling down at me with his slightly crooked smile, partly hidden by his beard. His wild, untamed curly hair was way too long but sexy as hell, and he looked down at me with that look in his eyes that proved his honesty.
“Me too.”
His gaze darkened and heated before he let go and reached into the back. Yanking out three bags, he threw one strap over his shoulders and carried the others in. I followed him around the SUV, through the sparkling clean and sparse garage—nary a yard cleaning tool or speck of grass in sight—and into his house. He opened the door and those nerves took flight again, but this time, not out of fear. With excitement.
This was his home. A place where he would live for the hopefully, foreseeable future, and he’d not only invited me into it, he wanted me there. We hit a mudroom slash laundry room first. Piles of hockey gear were stacked in one corner, skates hung from hooks, and practice jerseys and athletic shorts were in piles. Other than that, it was large and spacious with cream tile everywhere leading into what looked like the kitchen just beyond.
“I’ll leave this shit here and we can sort through everything in a while and after I bring in the rest of your stuff.”
“I can help with that.”
His gaze dipped to my stomach and then lifted, slowly. “No. You can’t.”
One of my hands flew to my hip. “I’m pregnant, not an invalid or incapable. Women have been doing this since the beginning of time, you know.”
“I do.” He stalked toward me, closing the small space in two quick strides and moving so fast I was pinned to the wall behind us before he stopped. “But you’re also pregnant with my baby. And you’re you. So I’m not taking chances and you’re just going to have to deal with the fact that while I know exactly who you are, and that you’re capable of every damn thing you set your mind to, this…” His hand settled at my hip and slid to my stomach, creating a maelstrom of emotions flooding my body and sent prickles of lust down my spine. “This is something you don’t have to do alone. I’m here to take care of you—both of you—so you’re just going to have to deal and let me do my job. Got it?”
He was teasing. Those lips of his curled with humor, but his eyes told a different story. They were heated. They were hot with desire. And probably his need to protect me.
“I get it.” I nodded and breathed out the words on a sigh that held not a small amount of lust right back. “I’ll try to be more accommodating in the future.”
He smirked at my sass and bent down, kissing my forehead. “See that you do.”
I huffed and shoved him off me. This was where we excelled. Flirting and playfulness. It shouldn’t have surprised me we’d be able to be us so quickly, with so much between us, but it shouldn’t have shocked me either. We’d always been friends. It was the more than friends where we stumbled.
We’d figure it out though. With time. Possibly a communication coach on speed dial.
“Come on. I want you to see my house.”
He gripped my hand and strolled us into the kitchen. It was large, impersonal, like he hadn’t had time to decorate a thing, but his furniture from Chicago was all there. All modern and chrome and black leather looking completely out of place with the cream tile, light oak cabinets. and off-white walls.
But the space was gorgeous. A kitchen island with cream marble countertops, four barstools, opened straight out to the living area where a massive television screen was plastered onto the wall. The kitchen was enormous. Two double ovens, a six-burner stove top. The island even had one of those smaller, veggie washing sinks in addition to the large kitchen sink that overlooked the backyard.
“This is great,” I said, trying to think of all the positives. In truth, the space was. The rest? It wasn’t him. At all.
“It’s shit, but it was the best thing I could find in the location I wanted. I want to have it redone, make it more me eventually. Was planning on doing it this off season.”
That made more sense.
“I think it needs to be lightened. Match the furniture more.”
“We’ll figure it out.” He said it without a second thought. That we’d figure it out. Not him. And that nervous excitement pulsing through me spread faster, hotter.
We might have still had things between us to overcome and we both knew it, but he had no doubt I’d be there to do so.
That… that made me want to drop to my knees, thank him with my mouth, right then and there. I cleared my throat so I didn’t do something that stupid. Slow, he’d said he wanted.