I grabbed my phone and sent him a text, telling him exactly that.
His reply was almost immediate. Wasn’t nearly as funny to me as it was to you last night.
I could apologize, but I wasn’t sorry. I could say it wouldn’t happen again, but I wasn’t a liar.
Me: Next time I’ll be quieter.
Garrett: Next time, I’ll be in the room with you and it won’t be your fingers getting you off.
Oh….
I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face before exhaustion took me and I fell asleep.
But my dreams that night? Divine.
15
Garrett
Killing me. She was killing me and it’d been less than twenty-four hours since we got off the plane. Lizzie in my kitchen, face slightly green, sipping her one cup of coffee with her hair pulled back, a beautiful mess with her sleepy eyes sliding to me as I entered was a thing of absolute beauty.
Also, pure fucking torture after what I heard her doing last night. Ironically, doing it while I was on my way to convince her to come to my room despite not wanting to move too fast. But that’s what we did, we jumped into the fire and then were burned by the flames.
I’d paused to turn around, head back to my room to go slow—a torture in itself—when I’d recognized that gasp, that mewl she made whenever I was deep inside her and she couldn’t hide.
She might have caught me in the aftermath of getting off, but hearing it?
Slamming my head into the wall couldn’t have been more painful.
It was nearly as bad as seeing that sweatshirt of mine she swiped back in college. The way it hung on her frame, hid every one of her curves. It didn’t matter. I’d long since seared the image of her body in my memory. But it did something to me to see her wearing her clothes, like she’d declared herself mine.
After a restless night of sleep, leaving me tired for my practice I had to get going to, the last thing I needed was to walk into the kitchen and have Lizzie sitting at a barstool, nibbling on crackers like a rabbit, and sipping coffee like she belonged in it. She blushed as soon as she saw me and turned her focus to her phone.
“Morning,” I muttered, my voice gruff from sleep and irritation. “Sleep well?”
“Like a baby,” she said, grinning while still blushing.
So we were going to skip right over the fact we’d both been caught pleasuring ourselves in the last twenty-four hours. Cool.
I went to the freezer, grabbed a bag of cut up frozen fruits and veggies I used in my morning smoothies and carried it to the blender. As I mixed everything and the whir of the blender permeated the air, Lizzie dumped her plate in the dishwasher and then turned, resting against the counter.
“You have practice today?”
I cut off the blender and grabbed a large cup from the cupboard. “Yeah. All day. Film and workouts and practice.”
Shit. I hadn’t even considered. For the next two weeks, I had no idea what she’d do during the day. I picked up my key ring and began twisting off one of my keys. It was to my Range Rover I had in Chicago when I signed my first contract. “I have my Rover in the one-car garage, if you need to go anywhere. Will you… be okay while I’m gone?”
She rolled her eyes and palmed the key. “I’ll be fine. I’ll get some work done and might make some calls to obstetricians and midwives. See if I can get in for some consults while I’m here.”
I was halfway through a drink of my smoothie and started choking on it when I heard the midwife. “You’re going to call doctors?”
She’d already mentioned moving here, taking the time to do this. It shouldn’t have hit me so hard.
Perhaps there was still a large part of me assuming she’d take off. “Lizzie…” I could barely speak. My throat closed up. I didn’t want to jump the gun on this, but this was something I had to know.
Lizzie looked at me wide-eyed. Maybe like I’d gone a bit crazy. And she was absolutely nonchalant as she said, “Yeah. When I move, it’ll help to have that settled already.”
“When?” She said when. Not if. “You just said when.” It came out on a breath. My knees were shaking. We’d talked. We’d talked a lot. Back in Chicago, she’d said she was considering it, but this sounded definite.
She gave me a rapid-fire blink, still looking at me like I was crazed. “I thought I guess you knew that. I mean, I even mentioned it at dinner with my parents.”
“I just.” Shit, she was really doing this. What in the hell was my hold up with her? Why couldn’t I trust she truly meant all of this? “You’d do that. You’d give up everything in Chicago. For me.”
Goddamn it. I was not going to cry before practice, and hell, I had to get going so I didn’t even have the time to break down, but shit. Last December, she’d said we’d figure it out and then essentially ghosted me. I’d truly doubted this would happen.
“Garrett. I love you. And we’re having a child. Starting a family. I already told you I want this with you.” Her head tilted to the side, adorable little confusion twisted her lips as she asked, “Where else would I be?”
Nowhere. That was where, because she belonged here. “Goddamn, I love you.”
I pulled her to me and slammed my mouth to hers before she could—or couldn’t say it back. She hadn’t yet. Not really.
Before I lost complete control, I set her back down, slowed the kiss and made sure we were both steady on our feet before I slid my hand down the side of her face, cupping her cheek. “If you couldn’t figure it out, that makes me really damn happy.” She laughed, but I had to get this back on track. I needed to get to practice and now I had to get rid of my erection along with the swelling in my chest. “So… midwives? Like a home birth or something?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Some do that, but I’d already looked in to some out here. They deliver in birthing centers, connected to hospitals but the moms are allowed a bit more freedom to move around.”
“Are you thinking a natural birth?” I had enough teammates to have heard a dozen horror stories of giving birth. How terrifying it could be. Emergency deliveries or surgeries. Women strapped with crap around their stomachs and unable to get out of bed.
“I don’t know.” She fidgeted with the key in her hand. “I guess I just want options. Hell, I might just decide to schedule a C-section and be done with it. I’ve had some friends do that, and with your schedule… maybe that’d be easier.”
“You’re due right around when pre-season begins.” Damn. That meant I’d have a newborn. Hell, maybe on the road when she went into labor. Maybe she had a point.
“We have time to make those decisions,” she said, cocking her head. “Don’t you need to get going?”
Yeah, but my heart rate was spiking, the back of my neck was sweaty and I was pretty sure if I tried to take a step, my knees would buckle. I gripped the counter and choked down the rest of my smoothie. “I think the reality of this is just starting to hit me and I might be having a panic attack,” I admitted.
Lizzie laughed, a throaty chuckle and shook her head like I was adorable. I was anything but. I wasn’t kidding about the panic attack, but the last time I had one was in my very first pro game I started as goalie. Pretty sure I swallowed more puke during that game and drank more water from my Gatorade bottle I kept on top of the net than was humanly healthy.