If he wasn’t leaving for a full week, returning next Friday, it’d be the perfect day.
Once he returned, we’d have thirty-six hours together before I was set to fly back to Chicago. Which meant this week, I had a lot of decisions to make and I wasn’t relishing the idea of having to make them with him flying up and down the West Coast for games.
Garrett zipped up his bag, tossed it to the side and then planted his hands next to my hips, towering over me. His hair was still wet from his shower, strands falling down over his ears and flipping out. He’d never looked sexier. “You’ll be okay? Now I feel like an ass for having you here and leaving you alone.”
I set my hand on that tie, a deep navy, and pretended I didn’t want to tear him out of the suit and have my wicked way with him or that I wasn’t going to miss him. This was part of the gig, right? Constantly saying goodbye and safe travels?
“I’m fine. Maybe I’ll get into some trouble while you’re gone.”
He chuckled and leaned in closer. “Yeah? Close all the bars down, partying it up?”
He was teasing. I wasn’t. Not entirely.
I shrugged. “No, I plan on calling some pool companies for backyard landscaping quotes.” Yesterday, while we were naked, we’d caught sight of the backyard through the windows and he’d given me his whole spiel of what he wanted to do. A raised hot tub with a waterfall into the pool. The sides of the pool landscaped with boulders and large stones to make it feel like something rustic or mountainous. Anything to hide the cement walls fencing in his home that felt like you were imprisoned when you looked outside.
He scowled down at me, scrunching up his nose. I leaned in and kissed it. “Don’t even think of doing that without me.”
One or two wouldn’t hurt. At least a starting point. “Okay.”
“Promise me.”
I kissed him and grinned. “I promise not to make life-changing decisions without your presence.”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s not what I said.”
“Close enough.”
Summer would be here soon. I’d be as large as the backyard. And it’d be hot. Sweltering. I’d pay for the pool myself if I had to.
“Relax, Garrett.” I laughed and gave him a shove off me. “I wouldn’t do that without you.” Not entirely. What harm could a few quotes do? They’d take days or weeks to get back the sketched designs, right? “I’ll work. Find my way around town. Find a library. Boring stuff but I’ll be okay here.”
“If you need anything, call Sophie.”
“She’s already invited me to get together for dinner and to watch the game with some of the other wives and girlfriends.”
Last night’s game had been much more chill than the previous. Maybe it was the seats and because we were surrounded by Viper fans, but security hadn’t been called once and Sophie only screamed at the refs a handful of times. We’d laughed, she’d filled me in on what the guys were like, knowing them longer than Garrett, the ins and outs of Dominick, the defenseman who had the team title Bad Boy. I hadn’t met him at Joey’s. When I asked Sophie said it was because he never hung around the team. Ever.
He didn’t, however, have any problems landing on the cover of gossip columns and being seen partying it up and down the Strip.
Sophie was fun. Easy to talk to. Easier to laugh with. I learned the other night that she was a private school teacher and rarely missed a home game.
“Good. I’m glad.” His head fell again along with his shoulders. “I still hate leaving you.”
I didn’t think his nerves were altogether about the baby. The last time we’d been separated, I hadn’t exactly been great with communication.
A ping of guilt pinched my chest. He might have said we were moving past everything, but did he trust me fully? I’d earn it.
I understood. So much of our issues had come from my hesitancy… for years, if I was being honest. But I was all in on this one. With him.
“Call me as often as you need,” I said, showing him I understood. We could do this. We could make it work and if he needed to get a hold of me eighteen times a day to learn I’d always be there for him from here on out, I had no problems with it.
“Yeah. I love you. You know that, right?” His voice did that low dip with a slow drawl thing that made my core tingle. Damn him. We didn’t even have time for him to fix that for me.
“Of course I do.” I all but shoved him off of me. “And I love you. Now get going or you’ll be late. I’ll be fine, I promise.”
“All right all right.” He snagged me by the back of my neck and pulled me to him, tugging me to my knees on the bed. “But I need my good luck kiss.”
He slammed his mouth to mine, kissed me until I was breathless and long after he finally dragged himself out the door, the taste of him still remained.
22
Lizzie
I followed the GPS through the streets of Vegas, avoiding the Strip like Sophie had suggested and pulled up to a security gate. After giving my name to the guard, I kept following the map on Garrett’s Range Rover’s screen, a car I could most definitely get used to driving even though I hated driving in general, and a few minutes later, pulled up to a gorgeous white painted house with black windows and black roof. So unlike most of the rest of the homes I’d seen in Vegas, Sophie and Braxton Lawson’s house looked like it could have been plucked out of a Country Living Magazine spread and plopped straight into the heat of the desert.
It was gorgeous, with a three-car garage to the right, space between that and the house where the driveway to what looked like a carriage house beyond. The driveway was curved, landscaping done so perfectly with a variety of bushes, flowering plants. and cacti they had to pay someone a fortune to maintain it all.
It was shocking, given how modest Sophie seemed. I’d anticipated a house more similar to Garrett’s or even Jude and Katie’s, but this home was more mansion-like and for the first time in a long time, my stomach flipped with nerves.
Fortunately, it had nothing to do with the baby bean inside me. After Garrett left earlier, I managed to drag myself out of bed, make myself my own banana smoothie, something I’d taken to liking after the first one he attempted in my own apartment, and managed a thirty-minute walk outside before needing to get to work. With the time difference, I was technically late, but Rachel didn’t mind so I put in a few hours of work, did research on starting my own business in Las Vegas, and after lunch and a quick nap, called it a day so I could rest up before a late night.
Now, that lingering exhaustion was starting to kick in, but I hoped since Sophie said she’d invited other wives and girlfriends over to have a girls’ night while we watched the men play, that the company would wake me up long enough to make it through their game.
In my purse, my phone vibrated as I climbed out of the car and I grabbed it immediately. Garrett had already called to tell me he’d gotten to Anaheim safely. He asked me what I was doing after their morning skate practice and I’d sent him three good luck memes sure to make him laugh before his game.
Checking the phone, I figured it’d be him, but instead it was Katie and I smiled as I read her text.