“Are you sure?” he jokes with me and pretends to scroll the list.

  “Nope, nothing.” I shrug. “I even checked under the dessert, and it’s not there.” He laughs out loud, looking over at me.

  “So, what does that leave us with?” he asks as we make our way over to his place.

  “This would go a lot faster if you just tell me what you want to eat,” I say, and we toss an idea out, and by the time we park in his parking spot, the food is already on its way to us.

  He gets out of the SUV, and I follow him meeting him in the back where the trunk is. He grabs his luggage, shutting the trunk and then looking at me. “Give me a kiss.”

  “I mean, when you ask like that,” I say, walking to him and leaning my head back. His kiss is soft and quick, his hand grabbing mine as we make our way up to his place.

  He unlocks the door, and just like the last time, I’m blown away. “I swear my whole apartment fits in your living room,” I say, looking around. “I don’t think I could ever get used to living here.”

  “Good,” he says, pulling my hand toward the bedroom, and if I thought I couldn’t get over the living room, I stop in my tracks at the bedroom.

  “Holy moly,” I gasp, looking around. The whole back wall looks like the headboard, the bed facing a fireplace with a television on top. I shake my head. “Where is your bathroom?” I ask him, folding my hand over my chest, and he just smirks and points at the door on the right-hand side. I walk forward, looking over my shoulder at him before walking over and opening the door and stopping in my tracks. “Shut the fuck up,” I say, shaking my head and walking into the bathroom. “This is the size of three of my apartments.” I go to stand in the middle of the marble bathroom right under a crystal chandelier. The shower is all glass and the size of my whole bathroom. I throw my head back when I think of how he had to get into my tub/shower and duck to get in.

  “This is a bit bigger than normal,” he says, and I turn to look at him. He leans against the doorjamb.

  “How crammed did you feel in my shower?” I ask him, and he shakes his head smiling, not bothering to answer. “Be honest.” The doorbell interrupts him. “Saved by the bell,” I say, walking out of the bathroom.

  He stops at the door on the way to the kitchen, grabbing the bag of food. I can not for the life of me get comfy in this house. I walk behind him as he makes his way to the kitchen, sitting at the big white counter. “Sit,” he says, pointing at the chair.

  He hands me my burger and fries, and I watch him open his, taking a bite and then getting up to go to the big double-door stainless-steel fridge. He grabs two bottles of water and comes back. “Thank you,” I say, grabbing a bottle, taking a bite of my burger. “This is good.”

  “It is,” he says, leaning over and kissing my neck. “Not as good as you are going to be on that couch after this.”

  “We are not getting on that couch.” I look over to the white leather couch. “With grease on our hands.”

  He laughs. “Well, I won’t be here long.” He takes another bite of his burger and looks over at me. “I’m going house hunting tomorrow.” My eyes go big. “My aunt set up five houses for me to see.”

  “Wow,” I say. “That is a lot of houses.”

  He nods his head, taking a fry. “I want to discuss our relationship.” I look over at him, my stomach starting to burn.

  “And what relationship is that?” I ask him, trying to get my heart to beat normally.

  He looks over at me. “Well, I want to be with you,” he says, and I can’t help but smile shyly. “And from what you told me, you want to be with me.”

  I tilt my head to the side. “Did I say that?” I look around, pretending to think. “I don’t know if I said those exact words.” I laugh.

  “I’m going to tell my parents we’re together,” he says.

  “Isn’t it going to be weird?” I ask him, wondering how they are going to take it.

  “I don’t think it’s going to be weirder than this girl I met is having my baby,” he says, and I can’t help but laugh. “What about the baby?” His tone turns serious, and all I can do is look at him. “I don’t want to keep that we are having a baby secret.”

  “Okay,” I reply, not sure of what he’s asking me.

  “So I’d like to announce it on my Instagram,” he says, and my eyes go big. “I spoke with Candace, who takes care of my social media. She’s my uncle Evan’s sister, and she’s married to Ralph, who plays with me.”

  “I’m going to need you to make me a family tree,” I joke, grabbing the water again and taking a sip while he laughs.

  “I was thinking we can take some pictures and put out a statement on my page,” he says, and I let it sit in my head. “Or we don’t have to do it.” He takes it back nervously. “I just don’t want it to be a secret. I don’t want you to be a secret or the baby.”

  I smile at him. “Well, when you put it like that.” Leaning into him, I kiss his neck. “Let’s do it.”

  “I’ll speak with Candace,” he says, getting up.

  “I’m going to tell Julia and my mother,” I say, and he nods his head.

  “Also.” He holds up a finger. “We have dinner with each other every night when I’m home, and we can.”

  I chuckle. “Okay, I’ll have dinner with you.”

  “Second.” He holds up another finger. “And we sleep together.”

  “I like that very much,” I admit to him. “I think that should be number one.”

  He laughs. “Good, where do you want to sleep tonight?” He pushes off from the counter and cleans up where he was eating. “We can stay here, or we can go back to your place.”

  “Since we are compromising,” I say, tapping my hand on the counter. “How about we alternate?”

  “I’m going to be honest,” he says, leaning against the counter facing me, folding his arms over his chest. “I don’t give a shit where we sleep as long as you are beside me.”

  “I think my panties just melted off.” I laugh at him, and he comes over to me, picking me up as if I weigh nothing. “Where are we going?”

  “I’m going to see how melted those panties are.” He carries me to his bedroom, where he gives me a thorough inspection.

  I leave him in the shower, going to the bedroom wearing one of his T-shirts, when my phone rings from the kitchen. I walk out and look and see that it’s Julia trying to FaceTime me. I click connect, waiting for her face to fill the screen. “Well, well, well,” she says when she sees me. “If it isn’t my long-lost sister.” I throw my head back and laugh.

  “It’s been less than twenty-four hours.” I look over at the clock on the wall and see that it’s been over twenty-four hours.

  “Last time I spoke to you,” she says, sitting up on her couch. “Was when you said I’m going to take a shower and call you back.” I roll my eyes. “That was over thirty-six hours ago.”

  “Michael showed up,” I admit, walking back toward the bedroom. The shower is still running from when I left him in there.

  “Okay?” She waits for it as I climb into the middle of his bed.

  I roll my eyes at her, ignoring the way my body is reacting to this news. Ignoring the beating of my heart. Ignoring the heat that is flowing up my neck. “I’m not in love with him.”

  Julia just stares at me seriously and then throws her head back and laughs out loud. “If you weren’t in love with him, you wouldn’t be having his baby.” I open my mouth to say something, and she holds up her hand. “I know, I know that you love the baby, but a little piece of you had to love him to even think about doing it alone.”

  “I mean, I obviously liked him, or I wouldn’t have slept with him,” I admit to her, and I hear the shower turn off. “But I’m not in love with him.”

  “Okay.” She rolls her eyes. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  “I have to go,” I say, annoyed as I sit in the middle of his bed.

  “Say hi to the baby daddy for me,” she says, and I quickly disconnect before she mentions I love him, and he hears it.

  Looking up when I see him walking out of the bathroom with a white towel around his waist, I can still see little droplets of water on his chest, and I swallow. “I love you naked,” he says, coming to the side of the bed and dropping his towel, showing me his cock. “But you’re even sexier in my clothes.” He gets into bed beside me, and I look into his blue eyes, and my heart stops in my chest at the same time I realize that I am, in fact, in love with him.

  Chapter 35

  Michael

  “Hey, Dad.” I look at the phone when his face fills the screen. I can tell from the back wall that he is in the home gym.

  “Hey, son,” he says, and his face fills with a huge smile. “Where are you?”

  I attach the phone to the plastic device that holds it up. “I’m in the car. I just left practice,” I say, pulling out of the parking lot. “And I’m headed over to get Jillian so we can go look at houses.”

  “That sounds good,” he says, and I look at him as I wait for him to finish because I know that he has more to say. “Your aunt sent me a couple of the houses that she picked for you.”

  “Yeah,” I say, smirking, shaking my head looking at him, not that I’m surprised by any of this. In fact, I’m more surprised that he didn’t get on a plane and fly out to visit them with us. “And?” I wait for it.

  His face forms the same smirk I just gave him. “There is one I really like, but I’m going to hold off on my opinion until you two see the house,” he says, making me laugh.

  “That’s a first,” I tease, making him laugh.

  “Did she agree to move in with you yet?” he asks, and I look at him.

  “Dad, it’s not that easy,” I explain, my stomach burning. “We’ve only been dating for a week.” I point out to him, and he actually rolls his eyes at me.

  “I knew that I wanted your mother to live with me, and we weren’t even dating,” he says, and I shake my head. “We got married, and we weren’t even living together.”

  “Yes, we were.” I hear my mother’s voice as she comes to stand by my father. He looks at her with so much love, his eyes have always been for her, and he would die without her.

  “Your family didn’t even know we were dating.” My father puts his arms around her and brings her in to kiss her lips.

  “This is very true,” my mother confirms, looking at me. “Here is some crazy advice.” Both my father and I groan out. “How about you just ask her?”

  “That’s not good advice,” my father counters. “You just need to convince her that she needs to move in with you.”

  “Wow, this is all great advice,” I tell them. “But I have to go.”

  “Call us when you make a decision about the house,” my father says, and I disconnect the phone when I get back to my place. I take the elevator up to the apartment, and the minute I step foot into it, I can hear the television playing. “Hey,” I say, walking into the kitchen and seeing her sitting on the bench. I wrap my arms around her, and she tips her head back, her eyes lighting up. “Missed you.”

  In the last week, we have alternated staying at her place and at mine, and when I have games, she opts to stay with me at my place so I don’t have to travel so far. I never had such a connection with someone before. It feels like I’ve known her forever, like we’ve been together since we were younger. I can’t explain it even if I tried to. “Hi.” She kisses under my jaw. “Are you hungry?”

  “I ate at the rink.” I rub my nose to hers. “Did you fall back asleep when I left?”

  She smiles. “I did, but the bed was cold without you.” I hold her face in my hands, kissing her lips.

  “We have to leave in ten minutes,” I remind her, and her eyebrows shoot together. “We have three houses to visit today.” I look around. “I hate this place,” I say. “It’s cold, and the only thing good about it is you sitting here.”

  “Well, when you put it like that.” She gets up, and she is wearing my shirt, her stomach sticking out just a touch. “I’ll come with you.” She walks past me, and all I want to do is take her in my arms, so I do. My hands go straight to her ass. “If you continue doing that, we are not going to leave in ten minutes.”

  She pushes my chest away from her and then walks back to the bedroom. I follow her as she gets dressed next to the small bag she brought over yesterday. Just looking at the bag with her clothes in it gets my blood going, but I push it down, knowing that if she likes a house today, we are going to have to have a whole different conversation, and it’s a conversation that I’m not going to lose.

  “So what’s in door number one?” Jillian looks over at me as we sit in the SUV and head to my least favorite house of the bunch.

  “House number one is six bedrooms, ten bathrooms,” I say, looking over at her, and she just looks at me with her mouth hanging open. “A media room.”

  “You lied to me,” she huffs out, and I’m taken aback by what she just said. “We aren’t going to look at houses,” she says. “We are going to look at mansions.” I laugh nervously, grabbing her hand and bringing it to my lips. When we pull up to the house, I look at her reaction, just in case she actually likes it and doesn’t want to tell me. I can tell from her face she isn’t impressed, and I breathe a sigh of relief. The whole time I watch her face to see if she likes it when she stands in the middle of the monstrosity of a house. “What does one do with all this space?” she asks, going around in a circle. “How long does it take someone to clean?”

  I laugh at her. “If someone buys this house.” I look around. “I can guarantee that they have money to hire a cleaning lady.”

  “How much is this house?” she asks, and I smile and look away. “Michael.”

  “Five point two,” I say, watching her face.

  “Million dollars?” she gasps, and the fact she still doesn’t know how much I make is refreshing. The fact she doesn’t know what my family is worth is even bigger.

  “Okay, let’s go check out house number two.” I hold out my hand, and she grabs it.

  “What are the other two worth?” she asks, and I shake my head, opening the SUV door for her. I don’t tell her because the third one is the house I want. But I’ll only get it if she likes it because if I have my way, she’s going to be living there with me. “What did you do today, Jillian?” She mimics a conversation that she is going to have. “I went to see million-dollar homes wearing eight-dollar Gap flip-flops.”

  When we pull up to the second house, she has the same look as the last one. It’s the same as the first house. But when I pull up to the house I want, I look over at her and see that her eyes glisten. “This house only has five bathrooms,” I say, and she shakes her head, getting out.

  “You know you’re slumming when your house only has five bathrooms,” she jokes as we walk up the circular walkway. The white two-story house has a great layout plan, and if I have my way, lots of rooms to fill up. “I like that little balcony.” She points up at the balcony on the second floor. “This house also doesn’t look huge,” she says, and when she walks in and gasps. It might look small from the outside, but the minute you walk in, you are greeted with the big family room that goes all the way to the back The whole back wall is windows, showing you the backyard. “I take it back.” She looks around, seeing that the stairs are on the left to go upstairs, and you can look down from upstairs. On the right-hand side is the dining room, and she walks over to it to peek inside it. I don’t say anything the whole time. I watch her eyes as we move from room to room.

  The house is open concept, another thing I love about it. “So what do you think?” I ask her when we stand in the middle of the kitchen. That one has a massive island, exactly like I had growing up, which pulled me to this house even more.

  “I think it’s stunning,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “And I like it better than the other two.”

  “Do you see yourself living here?” I finally take the leap and ask her, and she just looks at me. “Do you see yourself living here?” I ask her again.

  “With you?” She points at me. “One day on, one day off.” I look at her dressed in black pants and a white button-down long top that shows off her belly just a bit. Her hair is piled on top of her head, and she is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. The fact that I get to hold her hand at night and share a life with her is more than I can thank anyone for.

  “No.” I shake my head and my heart speeds so fast I’m afraid of everything that is happening right now. “I mean, you move your stuff in here with mine, and we share the house.”

  “I’m a teacher.” She points at herself. “I can’t afford this house.”

  “But I can,” I counter. She puts her hands on her hips, and I hold up one hand to stop her. “I know you don’t care what I make.”

  “I don’t know what you make,” she answers honestly. “I mean, you play a professional sport. How much can you possibly make?”

  “I make enough to afford this house for us.” I try to shy away from what I make a year.

  “You want to live together?” she asks, looking around. “Like together together?”

  I walk to her. “I want to move into this house,” I say when I get in front of her, and she looks up at me. “I want to come home to you every single night,” I explain. “I want to get up in the morning and have your stuff on the counter with my stuff. I want us to get dressed in the same room and have all of our stuff mingled together.” My hands cup her face. “I want to bring the baby home here and grow together as a family.” She blinks away tears. “I want us to build a home together.” My thumb grabs the tear that escapes her eye. “I want it all, Jillian, and there is no one in the world I want to do it with besides you.” I kiss her lips, feeling her hands going to my hips. “What do you say, Jillian?” I question when I let go of her.

  “I say that if someone would have told me six months ago that I would meet this hot-as-balls guy…” I chuckle at the way she calls me hot. “By accident.” She laughs. “Have the best sex of my life.” I smile as I look into her eyes. “And then get pregnant and have a baby with him, I would have told them they were crazy.” I take a deep breath. “But I guess the universe had other plans for me.” I let her speak, not interrupting her because I just laid it all out for her, and it can be a lot to take in. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me contribute for the house.” I glare at her, and she laughs. “And I don’t suppose you’ll let me pay for anything.” She shakes her head. “Are you sure this is really what you want?”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24