by Evans, LJ
I already had my custom racket in my hand. Even my nephews and little Savanna-Rae had their own, custom-made ones. We had a shed full of all our old castoffs that were for guests, and I helped Georgie pick out one from those.
Tennis was not only a big deal for my family; it was a big deal for the country club I’d grown up at. Competition was high, but our family had been one of the top three finishers every year going back to when Granddad was a teenager. We had a title and a streak to hold on to, so if you weren’t good enough today, you would be cut with no qualms from anyone. No pouting to Mom or Dad would ever get you back in. No crying to the grandparents would help.
My time on the court this morning with Georgie was just for fun. I was planning on warming up a little while I showed her the basics and before I got serious. Serious enough to play tomorrow. I wasn’t going to let Gooberpants win this year. Not if I could help it.
I explained the rules, what the lines were for, where she should serve, and the scoring process. Then, I served the ball into her court gently. She went to hit the ball, and the racket flew out of her hand. She turned as red as the stripes on her top, and it made me smile.
“It’s okay. It happens.”
“Has it ever happened to you?”
“Premature…racket…happens to him all the time,” Thomas said from the sidelines. I hadn’t heard him come into the court, but then again, I hadn’t shut the door, either.
Georgie turned an even deeper shade of red, and that pissed me off. That he’d embarrassed her.
“We have the court until eight, Thomas,” I told him with a glare.
“We know,” Bee said, coming in and joining him. “Just wanted to watch you warm up, see where your latest weak points are.”
“Honestly, Mac, let them play. Or warm up with them, because tennis and I aren’t really going to happen.”
“No. It’s our court time.”
“Don’t be an ass, Robbie,” Thomas said.
Thomas was never my favorite person, and calling me an ass when they were encroaching on my court time wasn’t going to win him any points with me. I looked over at Bee, trying to tell her with my eyes what I was going to do with her husband if he didn’t get off my court.
“Since when do you think you have a chance at a spot on the team, Thomas?” I asked with plenty of sarcasm.
Bee bristled. “We’ve been playing a lot this year. Wait till you see his serve.”
“I’ll see it after eight,” I told Bee.
She rolled her eyes and dragged Thomas from the court. I made my way over to Georgie. “Don’t worry about them.”
“I see why you don’t like him,” she whispered to me, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Yep,” I told her. “Here, let me show you how to hold it.”
I wrapped my arms around her, grabbing her wrist that held the racket, and then swinging it with her. Having her body tucked up against mine was not any better than seeing her in the bed in the Blue Room. My hand tightened on hers, and I couldn’t stop myself from placing a soft kiss on her jawline. She didn’t stop me. I slowly kissed my way down until I reached the corner of her lips, and she turned ever so slightly as if she was going to meet my hungry mouth with her own. As if we’d finally be able to recreate the moment on my boat in July.
“Holy bejesus, Robbie. You just left her bedroom. We really need the court for practice; you two can do that anywhere,” Bee hollered from the doorway to the courts.
Georgie pulled away, and I flipped Bee the bird. She just laughed, picked up the towel she’d left by the sidelines, and left again.
Georgie turned to me. “Really. I think…maybe this would be better another time.”
“I told her it wasn’t what she thought—me coming from your room. But older sisters never, ever believe you.” I sighed.
She smiled. “It’s okay.”
“It is?” My eyes lit up at the thought of it being okay for me to be coming from her room.
“I didn’t mean that as an invitation. I just meant I get it. But really, all I want to do is go finish my coffee, have another muffin, and break out my textbooks.”
“I’ll hardly get to visit with you again until dinner,” I told her.
“Perfect time for me to catch up on my classwork, then.”
I left the court reluctantly, not wanting to let her out of my sight yet, wondering if this had been the right weekend to invite her home at all. It was going to be tournaments all day today and then all day tomorrow. It wasn’t exactly the best time for her to get to know me.
Bee saw us leaving the court and raced toward it just as Gabi and Dani headed toward it. My three sisters collided at the doorway, but Bee had her foot inside. “Dibs!” she called out in celebration.
“Ugh! You cheat,” Gabi threw out.
“You’re getting slow in your old age, Cheetos Breath,” Bee teased.
“Don’t even start, Granola Fart,” Gabi retorted.
“Wow,” Georgie whispered, but she had a smile on her lips.
“You’re giving Georgie the complete wrong impression of our family,” I hollered back at them.
“Don’t start, Squirter,” Dani tossed at me.
“Gooberpants, really, you had to go there?” I sighed and dragged Georgie away before it really got ugly.
“Do I even want to know?” she asked.
“You probably don’t.” I smiled at her as we made our way back inside. Mom was in the kitchen in her own tennis outfit, ready to go to battle on the courts.
“Didn’t you have the court until eight?” she asked with a glance at the whiteboard leaned up against some of the kitchen cupboards.
“They started throwing names and euphemisms, and I called my training complete,” Georgie told her, sitting at the counter.
“Starting early, are they? Did they call Robbie Squirter already?” Mom was smiling, and I groaned.
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“Mom!”
“When he was about twelve, he finally got serious about tennis and the tournament. He was so determined to win that he wouldn’t leave the court even when he had diar―” I moved and covered her mouth.
“Mom.”
“Your dad told the Mercedes story last night. Why can’t I tell the Squirter story?” she asked as she pushed my hand away.
I knew I was probably the same shade of red that Georgie had been on the court.
Georgie was laughing—her laugh that always reached into my soul and grabbed my heart.
Mom patted me on the shoulder and went out into the backyard, probably to find a way to weasel in on someone else’s practice time.
“I really like your family,” Georgie said as I sat down next to her at the table.
“Yeah?”
“They’re pretty amazing.”
“Lunatics. All of them.”
“But the love you all have for each other shows through.”
I nodded. We did love each other. And we’d do anything for each other—even asshole Thomas. “You’ve heard some pretty scary things about me now. I feel like you need to tell me some things about you to even the field.”
“Raisa said I didn’t want you to find out about my awkward stage,” she said, lips quirking.
“There is no way in hell I’ll believe you ever had an awkward stage,” I told her.
“Well, she said it was when I had my hair cut like a boy.”
“You did?”
She laughed. “Yes, but you met me that way.”
I thought back to the first time I’d met her in New York City. Her hair had been almost shaved on the sides with spikes and curls on the top and a purple tint that had matched her lilac contact lenses. She had the blue ones in again today.
“That wasn’t a boy haircut.”
“Raisa believes that if your hair isn’t past your shoulders, it’s a boy haircut.”
I cast my eye
s at her hair, the almost black strands pulled up into another ponytail, the white streak barely showing.
“You hardly ever wear your hair down,” I said.
She ran her hand over the ponytail. “It’s just easier up.”
I didn’t want to tell her about the dreams I’d had of taking it down. Of running my fingers through her hair and tugging it so she had to come closer to me and my lips. I cleared my throat.
“That’s not enough beans, Miss Astrella. I need the good dirt. Like diarrhea kind of dirt.”
She showed me her muffin. “Please, I’m eating.”
“Eating isn’t getting you out of this one. I need at least one thing to hold over you, as you’ve got about twenty on me now.” I leaned closer to her, elbows touching, faces inches apart.
She sat there, thinking. She finally blew out a breath, and I could feel it over my skin and could almost taste the blueberries on my lips.
“I wet the bed until I was nine,” she said quietly.
My eyes widened, because I hadn’t expected her to disclose something that personal. And yet, she had. A dark secret that not many people would have shared unless they were being tortured to do so. My heart twisted with happiness that she had felt comfortable enough to tell me something so deeply private. To open herself up to me in a way she hadn’t before.
I couldn’t help myself anymore. I closed the tiny distance between us and kissed her. Soft. Trying to convey the emotion behind the kiss as much as the desire. To explain with my lips because the words were eluding me. At first, she didn’t respond, but then her mouth pressed into mine. And it was just like when I’d kissed her in Rockport. Passion. Torrential seas. Waves of emotion that felt like they were pulling me under just as she saved me by bringing me back to the surface. My hand went to the back of her neck, and I was two seconds from pulling her onto my lap when a throat clearing stopped me.
I was still smiling as I pulled away from her and turned to see my grandmother standing in the kitchen archway. “Grandma!”
I was up out of the chair and hugging her in a flash.
“Mom said you’ve been sick?” I asked, eyeing her.
“Everyone worries too much. It was just a summer cold, but it’s enough to put me on the sidelines today,” she told me, hugging me tightly and then turning to the table and Georgie. “So, this is Georgia.”
Georgie got up from the table and came over to shake her hand, but Grandma pulled her into a hug, saying, “We are so glad to finally have someone to tell Robbie stories to.”
Georgie laughed as she hugged my grandmother back before stepping away. “I’ve already heard the diarrhea story this morning.”
“Ooh, that is a doozy. How about the car stealing?”
“Heard that last night.”
“Well, unless you are a world-class tennis pro, you can sit with me today, and I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with some ones you haven’t heard.”
And I gave up. There wasn’t going to be any more time for me to kiss Georgie or tell her how beautiful she was. Not until this clan had gotten out all their stories and thoroughly embarrassed me. I was okay with it, though. If she knew all these things about me and could still kiss me like she just had, everything was going to be okay.
Georgie
BUTTERFLIES
“I didn't know him and I didn't know me,
Cloud nine was always out of reach.
Now I remember what it feels like to fly,
You give me butterflies.”
Performed by Kacey Musgraves
Written by Musgraves / Laird / Hemby
The competition on the courts was brutal, but Mac’s grandma, Gladys, kept me thoroughly entertained with stories about all of them, even Mac’s parents. There was no hiding anything in this family it seemed. You laid it out on the line, and they never let you forget it.
As people were ousted from the tournament, they drifted into and around the pool where Gladys and I were chatting. The noise level and energy increased as the number of people did. When Mac and his mom finally won, securing their spots in the tournament the next day, he dove into the pool, splashing and playing with his niece and nephews without a care―showing the side of Mac that I’d just discovered the night before—the big, goofy uncle who wasn’t afraid to be silly.
As the afternoon turned into evening, dinner was delivered in white catering vans just as more people started to show up. The backyard lights were turned on, and it suddenly looked like a party instead of a family gathering. I’d been warned, but it still felt slightly overwhelming.
Dani introduced me to Stan, a skinny computer engineer who used to be Mac and Dani’s roommate. He seemed completely out of place, and yet, everyone greeted him with the same welcome they’d greeted me. Open. Accepting. There were also friends of all the siblings, including a woman who Dani claimed was her best friend but seemed the snootiest of the entire bunch.
Mac tugged my hand toward the buffet line. I was surprised to find typical barbecue fare instead of something fancier. It hardly seemed worth catering, and when I said as much, Mac shrugged. “Mom and Dad want to make sure we have time to just be together without worrying about who’s bringing what and having to spend time in the kitchen.”
We’d just sat down next to each other at a picnic table when a large, heavily muscled arm wrapped around his neck and tugged. “Macauley!” a deep voice boomed.
Mac licked the arm, and the man laughed and pulled away. The man was all military. Muscles on muscles and tattoos on tattoos. Brown hair shaved to a stub. Dark eyes that were shadowed.
“Nash the Ass!” Mac returned.
“Robbie!” Bee hollered, waving her fork at the kids littered around the table.
Mac got up and hugged the man, and then turned to me. “Nash, this is Georgie, Georgie this is Nash.”
Nash grabbed my hand and kissed the back of it, and Mac pulled it away with a roll of his eyes but was interrupted from saying anything by the arrival of another muscled man accompanied by a woman with a baby in a sling that hung from her body. Mac hugged them all, kissed the baby, and then turned to me.
“Georgie, this is Darren and Tristan and their adorable little girl, Hannah.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I told them.
“Otters!” Dani said, coming up and giving both Darren and Nash a hug.
“Don’t you look gorgeous,” Nash said, slowly taking in Dani in her bathing suit and cover-up.
“Don’t think you can get out of that beer you owe me with flattery.” Dani waved a finger at him.
“Wait, I thought you owed him a beer?” Mac said.
“He wishes.” Dani smiled and moved off. Nash went to follow her, but Mac shoved him toward the other side of the table where Darren and his wife had sat down.
“Go sit by Tristan; she knows how to control you,” Mac growled, and I laughed because it was yet another interesting side of Mac to see. The protective brother. He had all these facets to him that were fascinating to see unwind like a multicolored thread, each layer making him more attractive to me when I hardly needed the additional push.
Dani returned with beers, handing one to both men and taking a pull on her own. “So, tell me, Otters, how exactly did you cheat at poker with my baby brother?” she asked.
Darren chuckled. “We rigged a camera behind a poster.”
“Shh,” Nash whispered. “Not so loud, we might need that strategy tonight.”
“No way. We’re going to beat him for real this time,” Darren responded.
“Good luck with that,” Mac said, waving his fork at them. “You’re at the Whittaker estate now, boys. We take no prisoners, and Dad has the place wired to explode at the mere sight of surveillance he hasn’t approved.”
I was smiling, and when Mac turned to me and saw my smile, his eyes journeyed to my lips and then back before winking. I turned to his friends. “What did Mac do when he found out you cheated?” I a
sked.
Mac groaned, shaking his head.
“Someone,” Nash growled with a nod of his head toward Darren, “couldn’t keep a fucking straight face, so he caught on as soon as I tried to reel in the winning hand.”
“But you should have seen the look of pure shock on Macauley’s face. It was—” Darren burst out into laughter—light, jovial, nothing I would have expected from a serious S.E.A.L. team leader.
It was all a little enthralling. Mac, his winks, his laughter. The easygoing attitude that flew from him and all of the family. My heart felt so full that it might have exploded. I hadn’t ever had this. Ever. Not even when Raisa and Malik and I had played games, hiding from the bodyguards, or going skinny-dipping in the pond at the back of Petya’s estate. Because our time apart had always been wider than our times together.
“You all going to sit out here, nipping at those beers, or can we count on winning your money?” Gladys called from the doorway.
“We’re coming in, beautiful lady, but I want the spot next to you!” Nash called out.
“Watch it, Frog, I have friends in high places,” Mac’s granddad hollered back, but it was with a smile.
Tonight, there were several poker tables going with the winner from each table going on to the final game, much like a Vegas tournament. I was completely in awe of Gladys as she lost every ounce of friendly sheen she’d had all day and slowly thrashed her competitors.
I’d always considered myself to have a decent poker face, but I hadn’t played much real poker, so just like the night before, I didn’t last very long. Instead, I ended up with Tristan and Nash, watching as Darren, Stan, and the Whittaker family battled it out.
The baby was asleep again in the sling around Tristan, but she still swayed back and forth as she talked to me. “This is slightly more competitive than I expected,” she said.
“I was warned, but it still surprised me. You should have seen them fighting on the tennis court this morning.” I smiled back at her.
“How long have you and Mac been a couple?” Nash asked on my other side, sipping from a beer and eyeing me in a way that told me he was on the prowl. He was handsome—probably poster-boy-for-the-Navy-S.E.A.L.s kind of handsome—but he wasn’t appealing to me like he would have been before I’d spent weeks with Mac. Nash seemed like a man with secrets. Mac was an open book. I liked that about Mac.