He grinned. Knowing Travis, he’d test them on that later.
“And…uh…just to be clear,” she chattered on. “We’re not seeing other people while we’re seeing each other, right?”
“Do you want to see other people?” he volleyed back. He looked as though he absolutely did not want that.
“No,” she said, remarkably fast. “I was hoping this was exclusive.”
“Me too.” He spoke against her forehead.
“Good. Exclusive is good.” She did the whacky face thing again.
Gah, she had to stop doing that when they were talking about serious stuff.
“Exclusive is the best.” He gave her a squeeze.
“I’m clean, too,” she said. “And I have the birth control thing covered. I mean, uh, I really do this time. Not like when I was in college. And I had a physical right before we left Denver. All good on that front.”
She might as well have given him two perky thumbs up to top off that morbidly embarrassing data dump.
The song stopped, but they stayed together, holding each other until the next song started. The band played a new rendition of a Bellamy Brothers song she recognized about a man holding a woman against him.
“I’m clean, too, Rach,” he said. “If this is your way of asking.”
Well, it was. A very uncomfortable way of asking.
He hummed along to the song, apparently waiting to see if she had anything else she wanted to add.
She did, more embarrassing data she needed to dump. Get it all over with in one night.
“If you want to, uh, not use a condom,” she whispered so only he could hear. “Then we…we can just not do that.” She met his gaze. “If you want to,” she added as a quick addendum to her declaration.
“Is that what you want?” he asked, and his words were remarkably neutral given that she’d just embarrassed the hell out of herself.
For a moment, she stood still, not moving to the music.
“Sorry?” she asked, seeming to not understand his question.
“What do you want, Rach?” he asked. “Whatever you want, we’ll do that. I believe you when you say you’ve got it covered. If you want me to cover it, just let me know.”
“You don’t have an opinion on this?” She pulled back from him, earnest. Do you just not care?
“Rach.” His lips brushed hers. “I care about everything when it comes to you. You know I don’t like it when you let people walk all over you, so I’ll speak up about it. I want you to make time for us, so I’ll make sure that happens—even if it means your schedule gets a little fucked in the process. And I want dinner invitations with you and the boys, so I hope we can figure out a way to make that happen for me.” He drew a long breath. “That’s the shit that matters. It’s what I have an opinion about. When it comes to the rest, I’m willing to take your lead.”
“Oh.” She pressed her temple against his chest as he led, but they mostly stayed in a two-foot square holding on to each other.
“Anything else you want to get off your chest tonight?” he asked. “Or should we start heading back?”
They had a little more time before the boys were due back at the house. But she needed to check her email and follow up with any late-night Cassie crises.
She didn’t stir. Didn’t move.
There was more. More she needed to say.
“I didn’t call Gavin back.” This came out as a confession, a choked confession that she whispered into the air at his chest.
“Gavin’s not here.” He traced his fingers up and down her spine and held her tighter, her cheek against his chest. “It’s just you and me.”
“After we hooked up, I wasn’t going to call him back,” she confessed—the confession she’d never told anyone.
Travis stilled. Blood started to thrum in her ears.
“I don’t need to hear this.” He started to step away, but she held firm. “You know how before I said that I’d have some things that mattered to me? This is one of those times where I don’t need to know the details.”
“I need you to hear them, though,” she said, because she really, really did.
The earnestness in her voice apparently made him pause.
“Please,” she continued.
She did her best to relax, ready to give only the abbreviated version of events.
“I wasn’t going to call him back, even though he called me, like, four times afterward. I ignored the calls until I found out about the pregnancy. Then I called him,” she said. “By that point, he’d moved on. As he should have, since I wasn’t interested.”
Travis hardly moved, but she sallied forth.
“I explained everything, and he said he wanted to get married. I didn’t want to. I mean, I wasn’t even going to call him back, so why would we get married?” She had pulled away a little and was talking with her hands.
“Why did you get married?” Travis asked, that mask of neutrality covering his expression.
“Gavin and I are friendly. Friends, even. Sometimes. Mostly, before Dakota. She didn’t really like that we were friends.” She waved away the thought. “This isn’t about her, though. All of this is in the past. I don’t want to ruin where Gavin and I are as co-parents. But you need to know what happened because it…it affects what we are together.”
“Why did you get married?” Travis asked again.
“He made it clear who your family is. Explained to me that you would all support us as a family.”
“If you got married.” Travis filled in the blank for her.
She nodded. When the divorce had finalized, she swore this was the first and last time she’d ever accept help like that. Owing Gavin cost her more than she was even willing to admit to herself—a whole heap of pride.
“My parents were angry I was pregnant. They were even less thrilled that I decided not to end the pregnancy,” she pressed on. “I convinced myself I could be a good mom on my own. But then there were two babies. How was I supposed to raise two babies? Even if Gavin shared custody.” She swallowed against what felt like a rising tide ready to sweep her away. “Gavin was my nuclear option so my world wouldn’t implode. He stepped in. He offered an alternative. He made it so I didn’t have to make a decision that I really, really didn’t want to make.”
And it cost her only her dignity.
“It’s not his fault we didn’t work out.” Rachel gripped Travis’s arms to hold him in place. “He just…he didn’t forgive me. For not calling him back. For not wanting him. Eventually, I thought we forgave each other for everything. We were both doing the best we could. The divorce wasn’t contentious. He took care of the boys, wanted to ensure we stayed comfortable—but I didn’t want alimony.”
“You should’ve taken the money,” he said through gritted teeth, because there was more than enough of the stuff to help her out. She didn’t have to work so hard all the time.
She gulped. No, she wouldn’t do that. She’d spent the last years rebuilding her self-esteem. Proving she could make it herself.
“The thing is…I would’ve called you back,” she said, pressed against his chest. “I had to tell you about what happened, so you’d know what a big deal that is to me.”
His hand pressed against her hair. His breaths jagged pieces of glass slicing through any hardening of her heart she’d used as armor.
“I would’ve called you first,” she whispered again. “I think Gavin will know that. I think he’ll know it if we tell everyone. And I think it’s going to hurt him.” She drew a deep breath. “If it hurts him and he lashes out, it could hurt the boys. I can’t let that happen.”
He pulled away from her, ran a hand through his hair, and paused as he saw the expression on her face. “We should go.”
Her lower lip trembled the smallest amount, a small bit of wet appearing at the edge of
her eyelids, but no tears fell. She crossed her arms under her breasts, doing that thing she did to hold herself up.
“You wouldn’t have had to call me, because there’s no way I would’ve been able to walk out the door the next morning. I would’ve ordered pancakes—scratch that, I’d have made you pancakes myself. From scratch. We would’ve spent the whole day together. That’s what we would’ve done.”
She smiled a watery smile. “Are you really that good of a guy, Travis Frank?”
“Don’t let the word get out. I have a reputation to uphold.”
The tear that she’d been holding back finally fell, but it didn’t make it past her cheekbone because he wiped it away with his thumb.
Another fell.
He repeated.
Another.
Another.
“Don’t cry, sunshine,” he said, still swiping as she hiccupped. She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth.
She smiled then.
The fact that she was smiling—really smiling, not one of those fake ones she’d gotten so used to using—the smiling was a good thing, but that didn’t change that there was a whole bucket of water falling out of her face.
“What’s going on right now?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, wiping at the tears herself.
“First guess, then?”
“I think because I’m happy,” she said on a throaty laugh. “I’m happy, and I don’t know what to do with that when it could ruin everything for my kids.”
“We’re going to figure this out.” He sounded like he really believed that.
For now, for that moment, she decided to focus on the happy instead of the laundry. The dirty, messy, daily chore kind.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Sometimes I really wish I would’ve swallowed.” — Nicole, Utah, USA
Travis
Nearly a full three days since their date night and Rachel had been scarce. She wasn’t avoiding him; he understood this because they were still connecting for…entanglements…every night. But the amount of time she spent working was becoming cumbersome for even the boys.
They wanted their mom around, and even when she was present, the laptop or her phone was her constant companion.
He got it. Understood that she was worried she’d miss another request or make a mistake.
Her attention to detail was one of the things he liked most about her, because when it was just the two of them? Oh yeah, her attention to detail was meticulous, which led to other things that were exceptionally…thorough.
He was pretty sure he was becoming addicted to Rachel’s particular brand of precise.
“Hey.” Travis pushed the door closed softly behind him, pressing the lock with his thumb.
He held her toothbrush in his other hand. She’d left it on his sink that morning.
Rachel, sitting crisscross-applesauce on the bed with her laptop open in front of her, lifted her gaze to him and raised her eyebrows. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said again. He held up the toothbrush. Set it on the table by the door. “Thought you might want this.”
She hadn’t messed with her makeup that day, so her face was bare, her hair piled on her head like she wore it only when she didn’t expect anyone else to see her. At least, that’s what he’d noted. She never kept it up like that when anyone else was in the room. He gave her thirty seconds before she remembered that it was in the pile before she removed the band and let it hang loose.
He liked it both ways. He didn’t particularly have a preference.
“Are you busy?” he asked, hand still on the doorknob, ready to leave if she couldn’t take time away for him.
She nodded, the almost-there smile edging at her lips. “Always.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then.” He turned the door handle to leave.
“Trav?” she called before he pulled the door open more than an inch. “Did you need something?”
Yeah, he needed something. Someone.
“You,” he said simply, turning back toward her.
She smiled, her cheeks turning pink, her teeth nibbling her bottom lip. “Good thing I’m here, then.”
“Good thing.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, glancing at his bare feet.
She closed the laptop, carefully, and moved it to the nightstand before patting the bedspread in invitation.
He pushed the door closed and made it two steps into the room before she reached for the rubber band and pulled her hair free.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said, moving to the bed and stretching out beside where she sat.
“Do what?” She tossed the band on top of her laptop and snuggled in to his chest.
He relaxed immediately. Breathing around Rachel just came easier. Having her against him like this made him feel like he hadn’t been breathing and never even realized it. Then suddenly she was there, and the world was full of oxygen.
“The hair thing. I like it up.” He shuffled his hands through the strands, piling it on the crown of her skull like she’d had it with the band.
The kiss he pressed to her mouth didn’t go as planned when she frowned against his lips.
He didn’t like it when she frowned in bed. Didn’t particularly care for it when he frowned in bed, either.
“Okay.” She turned from him and reached mechanically across the mattress toward the nightstand until her fingertips grazed the hair tie. “I can put it back in.”
He caught her, pulling her back in to him so the front of her meshed with the front of him. “I like it down, too.”
That got him a smile and a press of her lips against his. “Oh.”
“I like it both ways. You don’t have to change it when I’m around.” His lips were barely away from hers, sharing the same air, firing all his senses, making him want to sink himself in all that she was and escape.
Unfortunately, it was the middle of the day and she had work, and he had a call with distribution, and if they weren’t careful, someone would come knocking at the door.
“Wanna make out?” he asked instead of what he really wanted to do.
“The kids with Dave?” she asked but didn’t wait for his response before running her hands up the edge of the bottom of his tee. Her palms against his abs lit a trail of fire along his skin that was all Rachel.
“Yeah.” He brushed the tip of his nose against hers. “We’re alone.”
“Then by all means, yes. Making out is good. Add some groping too, if you want.” The last word barely passed her lips before he rolled her to her back and reached up her top, under her bra, to toy with her nipples as his mouth melded with hers.
He broke the kiss only long enough to pull his shirt over his head and toss it to the chair beside the bed.
“Good call, fewer clothes.” Rachel laughed against his mouth as she rolled him to his back, straddling him.
There was no doubt about it, he was falling tart over toaster for Rachel.
“Rach.” Travis held her face as she continued to kiss the hell out of him.
The things this girl did with her mouth couldn’t possibly be legal. Her T-shirt stretched across her breasts, her nipples pebbled into tight buds, he was hard, and she was riding him over his jeans. This was so much more than a make-out session.
“We aren’t good at the just-kissing thing, are we?” she asked.
He chuckled. “It’s probably a good thing to know.”
“Tonight, I expect you to follow through with the promises your body is making to me right now.” She laughed as their mouths melded and the center of her heat rubbed against his length. She groaned as he pressed his hips up and into the warmth between her thighs.
The barrier of their clothing barely registered, and the moan that filled the space between them could’ve been eit
her of theirs. He had no idea if it was him who was making the noises. It didn’t really matter. What did matter was that he was going to end up finishing in his pants, and wouldn’t that just be embarrassing?
“Mom,” Kellan called from the hallway, the pounding of his footsteps getting closer to her door. “Brady took Mr. Pretzel and won’t give him back.”
Once, Travis had taken the twins to the water park and there was this huge bucket of cold water that would drench anyone standing in the wrong spot. That’s exactly how his body reacted right then. Like fifty gallons of cold water had been tossed over them on the bed.
Travis was a little worried that Rachel might pass out, because suddenly she was holding her breath, not moving, and her eyes had gone wide.
Rachel scrambled off the top of him, her eyes still huge, round orbs. She threw his shirt at him.
“You locked it, right?” Even as she asked, she headed toward the thick wood as he dealt with his own thick wood. He rearranged his pants and grappled with his T-shirt.
“I locked it,” he assured.
Yes, he had. He distinctly remembered pressing the lock.
Rachel’s mouth had the appearance of a thoroughly kissed woman, her lipstick smeared over her lips and up onto her cheek. “You run to the bathroom, wait there. I’ll open the door once you’re—”
The door swung open.
Sonofa—
Kellan barreled through the entry, skidding to a stop nearly comically. “Uncle Trav, what’re you doing in here? Why’s your shirt off?”
Travis gripped his T-shirt against his naked torso, wishing he could become one with the mattress.
“And what happened to your face?” Kellan asked, moving his gaze from his uncle to his mother, then back again.
Kellan settled his gaze on his uncle sitting on his mom’s bed with a T-shirt gripped to his chest, a set of blue balls, and apparently his mother’s lipstick smeared all over his mug.
His heart tripped over itself as he grasped for ideas on how to play this. There could be no collateral damage for Rachel. Unfortunately, the commands from his brain weren’t working, because though he opened his mouth, no sound came out.
Rachel, Out of Office Page 21