He nodded and started to get up, but then stopped. “Wait, Evie. No. Let me stay here with you tonight.”
Had he said what she thought he had? She replayed it in her head. Yes. That’s what he’d said. She wanted to shout, Yes, yes, a million times yes!—and she might have, if she could have found her voice.
He took her hand. “But before you say no, let me tell you something.”
I’m not going to say no, Jake. Ariel and Quentin are on pie duty. I am free, clear, and willing.
“I promise I’ll abide by what you asked,” Jake went on.
What did I ask?
“I even agree with you. I think it’s wise to wait—not have sex yet.”
What? When did I say that? “I won’t push you to do what you aren’t ready for.”
What am I not ready for?
“You were right Saturday night that it was the wrong time.”
Oh, hell. He had misunderstood entirely, hadn’t realized she’d meant she had her period. Should she tell him? Yes. She took a deep breath. How to put it? How to put it? Though his bodily fluid was still wet on her neck, she wasn’t completely comfortable with talking about hers.
Before she could speak, he plowed on, “To be honest, though I didn’t think so at the time, I’m not ready yet either.”
Well, that changed things. At least she didn’t have to figure out what to say.
“Please, just let me stay and sleep with you. I want to be close to you.”
Oh, Jake! Her stomach turned over and she took a shallow breath.
And he widened his sleepy blue, blue eyes. Then he cocked his beautiful head to the side, smiled that sweet smile, and bit his bottom lip.
“I swear I won’t cause you to be late for pie making.”
She melted. How could she not? When he was sitting here so tired and so sweet, saying he just wanted to be with her?
Making love didn’t matter. Well, it did. But not tonight. She would straighten that out later. Tonight, being with him was enough.
She smiled. “I don’t have to make pies tomorrow. I don’t have to go to Crust at all.”
“Even better.” He let his eyes drop to half-mast. “So?” He nodded toward the bedroom.
“Of course, Jake. And you didn’t even have to bother with all that head-cocking and lip-biting.”
He laughed and laid his cheek against hers. “But I’m so good at it. And I really wanted to wake up with you tomorrow.”
“I want to wake up with you, too.”
And be with you tonight—though she suspected he’d be asleep by the time she changed and brushed her teeth. Evie was right. By the time she crawled into bed beside him, he was out—but not so far gone that he didn’t fold her against him. She didn’t even care that he drooled all over her new nightgown.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jake was used to waking up and not knowing where he was. He supposed that came from all the random hotel beds he slept in.
But when he woke up this morning, he knew what bed he was in—Evie’s. He smiled and reached for her, but came up empty. That was disappointing, but not devastating. The house smelled like coffee, so that meant she was here somewhere. He sat up and looked at his phone. Almost ten o’clock. No wonder she was up.
He went to the bathroom, found some toothpaste, and swished it around in his mouth with some water. He’d have to remember to bring a toothbrush over.
With all he knew about Evie, he had no idea what her mornings were like on her off days. Would she be busy doing laundry, sorting mail, and all the other things that got put on hold on workdays? Or did she sit around, drink coffee, and read the paper? If she read the paper, did she go online or old school? Did she work the crossword puzzle?
Suddenly, he was overwhelmed with needing the answer. She was probably in the living room since that seemed to be the only real room in this house besides this bedroom.
Sure enough, that’s where she was, but she wasn’t doing any of the things he’d imagined.
What he found amused and delighted him, maybe unlike he’d ever been amused or delighted before.
She lay on her back on the couch, wearing a long flowy, white nightgown with her feet propped on the end of the sofa arm. She didn’t see him at first, partly because he came up behind her and partly because she was contemplating her feet—and on her feet were the pink-and-silver skates he’d bought her. She was also wearing a pair of the knee-high skate socks—the purple-and-black-striped ones.
He paused to enjoy the sight. She picked up one of her feet, raised it toward the ceiling, and turned her ankle this way and that as she studied it.
Like the Grinch, his heart grew three sizes, and he couldn’t stand not touching her another second. At first, she looked startled when he leaned over to give her an upside-down kiss. Then she smiled and set her mouth for what she knew was coming. As their lips met, she reached up and put a hand on either side of his cheeks.
Damn. How long until December?
When their mouths parted, he said, “Like what you see?”
“Yes, I do.” He got the feeling she wasn’t talking about the skates.
She started to sit up, but he stopped her. “No. Stay put.” And he sat on the couch, swung her legs across his lap, and put his hand on her knee above the sock’s edge. “Do they fit?”
“I think so. I haven’t stood up in them. Adele is very proud of these hardwood floors. They’re original to the house, you know.” She let her voice take on a mock refined tone.
“Who’s Adele?”
“Adele Landry Hampton. Future sister-in-law of Ava Grace. Her family owns the houses on Bungalow Circle, and she manages the property.”
“I’ve already had enough of her and I don’t even know her.” It was good talking about nothing.
“Oh, she’s nice.” She lifted her foot again. “Do you think these look like witch socks?”
“That’s what I thought when I bought them.” He hadn’t really, but it was a good idea.
“Are you saying I’m a witch?”
“Hmm.” He scratched his head. “No, but if I was one of those guys in one of those movies where everything turns out okay—”
“Romantic comedies?”
“Yeah, that. I might say you have bewitched me. But I’m not that guy. I can’t be that guy.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Never that guy. You’re a big famous hockey star.”
“Yet...” When he kissed her, her tongue sought his first. He wanted to pull her into his lap, strip off her gown, and love her while she wore those skates. The thought made him laugh against her mouth.
She pulled her face back. “What?”
“Nothing.” He took her hand and laced their fingers together. “I’m just happy. Am I allowed to be happy?”
She looked at him, all sweet and soft. “I’ve always wanted you to be happy.”
A burst of energy went through him. “Let’s go out for breakfast and take your new skates for a test run.”
“Where?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Who serves breakfast this late? There’s a Cracker Barrel out by the interstate. Glaz swears by it. He even does his Christmas shopping there.”
Evie rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’m sure everyone looks forward to those presents. I meant where are we going skating? It’s cooled off, but we’re not going to find an isolated frozen pond around here. And the practice rink is out.”
Fuck. Stupid Killjoy. He really was a Killjoy. But she was right. If they went to the iceplex, they would run into some of his teammates, there to work out. It was nice being here with Evie, but damn it all to hell, he wanted to go somewhere, have some food, have some fun. And it was impossible. Unless...
A thought began to form in his mind.
“You said you didn’t have to go to Crust today?
At all?”
Evie shook her head. “Barring disaster. But guess what we can do? It’ll be a tight fit, but we can have that chicken pot pie lesson.”
Damn. He’d all but forgotten that. Now that he didn’t need an excuse to be with her, he definitely was never going to make pie of any kind.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere.”
“I thought we were supposed to be on the down low.”
“Let’s get out of town.”
She looked interested. “Where?”
“I don’t know. We could go down to Orange Beach for the weekend. Or over to Atlanta. If the Braves or Falcons are in town, I can get tickets easy. Good tickets.”
She nodded. “I’d rather see football than a baseball game.”
“We could check and see if there’s a concert we’re interested in. I could probably get tickets to that, too, though it might be harder.” Harder for Miles, though. Not him.
She laughed. “There’s always Six Flags.”
“I want to dance with you.” It had been years since they’d danced. Maybe not since their cotillion days, but they’d always danced so well together. “I can’t see that happening at Six Flags.”
“Or a Falcons game—unless you want to be on the jumbotron.”
Then, like lightning striking, he knew just the place. “I know. Let’s go to New Orleans.”
“New Orleans?” She frowned.
“Sure. You say it like it’s in Australia. What is it? Five hours down there? Less if you’re with me in a Lamborghini.”
He wanted this, wanted to hold hands with her as they walked down Bourbon Street, dance with her in dive bars, buy her something expensive on Royal Street. He wanted to give her—and himself—the weekend they would have had in New Orleans for his fraternity formal if he hadn’t been so stupid.
He just had to talk her into it. “It would be fun. You lived there so you know all the best places to eat. We could maybe go to a Saints game, if you really want to go to a football game.”
“I don’t. Not in particular.” He could tell she was intrigued. “But that’s a long way for a short time. I have to go to work Monday.”
“So do I,” he said. “If we left within the hour, we’d be there in time for dinner. We’d have most of the day tomorrow. We could leave in the afternoon and still get back in time to rest up for Monday.”
The more he talked, the happier she looked.
“This is crazy.” But she was smiling.
“Not as crazy as hiding here and hoping Killjoy doesn’t come to serenade you under your window.”
“Jake! Be nice.” She swatted at him.
“Sorry. The ride would even be fun. We can talk and listen to music. I’m not the type to deny you a bathroom stop.”
She laughed. “Maybe we could stop at Cracker Barrel and do some early Christmas shopping.”
“Right. Iron skillets for our mothers. Rocking chairs for our dads.” He brought her hand to lay over his heart. “Am I detecting that you’re possibly onboard?”
“You might be.” She grinned. “Let’s go casual. I know lots of great places to eat, no jacket required.” She raised one eyebrow. “In fact, they might throw you out if you show up in one.”
“Sounds good. So shorts and T-shirts. It’ll be warmer there than here.”
“Yes, quite a bit, but we’re used to it.”
“Okay.” He stood up. “If you’ll let me take your car, I’ll go home to pack. I’ll get online and get us a hotel. Where do you want to stay? Windsor Court? Ritz-Carlton?”
“I would like...that is... I’ve always wanted to stay at the Bourbon Orleans. I’m not sure how it compares in price, but I hear it’s haunted.” She said the last word in a whisper.
He laughed and gave her a brief kiss. “You’ve got it, sweetheart. If there’s a room to be had, I’ll get you a spook. I’ll be back in an hour—in my car. I don’t give a damn about what Hyacinth sees.”
“She’s at her shop. So don’t...” She trailed off and went silent. The energy in the room changed. When he looked around, Evie was bent with her hands on her skate laces, but her eyes were trained on a stack of wrapped presents on a table across the room.
“What?” It was something, something not good.
“I can’t go,” she said quietly. “I have to go to Channing’s baby shower tomorrow afternoon.”
And just like that, he went from over-the-top excited to this-can’t-be-fucking-happening faster than his car could go from zero to sixty.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The day had started so well, but that was over.
“I’m not just sorry, Jake; I’m really sorry.” She would never be able to communicate the depth of her sorrow. He’d been to New Orleans, sure, but you didn’t get to know it by visiting now and then. She’d already mapped out in her mind the places she would take him in the French Quarter, the things she would show him. And he wanted to dance with her! The Quarter was made for dancing, made for romance.
He ran his hands through his hair and leaned his forearms on his knees. “Let me understand the situation here. You are going to a shower for my ex-wife, because she is having a baby with the man she left me for. That’s what you want to do instead of going to New Orleans with me.”
That sounded so much worse than it was. “I don’t want to. Of course I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t.” He said it like it was just that simple.
“I have to. I said I would.”
He shook his head. “Evie, you always do this—say yes, when you want to—should—say no.”
“I know! I know I do that, but it wasn’t like that this time. I’m trying to do better.”
“Then do better,” he said. “Call Channing and tell her you’re not coming. Go to New Orleans with me like you want to—assuming that is what you want to do.”
“It is. But my mother and sisters can’t go. And I did say no at first, but then my daddy said he really wanted me to. It’s not me. It’s my parents.”
He nodded. “It’s always somebody, always has been—your parents, your sisters, your friends, Claire. Even me.”
That hurt and she struck back. “Maybe especially you.”
“Doesn’t feel that way right now.”
“I’d go with you if I could.” Why couldn’t he see that?
“You can.”
“I have packages to deliver.” She gestured to the gifts from her mother and sisters and the one she had bought.
“We can send them,” he said.
This was maddening. Why was he being so unreasonable? “We can’t. The party is tomorrow afternoon. The post office closes at noon on Saturday. That’s less than an hour. Even if it didn’t, they couldn’t get there in time.”
“Of course they could—can. I can hire somebody to take them.”
“Who?”
He threw up his hands. “I don’t know. Somebody. A courier service. Uber driver. The kid who cleans the rink. There are a million ways.”
“The gifts aren’t the point. I should go. She is my cousin.”
“So what? She’s never been very nice to you. She didn’t even have you in our wedding when she had every other female she’d ever run into at a beauty shop.”
Not fair. And that our hurt more than she cared to admit. Which made her mean. “And why is that, Jake? Did you ever say, ‘What about Evie? Why isn’t my oldest friend, who happens to be your first cousin, a bridesmaid?’ No, you did not. You told me you didn’t even think about it. And why is that? Is it because you had ceased to ever think about me? Or talk to me. Do you think if you hadn’t abandoned our friendship that maybe my participation or lack thereof in your wedding might have come up when we talked?”
His face was a mix of mad and sad. “You said you didn’t care. You said you like
d serving the cake.”
“You brought it up.” Evans crossed her arms in front of her.
“I did. But I guess all this is just one more thing you said yes to when you meant no—that you had forgiven me for ‘abandoning our friendship,’ as you put it. And clearly you’re pissed about not being in that damned three-ring-circus of a wedding when you said you weren’t. And you know what? I wish you had been in it and I had not.”
His face went to neutral and his shoulders sagged. Then he leaned his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes. All the passion had gone out of him. He didn’t seem angry anymore, but something worse. Defeated.
He was right, but she got the feeling if she said so, he would blast it back on her and say she was just being a yes girl. So she wouldn’t go there, but it might still be possible to turn this around. “Look, maybe we can work this out.”
He lifted his head and met her eyes. “Go on.”
“It doesn’t have to be New Orleans. When you first brought it up this was about going somewhere together to have some fun. We talked about other places. Why can’t it be Nashville?”
His mouth dropped open and he put up a hand, all the while shaking his head.
“Wait! Hear me out. We could go up today. You could show me Nashville like I was going to show you New Orleans. You talked about a concert.” She came across with what she hoped was a winning smile. “I have heard there’s some music to be had in Nashville, here and there. I could put in an appearance at the shower—an hour tops. And then we could get on with our weekend. It’s a lot closer than New Orleans and, truth be told, the weather will be better. Not so hot.”
For one bare second, she thought he was going to at least consider it, but then his mouth went to a hard line. “That’s not going to happen. I still want to go somewhere with you. I thought we’d decided on New Orleans, but I’m okay with anywhere except the one place where I was publicly humiliated and showed my ass because of it. I left a winning, top-notch team to get away from Nashville, and I am not going there today or any other day.”
“Nashville is where I have to be at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”
His face was not neutral anymore, or angry. It was a study in sad. He got up and laid a hand on her cheek. He withdrew his hand and looked at her for a long moment. “It was really nice while it lasted. I think it might have been nice for a long time.”
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