Expect Me (Rivers Edge Book 3)

by Lacey Black

  “Good morning, Matty,” I say as I step forward and throw a kiss onto his smooth cheek.

  Matty continues to throw eye daggers at Travis as he mumbles a quick, “Hi.”

  “Matty, this is Travis. Travis this is my best friend in the whole world, Matty,” I say as I sit back and watch the stand-off. I look back and forth between the two like a slow motion tennis match, wondering who is going to break first.

  Travis extends his hand as a peace offering. “Travis Stevens,” he says as he waits for Matty to respond. His facial expressions give nothing away as his eyes remain locked on Matty’s green eyes.

  I see the slight twitch in Matty’s jaw as he stares at Travis. They’re basically the same height, but Travis is broader and has him by about thirty pounds. Thirty pounds of solid muscle.

  Matty finally extends his hand ever so slowly and shakes Travis’s hand. “Matty Wesley,” he replies with a very slow shake of the hand. I exhale the breath I didn’t realize I was holding as I turn my attention back to Matty.

  “We’re going to grab my stuff, okay?”

  “Yep. I have it gathered in the kitchenette, ready to go for you,” Matty replies as he keeps a close eye on Travis. He finally turns and heads up the stairs to his second floor apartment. “It was basically all still boxed up so I didn’t have to do too much, doll,” he says over his shoulder as he reaches the top of the stairs.

  I follow Matty into the apartment, Travis right on my heels, and see my three boxes and my overnight bag stacked up against the cabinets in the kitchen.

  “Hey, Josselyn,” Rico says in a slight accent from his position in front of the stove. When I first met Rico four years ago, his accent was much thicker and it was hard to understand him at times.

  “Hi, Rico. This is Travis,” I say as I glance back at Travis behind me.

  Rico’s face lights up like Christmas morning when his gaze falls upon the man standing behind me. Rico quickly wipes his hands on the hand towel on the counter before extending it towards Travis.

  “Please to meet you, Travis,” Rico says with a smile. In that moment, I’m pretty sure Rico is shamelessly flirty with Travis. Travis must sense it too because he instantly tenses and pulls his hand back as quickly as possible without seeming rude.

  Rico gives me a hug and whispers in my ear, “Gay?”

  I can’t contain my grin as I whisper back, “Nope. Sorry.”

  “Shoot. I thought you brought me a new toy to play with,” he says as he pulls back and turns back to the stove. Well, not without taking one last look at the sexy man standing behind me in his very nicely fitted jeans and tight gray t-shirt. I know exactly what Rico’s thinking.

  I turn to Travis who has his eyebrow as high up on his forehead as it will go. “What?” he whispers.

  I smile again and shake my head signaling ‘nothing’.

  “Are these the boxes?” Travis asks as he grabs a hold of the top two and picks them up off the pile like they are filled with nothing but air. “I’ll just run them down to the truck, okay?”

  “Sure. Thanks,” I reply.

  As soon as Travis is out of the open door and heading down the stairs, I turn towards Matty. “He seriously just picked both of those boxes up like they weighed nothing. It took both me and Rico to move each of those boxes…individually. Josselyn, that man is like a Greek God.”

  “Oh, so true,” Rico adds.

  “Did you check out his butt in those jeans? Damn, girl. That should be illegal,” Matty says with a shake of his head.

  Rico throws in his two cents where Travis’ butt is concerned, fanning himself as if the temperature in the room rose twenty degrees. I laugh at their assessment of Travis and turn my attention back to Matty. “Why are you being all short and macho towards him?” I ask.

  “I have to. It’s my job as big, gay brother.”

  “Well, I appreciate you’re protecting me and all, but you need to be nice to him.” I look deep into his eyes and plead with my own. “Please, Matty. It’s important to me.”

  Matty exhales dramatically and gives me an eye roll. “I know it is. I actually do like him. I just want to make him squirm a little under my scrutiny.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “Thank you. You are the best, you know that, right?” I say as I throw my hands around his waist.

  “Of course I know that, doll,” he says as he returns my hug.

  “Well, at least you’re not too modest,” I respond with another laugh.

  Travis makes a return to the apartment and grabs the last box and my overnight bag. Before he heads out the door, he looks up at me as if to make sure I’m okay. I give him a little smile as I extract myself from Matty’s embrace.

  I head into the little apartment and give it a once over to make sure all of my belongings are accounted for. Not seeing anything else, I head back into the kitchen.

  “So, how did he take the news?” Matty asks as he makes a pointed look down to my belly.

  “Surprisingly well. He’s being super supportive and offering to help as much as he can. It’s weird, you know?”

  “Considering you refuse to take help from anyone? Yeah, that’s a little weird to see you actually accepting it.”

  “I accept help from you. I just don’t accept it from my parents. There’s a difference,” I defend.

  “True, but it’s still weird seeing my fiercely independent Josselyn accepting help from a basic stranger.”

  “He’s not a stranger, Matty.”

  “He isn’t so much now, but he was that night you got yourself knocked up, doll,” he replies with a dramatic head nod.

  Before I can respond, Travis walks back into the apartment. “Is that everything?” he asks with his hands stuffed casually in the front pockets of his jeans. Lucky jeans.

  “Yep. I want to run over to the storage shed and grab something if that’s okay with you?” I ask recalling that he had that large stereo system in his living room. I love music, all music, and I’d love to grab my CD collection from the storage unit.

  “Sure,” he responds and heads towards the door to wait on me.

  Matty follows me to the door, down the stairs, and out the front door of the apartment building that I called home for a single night. Travis waits at the bottom of the steps for me.

  When I turn back to face Matty, he has his big, bad, mean-guy face plastered back on as he looks over my shoulder at Travis, which is completely comical because Matty doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. Well, unless someone is wearing stripes with polka dots.

  “Knock it off,” I whisper as I give him a final hug.

  “I have to, Joss. I want him to know that trouble awaits him if he hurts you,” he replies with a gentle kiss on my cheek.

  I start to turn towards Travis and notice he’s returning up the stairs to us. I tense as he walks straight up to Matty and extends his hand once more.

  “Nice to meet you, Matty. I’m sure we’ll be seeing much more of each other.”

  Matty takes Travis’s offered hand but continues his stare-down. “Oh, I’m sure we will. I’ll be visiting Joss frequently. Unless you have a problem with that?” he asks with his perfectly manicured eyebrow raised up in question.

  “Of course I don’t. You’re welcome at my place anytime.”

  “Good,” Matty says as he releases Travis’s hand. “Oh, and if you hurt her in any way, shape, or form, I will hunt you down and deliver a whoopin’ on you so bad that your mother won’t be able to recognize you.”

  I gasp loudly, completely horrified, and my eyes are so wide it borders on painful. “Matty!”

  But Travis doesn’t bat an eye as he responds to Matty’s threat with a friendly, non-threatening smile. “I like you, Matty. I like your loyalty to your friends. And, I promise I won’t do anything to hurt her. You have my word,” Travis says as he continues to look Matty straight in the eye.

  After a few tense moments of this awkward stare-down in which I look back and forth between the two of them while ho
lding my breath, Matty finally steps back and says, “Good.” And as dramatically as he entered the picture, Matty exits and head back up the stairs towards his apartment.

  Once we’re settled back inside the cab of the truck and we’re pulling into the street heading towards the storage unit, Travis finally looks over and smiles. “Well, that was interesting.”

  I snort a laugh. “Yeah. Matty’s definitely an interesting individual. But that’s the reason I love him.”

  After Travis loads up the box containing CD’s of some of my favorite artists, we’re heading back towards Rivers Edge. On the outskirts of town, Travis turns his attention back to me.

  “Still feeling okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m surprised I haven’t gotten sick from breakfast. Maybe the worst has past,” I reply.

  “Hopefully. Do you still feel like making a pit stop? I want to show you something.”

  “Sure.”

  Ten minutes later, we’re pulling into some sort of make-shift driveway to the small slice of land that is surrounded by timber. He drives the pick-up over the ruts and divots on the rough ground that looks to have been made from some sort of truck or tractor.

  Travis shuts off the truck and hops out. Once he opens my door and helps me out, I turn around one hundred and eighty degrees to survey the beautiful land.

  “What is this place?” I ask.

  “This is my place. This is going to be my house. I broke ground on it on Saturday,” he tells me, the pride evident in his voice.

  “You’re building this place?” I ask in awe as I take in the deep hole in the ground in front of us.

  Travis reaches inside the cab of the truck and pulls out rolls of blueprints for the house. With them in hand, he shuts the door and takes my hand, steering me around to the hood of the truck. He then rolls out the blueprints and lays out his entire dream in front of me.

  “This is it. It’s a log cabin. I bought this land a little over a year ago for this house. It’ll have a full, finished basement which is the deep hole you see in the ground now. The concrete crew was here Saturday and started to form up the walls of the basement. I won’t be able to finish it right away, but eventually, I’ll get to it.”

  I study the amazing blueprints in front of me as I take in the images of his designs for the first time.

  “This is amazing, Travis.” I say as I turn back and survey the big hole in front of us. “Tell me about it,” I say as I stare at the place where the house will eventually sit.

  Travis turns to the blueprints and starts to point to the entryway. “Here is - “

  “No,” I interrupt. “Tell me about it this way. I want to imagine it as you describe it to me.”

  He turns towards the hole and starts with the part closest to us. He walks us just a few steps to the left and begins, “Here is the entryway. I want a big, wrap-around porch on the front. Somewhere I can have a couple of rocking chairs and maybe a swing. You’ll walk into a small entry way that leads straight into the living room. I want a big stone fireplace in the corner. It’ll be an open loft room so you’ll be able to see the stairs on the back wall that lead up to the bedroom.”

  I close my eyes as he describes the house to me. I can almost picture exactly how it will look when it’s all said and done. There’s a faint smile on my lips as I imagine the house. “The kitchen and dining room are to the right. There will be a wall between the living room and the dining room, but the dining room and kitchen will be open. I want deep, rich cabinets and light countertops. There will be a center island in the kitchen and a bar area for eating. Between the living room and kitchen is a short hallway. Under the stairs that go up in the living room is a set of stairs going down to the basement. Eventually, I want a bathroom in the basement too. The plumber was here on Saturday and started to get all the plumbing ready. He’s going to go ahead and put the plumbing in down in the basement so all I need to do is finish it when I’m ready.”

  I watch Travis speak, studying him intently. “Go on,” I tell me.

  “On the other side of the basement stairs is a half bathroom, a laundry room, and two bedrooms with a full bathroom between them. There’s also a back door behind the kitchen that leads out to the breezeway and double garage.”

  “It sounds nice. Tell me about the master bedroom,” I say with a coy smile.

  “That’s my favorite part of the house,” he replies with his own smile. “Up the stairs are two doors. One is a small office area and the other is the master bedroom. I actually envision double doors for the master bedroom. Inside to the left is a large walk-in closet with plenty of room for clothes and shoes,” he adds with a wink. “There’s also a large master bath with a shower stall and a garden tub. The garden tub actually is underneath a wall of windows that faces the back wooded area there,” he tells me as he points to the heavily timbered part of the property. “No one has access to that area from anywhere but from the front of the property so it’s completely secluded and private. Then, there are the open beams on the slanted ceiling and the French doors on the back wall that leads to a private small balcony.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” I state honestly, because it truly does sound dream-like.

  “I hope so. It will be, someday,” he replies with his hands casually stuffed in his front pockets.

  “I can see it. It’s a beautiful dream. It’s going to be spectacular, Travis,” I say as we stare out at the vast open space in front of us.

  “It’s going to take a lot of time and work. A lot of my free time that I don’t really have will be dedicated to this house. With the exception of the plumbing, some of the electrical, and concrete work, I’m doing it myself. When I’m not working, I’m going to be here. The concrete work, I’m hiring my brothers and a few friends to come and work on the side. I’ll pay them with beer and food afterwards.”

  “When do you think it will be complete?” I ask.

  “I’m hoping end of year. But now with the baby coming in November, I want to have it completely done and be living here by then.”

  I look up into his stunning blue eyes. “What…what are your plans where the baby is concerned?” I ask in a small, timid voice that I can’t seem to control which is not like me at all. But, hey, I’m on emotion overload here with batty hormones.

  “I want you to stay with me for as long as you want. I want to get to know you as the mother of my child. When I move in here, if things are still going well, then I want you to move in with me. You can have the master bedroom or one of the ones downstairs next to the baby, wherever you want. If it’s not working out, I’ll do everything I can to help you get your own place for you and the baby. But, I want to be as much of a part of our child’s life as I possibly can. I won’t settle for anything less than that, Joss.”

  He stares at me for a few minutes before I reply. “We’ll take it day by day and cross that bridge when we get to it. But, just so you know, I want you to be involved in everything regarding our child. If that means I need to be here or at your apartment, then I’m in.” I look off into the distance, and I’m sure Travis can practically see the wheels inside my head turning. He doesn’t say a word as I work out my next thoughts. “Honestly, I’m terrified of doing this alone,” I whisper as my eyes remain fixed on the tree line.

  Travis reaches out and pulls me against his hard chest, wrapping his strong arms securely around my back. “You won’t be alone. I promise.” Then he kisses the crown of my head. I hear him inhale as if committing the scent of my hair to memory. If it was any other man, I would have been a little creeped out. But, this is Travis and he makes everything intimate. Erotic.

  “Come on,” he tells me as he starts to steer me back towards his pick-up. “Let’s hit the store for a quick stop and stock up on spicy Mexican food before we head back to the apartment.”

  Chapter Six

  Travis

  There is no such thing as a quick trip to the store. It’s physically impossible to get in and out in under a couple of minutes
. Every time you want to just grab a few things, that’s when half of the people you know are shopping too. So, after talking to about a dozen people including my brother-in-law, Maddox, and introducing Josselyn to just about everyone in the place, we finally get home with my truck full of food.

  Josselyn works on unloading the grocery bags while I head back down to unload her boxes from the bed of my truck. It’s a beautiful May day and when I finally get the last of the boxes into the apartment, Josselyn walks around opening up the windows.

  I throw a couple of chicken breasts in the skillet and start to brown them on low heat. My mom taught me enough about cooking to get by, but there’s a reason I make sure I’m at every Sunday family dinner and leave with as much leftovers as possible. While I tend to the chicken, Josselyn pulls the lettuce greens out of the fridge and starts to make the salads. She adds sliced tomatoes, cheese, and some grilled corn that I didn’t even know they had at the store. Once the chicken breasts are done, she slices them up on the cutting board and throws them on top of the salad. She adds a dollop of guacamole and some southwest dressing and voila…lunch is served.

  We sit down at the small table with a couple of bottles of water, and I stare down at the salad. I’ll admit, I was completely skeptical at the store when she told me what we were eating - I’m not exactly a salad guy - but now that it’s sitting in front of me, it looks and smells awesome.

  “What’s the matter?” she asks between bites.

  “Nothing. This looks really good.”

  “I’m starving,” she says as she stuffs another huge bite of lettuce and chicken in her mouth. I sure hope that stays down today.

  I dive into the salad, and I’ll admit, it’s damn good. It doesn’t take too long before both of our bowls are empty and our stomachs full. I gather up the bowls and set them in the sink to clean later.