by Violet Blaze
“Even if we don't hit it off,” he says and then pauses again, studying my expression carefully, “you're still the mother of her one and only grandchild.” Rhoden pulls the black down comforter over my shoulder and traces a few freckles with his finger, eyes lighting with arousal. Whatever else he might think of me, he clearly finds me attractive. “We'll take care of this Walter thing, one way or another, and then … let's try this. We have time.”
I clear my throat as I sit up and look at him, at this stranger that I like so much so suddenly, whose baby I'm carrying, whose bed I'm lying in, happy and sated and warm from a night of lovemaking.
“Are you saying you want to … date me?” He grins and pulls the cover away, revealing a lot more of my skin than I'd like him to see in the bright light. But he doesn't look disgusted or disturbed, doesn't look at me like the ugly fat girl my stepmom always treated me as. No, he looks at me like I'm something special.
“Yeah. If that's what you want, of course. Either way, I'll be a father to our baby. I know what it's like for a single mother. She was so damn good at it, I didn't care that I didn't have a dad. But I also saw the hell I put her through.” Rhoden smiles. “I'd never do that to another woman as long as I live.”
“So dating in acceleration then? Like a nine month crash course?” I pause and reconsider. “A seven month crash course?”
“I'm down if you are,” he tells me and the way he looks at me, it's like we can't possibly fail at this.
Regardless of the outcome, I'm excited to try.
Rhoden and I get dressed (in separate rooms since there's no way I'm changing in front of him). He comes out of the bathroom in a black, short sleeved button-up, black jacket, and jeans while I don my outfit from last night. Rhoden offers me some of his sweats, but I turn him down, even though my poor panties have seen better days; I want to look cute since we're spending the day together.
We take the dogs down to the dog park and I notice right away that if I hand him the leash, that LD falls into line immediately. Must have something to do with his commanding presence. And boy, is it commanding. People stare at us as we cross the street, stroll in circles around the dog park and throw the tennis ball. Could be because Rhoden's in the NFL, could be because he's hot as hell.
Hah, it rhymes. But who I am kidding? It's probably both.
“Tell me some more about yourself, Della Garland,” Rhoden says as we finish our tour of the dog park and collect our mutts, heading out the gate and down the sidewalk towards yet another dog friendly food and beverage establishment that Rhoden knows about. “Besides all the stuff I can find online: your dad started Garland Enterprises from the ground up, your stepmom is a wealthy East Coast socialite, and your little sister is some kind of supermodel. That's what I got to start off with,” he says and then, “besides your blog.”
I feel my face drop and then shiver as Rhoden slides his arm around my waist.
“I read it all,” he says and even though I don't believe him, the sentiment is cute. “Every story from start to finish.”
“If that's true, then you know everything there is to know about me. I poured my heart and soul into that thing.”
Rhoden walks with me for a while and then smiles.
“I made your pumpkin bread,” he says and I snap my gaze over to look at him. “Okay, my mom made your pumpkin bread at my place when she stopped into town.” His smile gets a little wider. “It was dry as hell.”
A laugh bursts from my throat, and I can't stop it. It just bubbles up and takes over me.
“Okay, seriously, how much did you read?”
Rhoden walks us to the next intersection and then looks over at me. He's taller than me, but not freakishly so. It's nice. He's got a little height on me, but I still feel like we're at eye level. Plus, it makes the sex so much easier. I do not envy couples with big height differences.
Couples.
I shiver at the word.
“All of it,” Rhoden repeats after a minute. “After I ran into you the second time. I Googled you to see what you were about and there it was. I glanced at one page and ended up reading everything.” I feel suddenly exposed when he looks at me, like he's got all my secrets and I've got none of his. “For what it's worth, you have fucking amazing arms.”
I shove at him with my hand, his arm still wrapped around my waist, and we start across the street together. I forget for a freakishly odd moment there that Ariana works around here, at a tutoring center about two blocks further than the café we're on the way to. It's why she always stops by at least twice a week with Chinese takeout from that place up the street.
I almost don't see her at all.
But that girlish fangirl squeal is unmistakable …
“DELLA!” I cringe, my head whipping up as I see my best friend turned sexy librarian sprinting—totally sprinting—in a pair of black glasses and heels, a white pencil skirt, and a red button-up. Rhoden watches her coming with raised brows. “Della Garland,” she pants when she gets close to us, pointing a finger directly at my chest and then blushing when she turns her attention to Rhoden. I realize with a start that this is the first time they've ever met. “What secrets are you hiding from me?”
“We had our date last night, remember? The NFL charity date that you stole my credit card for?” Ariana looks from me to Rhoden, then just point-blank stares at him, no shame at all.
“Ariana, right?” he asks and she gapes at him with her red painted mouth.
“He read the blog,” I whisper and her cheeks go from pink to crimson.
“He read the blog?” she whispers back, in complete awe. “Even I don't read the blog. Clearly, he's into you.”
“He's literally standing next to us and can hear everything you're saying,” I tell her as Rhoden laughs and Billy the Kid does this ridiculous circus dog act and hops on her back legs.
“I don't know if you know, or like how much Della's told you about me, but I am a huge Rhoden Richards fan. Seriously, when I found out she was pregnant with your baby, I—”
Ariana gasps and clamps her hand across her mouth while I roll my eyes.
“Thanks for telling him,” I say. “If I hadn't already, that would've been a serious problem.”
“If I didn't have a husband-to-be that I loved with all my heart, I would leave him for you.”
Rhoden laughs again, and I breathe a small sigh of relief. Ariana can be really hard to handle for some people.
“Speaking of weddings,” she says, and I almost scream. Like magic, she produces an invitation from her pocket and passes it to Rhoden. “Two weeks until the big day. Can you make it? I made sure it wasn't on a game day, so Della would attend. She's so addicted to Adders games, she'd probably skip her own funeral to watch one.”
“Gee, thanks for the glowing recommendation.”
“So, what do you say? Or wait … are you two … he wants the baby, right?”
“Could I maybe, um, have a minute alone with you, please?”
“Be my guest,” Rhoden says as he gestures with his hand and kindly takes LD's taut leash from mine. The dog transforms immediately from a flopping fish on dry land to a well trained service dog in an instant. “Oh, and Ariana?” We both stop walking and turn toward him. “For what it's worth, I want this baby.”
My whole face goes red as I grab Ariana by the arm and pull her a safe distance away, stopping right in front of our destination café.
“Listen, let me give you the rundown so you can stop hitting on my baby daddy.”
“Oh, I am so never stopping hitting on him, but please, do tell.” I take a breath and glance over my shoulder at Rhoden as he leans against a stop sign with his long, lean body, the tattoos on his right arm a dark swirl of magic on his bicep. “First though, please tell me you're planning on marrying him. I love him. He's perfect.”
“We're going to date, okay?”
“Date? You're going to date Rhoden Richards?! How was last night? Did you guys do it again?”
; “Actually, yes,” I whisper, feeling my body suffuse with heat. “And it was incredible.” I look down at the ground with a sheepish smile that Ariana immediately interprets correctly because she's a horrible, horrible person.
“You didn't use any protection, did you?” she gasps.
“I'm already pregnant,” I mumble back and she shakes her head. I know I'm going to get a talk about STD testing, but I try to put it on hold for a more convenient time, like Rhoden's first time meeting Scottie. That should be fun. “Anyway, please move on from that topic. I'd like to have breakfast with the man whose baby I'm carrying.” I look over my shoulder again and find Rhoden signing some kid's football. How cute. Until I see that he's scrawling Big Dick across it in black Sharpie.
I look back at Ariana.
“You want me to just leave? This is my first time meeting my idol. Oh my God. Tell me you've seen the back tattoos in person? Are they as fabulous as they look online?”
“I'll make you a deal. You go away right now and leave us alone, and I'll bring him to the wedding.”
“Too boring. I'll be too busy getting married to pay much attention to him. Bring him over for dinner and you've got a deal.” I purse my lips, knowing that Scottie and Ariana's can be the kiss of death for a new relationship. But he'll have to meet them eventually.
“Fine, deal. Now go away.”
Ariana squeals, gives me a hug and them immediately takes her phone out and starts texting Scottie and Hal. Which is fine anyway since there's nothing I can do to stop her. She walks past Rhoden and tickles his chest with her fingers before heading down to the Chinese place for an early lunch.
“I like her,” Rhoden tells me as I rejoin him and we walk into the café's outdoor sitting area together. “She's definitely got spunk.”
“She … grows on people,” I say as we get seated and I stare across the table at one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen in my life. “But, if you've read the whole blog, you'd probably know that. Tell me something about you? I feel like I'm in the dark here.”
“What do you want to know,” Rhoden asks with that whisky-honey gaze of his, mouth still twisted in a sexy smile. I look down at my hands and then back up at him.
“Everything,” I say.
And I mean that.
Rhoden and I spend the day together making light conversation, nothing as heavy as Walter or a possible future relationship or our baby. Instead, we just chat and get to know each other although … the sexy football dick really did read most of the posts on my blog, all the way back to the beginning.
Later, when he walks me home, we share a hot, lingering kiss on my doorstep.
My hands slide around Rhoden's shoulders, enjoying the shape and feel of his muscles under his shirt. When he pulls me forward and presses our bodies together, I can feel that he's already hard and ready for me.
“Are you sure you don't want to come in?” I whisper and he makes a sound that's half-growl/half-purr, falling into my apartment and slamming the door behind him. This time, our hands are flying everywhere, tearing his shirt over his head, ripping off my dress. When Rhoden sets me on the edge of my table and pulls me tight against him, there's an urgency in him that I haven't seen before.
I open myself to him, encourage him to enter me with a hard, fast thrust, throwing my arms around his neck as he rushes us both to the edge of a wild, frantic orgasm. Afterwards, he takes me into my room and lays on his stomach on my bed.
This is my chance, I think as I pant and listen to the happy tingle of my body. I could sleep with Rhoden a dozen times a day and it would never get old. With a small giggle that I immediately regret and try to turn into a fake cough, I roll over and sit up, straddling his bare, muscular ass with my body.
“Oh, hell, you can't do that or I'm gonna go crazy again,” he says as I lean over and run my hands down his back, right over the black and gray ink of the tree tattoo that climbs up his spine. Branches curl and twine around one another and tiny, intricate little leaves dot the ends of each one. Some of them float majestically down towards the roots, forever destined to hang suspended on his golden body.
“Good, because I like that. Feel free to do it anytime.” I feel bold sitting on him like this, like he can't turn and look at me so I can say whatever I want. “I think I'm just the right size and shape to take you without too much foreplay.”
Rhoden groans and rolls me off his back, pulling me close and looking down at me with a pained expression on his face.
“If I could stay here all night and fuck you, I would.” He reaches over me with his tattooed right arm and grabs his phone, cursing lightly under his breath. “I have practice in six hours,” he says as he lets go of me and leans back. The thought of spending a night alone here kind of depresses me, but I don't say anything about it. After all, we just decided to test this attraction between us out. Moving in together comes later. Much later.
“Rhoden,” I start as I summon a burst of courage. “What does your tattoo mean? What does it stand for? I can't find the answer anywhere on the internet.”
He closes his eyes for a moment and then opens them again, looking at me with that warm gaze.
“It's not all that glamorous,” he says apologetically, sitting up and scooting to the edge of the bed so that his back's to me. I think he does it so I can see the design better and it makes me smile. “The reason I don't tell the media about it,” a glance over the shoulder at me and a small half-smile, “is because it's a little … hell, how should I put this? Cheesy?”
“I love cheesy,” I tell him, running the palm of my hand up his spine. “I eat cheesy for breakfast.”
Rhoden chuckles, but he doesn't look at me, reaching down to stroke Billy's ear instead. She smiles up at him with her pink tongue lolling, like she's trying to encourage him to tell his story.
“When I was kid, and things were rough as hell, I had this notebook.” He pauses and traces a line down the dog's muzzle. “My mom drew a tree for me and told me that each time I wanted to give up, I should add a leaf to the picture. Then, when the tree was full and leafy, I could look back and see how all the hard moments in my life had come together to grow something great.”
I purse my lips and try not to awwwwww at him. Because damn. Damn. Big Dick is kind of … perfect.
He looks over his shoulder and flashes a smirk my way to dampen the power of his words.
“You see what I mean? I don't exactly want to share that story in the locker room. The running joke is that each leaf is a woman I've slept with.” I raise my eyebrows at that, but he just laughs and leans over, giving me another long, lingering kiss on the mouth. “It's an away game this weekend, but I'd love to see you as soon as I get back.” He pauses and reaches over to the nightstand for his phone. “Do you want to give me Ariana's number so I can call or text? Walter … made it pretty clear if he saw me contacting you, that he'd make things bad. Until we can figure out what to do about that fucker, we should probably take it easy.”
“That's not at all depressing,” I joke as I take the phone and program in Ariana's contact info. When she finds out that Rhoden Richards has her number, she's going to freak. “I'm sure he'll find some way to kidnap our baby and shackle me to the Virgil family empire, all without breaking a sweat.”
Rhoden turns to me slowly and blinks, nice and slow and easy.
“There's no way in hell, that rich little weasel is touching my goddamn kid.” A long pause as he stands up and pulls his sweats on. “Or my woman.” A smile that makes my insides twist into knots. “I'll see you on Monday, Della. Good night.”
As soon as I hear the front door close, I grab a pillow and shove it over my face.
And then I scream like a teenage fangirl and don't feel the least bit ashamed about it.
The next morning, I wake to the front door slamming open and a teary-eyed Ariana leaping into bed beside me. I'm completely naked, but that never seems to actually matter with her.
“Oh my God,” I start, thinkin
g it's something about the baby. It took her four years to get pregnant. I really don't want to see her lose her first chance, especially not with me pregnant because of a broken condom. How horrible can the universe get? “What's wrong?”
I sit up and immediately start searching for some clothes.
“Scottie got a two week notice today.”
I pause.
“Wait, what?” Scottie is the best goddamn nurse I have ever met in my life. He follows all the rules, but protests them peacefully. He works overtime and double shifts and trades holidays with his coworkers. He knits hats out of sustainably produced hemp yarn and brings them to the chemo patients. No way. Nuh uh. “How? Why? What?”
“California is an at-will state. That means an employee can be fired at any time for any reason. When he got home from graveyard this morning, he told me his supervisor just randomly pulled him aside and gave him the notice without any reason. He's going to hold a peaceful sit-in rally, but … this really sucks, Della.”
I stare at my friend's runny mascara and I know there's more to this than just that.
“Ariana …”
“Did you know that the tutoring center is going under? They've been struggling for some time, but we thought we might get a grant from that new education measure? Anyway, we found out today that we've been denied any grants for next year. So not only is Scottie out of a job, but I'm out of a job, and we're having a baby.”
She pauses for a moment and sits up, acting like she doesn't see my bare nipples peeking out from under the blanket.
“Del, do you think … it was Walter?”
There is no doubt in my fucking mind.
Instead, I say, “don't worry about anything. I have some money saved and if I have to, I can trade the Range Rover in and get a more economical car.” I make myself smile, even though I'm shaking inside. “Scottie would like that anyway. I know how he feels about the SUV.”
“You don't have to do that, Della,” she tells me seriously. “I'm not friends with you because you're rich. Were rich? Anyway, don't NFL players make bank? Rhoden might not be a billionaire, but he was contracted to the Adders with a twenty-one million dollar a year salary for four years, thirty-one million guaranteed. I think you can keep the Range Rover.”