The Bromance Book Club

by Lyssa Kay Adams

  Thea’s lips parted. “You did?”

  “Yep.”

  “How come you never told me that before?”

  “Once I finally got up the nerve to talk to you, there was too much else I wanted to talk about, I guess.”

  And because there were things they never talked about, like her parents. He’d tried several times, but Thea always shut down those conversations. He was dumb enough, apparently, to think that meant there was nothing worth talking about. But when he asked her if she wanted him to deal with her father, the wall went up like it always did. At least he now recognized the wall for what it was. At least he now knew that the wall needed to be knocked down.

  The waitress interrupted quietly and asked if they wanted a bottle of wine. Gavin motioned for Thea to do the honors, because she was way better at that shit than he was. She quickly scanned the wine list and ordered a French-sounding chardonnay.

  The waitress delivered the wine, poured two glasses, and then took their orders. Gavin moved his chair around to be closer to her and clinked his glass against hers.

  Thea lifted an eyebrow. “Are we toasting?”

  “Yes.”

  “To what?

  He considered saying something glib, like to washi tape. But he opted for something more mature and meaningful. “To our first date.”

  Thea smiled into her wine, but then she glanced over his shoulder at the bar below and narrowed her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You remember those two guys I told you about at the store?”

  His spine went rigid. “What about them?”

  “They’re here.”

  “Where?” He followed Thea’s point down to the bar. Two men quickly turned away. One wore a cowboy hat and sunglasses, the other a Detroit Red Wings jersey. He couldn’t see faces from this far up, but he’d know that cocky stance anywhere.

  Braden-Fucking-Mack in a shit-assed disguise.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  He was going to kill him. Trying to keep his voice neutral, Gavin asked, “You’re sure it’s the same guys?”

  “Yeah. But it’s probably just coincidence, right?”

  Gavin threw his napkin on the table. “Stay here.”

  “What?” He stood, and Thea grabbed his arm. “What are you doing? Gavin, you can’t confront them!”

  “Trust me.”

  The two “guys” knew they’d been busted the instant his feet hit the stairs. Gavin followed them with his eyes as they pushed through the crowded bar toward a dark hallway in the back with a neon RESTROOMS sign illuminating the floor in a pink glow.

  Gavin dodged dancing couples and drunk assholes in pursuit and finally threw open the bathroom door with both hands. “I know you’re in here, Mack,” he barked.

  “No one by that name in here,” came a voice from the second stall.

  Gavin banged on the stainless steel door. “Out. Now.”

  The door opened. Gavin backed up, fists forming against his thighs. Mack walked out, hat in hand. “Why aren’t you answering our texts?”

  Gavin felt something like a growl rip through his chest. “Are you fucking kidding me? That’s all you have to say to me? What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Trying to help you.”

  Gavin walked down the aisle, banging on other doors. “Who else is with you?”

  A second door opened, and out walked the Russian hockey player with the bad digestive system. “Ask wife if she want to dance.”

  “Seriously?” he squawked in Mack’s direction. “You dragged him along?”

  “He’s right,” Mack said. “She keeps looking at the dance floor. Ask her to dance.”

  “I am doing just fine on this date without your help, thank you very much. And by the way, that hat and those glasses are the worst fucking disguise I’ve ever seen. Do you really think no one recognizes you?”

  “No one has yet.”

  “They’re probably just too embarrassed for you. They think you’ve gone crazy. And you know what? You are crazy. Certifiable. Don’t you have a goddamn life?”

  “What about my disguise?” the Russian asked, looking down at his rival Red Wings’ shirt.

  “It sucks.”

  “No one recognizes you, anyway,” Mack said. “You were right about that washi tape, by the way. She kissed you!”

  Gavin grabbed a handful of Mack’s shirt. “I swear to God—”

  A toilet flushed. Gavin felt a blood vessel burst in his brain. A short, round man walked out of the stall at the end and stopped to stare at them. Mack began to whistle and look around. Gavin clenched his jaw so tightly he heard a bone crunch.

  The man looked at Gavin. “I know you.”

  Gavin let go of Mack’s shirt. “No, you don’t.”

  “You’re Gavin Scott.”

  “No, he is not,” the Russian supplied. “Gavin Scott much bigger man. And not so ugly as this one.”

  The man snorted and washed his hands. In the mirror, he looked at Gavin. “You should ask her to dance. If she’s looking at the dance floor, she wants to.”

  Great. Now he was getting advice from strangers in the goddamn bathroom?

  The man dried his hands. “I heard nothing,” he said. Then he left.

  Gavin pointed at Mack. “You are going to leave. Now.”

  “Just listen to us,” Mack said. “You’re doing really well, but dance with her, and use it as a chance to get her to talk. It happens all the time in the manuals. Remember when Irena and Benedict danced the waltz? It brought them closer. People reveal secrets when they dance. It’s easier to talk to a shoulder than to a face.”

  That made an absurd amount of sense, which pissed Gavin off.

  The door opened again, and in strode a security guard in a gray uniform. He surveyed the scene. “Everything all right in here?”

  “Yep,” Mack said. “Nothing to see here.”

  “A woman said she was worried that her husband might be in trouble.”

  Gavin extended his hand. “My name is Gavin Scott, and I’m a player for the Nashville Legends. These two men are harassing my wife and me, and I’d like you to throw them out, please.”

  “Let’s go.” The security guard took Mack’s arm. He hesitated when he realized Mack was solid muscle. “Um . . .”

  Mack ignored the guard. “When you get home, ask if you can kiss her in the driveway. In your car. She’ll love it. I read it in this one book, and I tried it on a girl once, and I swear, she melted on my lap like butter.”

  “This man is clearly unhinged,” Gavin told the security guard.

  “Have you been drinking, sir?” the security guard asked.

  Mack nodded. “Yes. Good. I’ll pretend I’m drunk. Make sure Thea sees this when he throws us out. You can follow us out and be all, get the fuck out of here, and be all alpha male and shit.”

  “You’re insane.”

  Mack put his hat back on. “I’m telling you, she’ll open up with you after all this. You’ll be thanking us later.”

  The security guard pulled on Mack’s arm. “Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on in here, and I’m not sure I want to know, but you two, out.”

  He shoved Mack toward the door. The Russian followed. “My disguise does not suck.”

  A small, curious crowd had formed outside the bathroom, because who isn’t curious when a security guard goes into the john at a bar? Mack turned to look over his shoulder and made as big a scene as possible. “I love you, man,” he cried, stumbling for effect. “I’m a huge fan. Huge.”

  Gavin pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Yes. Huge fan,” the Russian said, inexplicably throwing his arms high in the air.

  “Out you go,” the security guard said, pushing them to the door.

  Gavin ignored the looks and ques
tions from people as he walked back around the dance floor. He looked up to see Thea leaning over the railing, biting her lip. He took the stairs two at a time.

  She rushed over to him. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. It’s fine.”

  “What did you say to them?”

  “I told them that I was enjoying a nice evening with my wife and that I would appreciate it if they would leave us alone.”

  “Don’t do that again. Do you hear me? They could have been crazy! I don’t want you to do that again.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’m serious.”

  Gavin put his hands on her hips and pulled her against him. “Do you w-want to dance?”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Dance?” Thea scanned Gavin’s face for signs of another head wound. Had one of them hit him in the bathroom?

  Uncertainty flashed across his face. “I thought maybe you w-w-wanted to.”

  “I—”

  “We don’t have to.”

  He started to step back, but Thea covered his hands with her own. “I didn’t say that. We just, we’ve never danced before.”

  “I know. It’s long overdue, don’t you think?”

  Yes, but not much about their marriage was normal. They were doing a lot of things for the first time that most married couples did long before they got married and had children.

  “I like dancing,” she finally said. Wait. No. What was she thinking? This wasn’t supposed to be a real date. She was supposed to be going through the motions. The washi tape and wine were scrambling her brain. She backed up.

  “So do I,” Gavin said. He caught her hand with one of his and pulled her back. He curled their fingers together. “So should we?”

  Thea looked around the dark loft. They were safe from prying eyes, and the band was playing a slow song.

  Nervous butterflies took flight in her stomach as Gavin wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. His other hand curled around hers, and he tucked them both against his heart. It was manly and gallant and sexy as hell, and that was before he began to move.

  Which. Wow. He swayed with a natural rhythm that took her breath away. Of course, most athletes had good body control, but that didn’t mean they could actually dance. She’d seen enough dugout dance-offs to know that most baseball players left their skills on the field. But Gavin? Wow. Where’d he been hiding this?

  “Do you regret not having a real w-wedding?” he asked after a moment of quiet swaying.

  “We did have a real wedding.”

  “You know what I mean. A big wedding.”

  Her gut twisted. This was dangerous territory as far as conversations went. “Not really. Do you?”

  “I didn’t used to, but now I think I’d like to have the memory of you walking down the aisle in a white dress.”

  “It’s just a dress.”

  “This isn’t just a dress.” His hand splayed across her back. Her heart raced. The flirting that had bothered her so much last week was giving her warm fluttery feelings tonight, and that was not good. She stared at his shoulder to avoid his eyes.

  “What about a honeymoon?” he murmured.

  “What about it?” This was definitely venturing into dangerous territory. Thea focused on her steps, her breathing.

  “I regret not having one of those,” Gavin said playfully, rubbing the pad of his thumb suggestively across her low back.

  Thea coughed. “Where would you have wanted to go?”

  “Someplace warm where you could walk around in a bikini all day.”

  Laughter bubbled up, unbidden. “I haven’t worn a bikini since the girls were born.”

  “I know. It’s a source of great d-disappointment for me.”

  They danced in silence for a beat, but then he spoke again. “If we’d had a w-wedding, w-would you have had your dad walk you down the aisle?”

  Thea swallowed and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about that bastard right now. Not when she was all tangled up in other confusing emotions. And that kind of question was why she shouldn’t have opened the door to the conversation at all.

  “Talk to me, Thea,” he said against her hair.

  “Why does any of this matter?”

  “Because you matter.”

  Thea shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It seems like the kind of a thing a man should have to earn, not just expect to be able to do.”

  Gavin tugged her closer. “He didn’t earn it.”

  “No. He definitely did not.”

  They danced in silence for several minutes after that. Thea’s body chronicled every way his body brushed and molded against hers. He bent his head and kissed the top of hers.

  “Why don’t you want to go to the wedding?” he asked quietly.

  For some reason, she answered. “Because I can’t stand to watch another young, naïve woman get scammed into believing that she’s the one who will change him, that she’s the one who will make him stay. He won’t. He’ll leave her, because that’s what he does. He leaves.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The ride home was silent.

  Not tense silent. Just . . . weird silent. All night, they’d existed in a sated, peaceful void, avoiding the unpleasant, lumbering elephants between them. So much unresolved unpleasantness had been blissfully forgotten for one night.

  Gavin pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. Neither of them moved to get out, though.

  “I had fun tonight,” he said.

  Thea didn’t want to admit that she had too, so she said nothing. What good would it do to encourage him with false hope? Once they exited the dark haven of the car, the jungle of reality would unleash the trumpeting herds, and no amount of missing and wishing for things to be different would chase them off.

  Gavin cleared his throat. “So . . .”

  Thea looked over at him. “So?”

  “Since this is a date,” he started. “Do I get to kiss you in the car before I walk you inside?”

  Air seeped from her lungs. “Is that what people do on dates? I’ve forgotten.”

  “I remember doing a lot more than that in a car with you,” he said, his voice husky.

  Thea’s cheeks got hot. “You know that’s probably the night I got pregnant, right?”

  “I always w-wondered.” The heavy-lidded way he looked at her suggested he had wondered but didn’t particularly care; he just liked the memory and wouldn’t mind making a new one.

  Which was why the smart thing to do would be to get out of the car now.

  But she wasn’t feeling very smart. She was just feeling. “Yes,” she murmured.

  “Yes?” he repeated.

  She looked at his lips.

  A happy sound rose from Gavin’s chest as he claimed her mouth. This wasn’t like before. This wasn’t like the kiss from the kitchen or the one the night he moved home. This kiss was no explosion of passion, but it was every bit as shattering. Who knew there could be such volatility in such tender pressure? This was a kiss that required a slow breath through her nose and a strong grip on her seat. The kind of kiss that told her she was going to be in trouble if they kept up this charade of dating.

  Gavin adjusted the angle of his mouth and brushed her lips once, twice, a third time. Then he pulled back and gazed down at her, a half smile lifting the corner of his mouth.

  Gavin rubbed his thumb across her lower lip. “You feel like reading tonight?”

  Thea’s head nodded up and down on its own.

  An hour later, she fell asleep to the soft cadence of his voice and the confused beating of her heart.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Did you kids have fun last night?”

  The next morning, Gavin swung the fridge shut to fi
nd that Liv had materialized in the kitchen as if she’d teleported. He jumped and swore.

  “Yes.”

  “Bummer,” Liv said. “I was hoping to get out of the basement.”

  Gavin set down the milk for the girls’ cereal. Thea was upstairs getting the girls dressed. He hadn’t actually seen her yet this morning; he’d only heard her movements. “You know, Liv, this little thing we d-d-do is amusing and all,” Gavin grumbled, “but I don’t have the patience for you this morning.”

  “Just watching out for my sister. Didn’t I warn you about hurting her?”

  Gavin opened a pantry and withdrew the Cheerios. “Did it ever occur to you that this is none of your business?”

  “She’s my sister.”

  “And my wife.”

  “I live here.”

  “Feel free to move out.”

  “You first.” She snapped her fingers. “Wait. You already tried that once.”

  “And I don’t plan to do it again.”

  Thea shuffled into the kitchen, and Gavin fumbled the cereal.

  “Hey,” he breathed.

  “Morning,” Liv chirped.

  Thea stopped short, her eyes darting back and forth between them. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Gavin said.

  “Just telling my brother-in-law how much I think of him.”

  Thea sighed and reached with both hands to twist her hair atop her head. The girls stumbled into the kitchen in matching pink T-shirts and purple leggings. Gavin scooped them both up and poured their cereal.

  Thea’s shoulders were stiff as she filled a cup of coffee. Had she slept any better than him? Because he’d slept like shit. Crawling out of her bed last night to return to the guest room had taken Herculean strength. He didn’t possess it this morning. He had to touch her.

  He walked up behind her, slipped his arms around her waist, and nuzzled her cheek.

  She turned her face up to his with a surprised, wide-eyed glance. He dropped a kiss on her lips. “Good morning,” he murmured.

  “Morning,” she whispered.