30. Maverick Carter
Chapter thirty
Maverick Carter
“No,” Evie says while looking up at the bar. “Nuh-uh, no way am I doing that. I’ll drop to my death.”
“It’s a pull-up, Wilder, not a trapeze stunt.” She glares at me. “And you know that I won’t let you fall.”
I place a hand on her lower back, right between where her crop top ends and her leggings begin. When she walked downstairs this morning, I lost my breath. I couldn’t believe a woman as beautiful as her chose me. The shy expression she wore told me she wasn’t feeling confident, so I made sure to tell her–and show her–just how gorgeous I thought she looked. We were thirty minutes late to our normal workout time, but it was worth it.
“I don’t understand how this is going to help me fight better.” She pauses, then gives me a sassy smile. “Unless you forcing me to is supposed to make me angry enough to fight harder. In which case, it’s already working. ”
“It’s going to increase your strength. All you have to do is hang on the bar. We’ll work our way up to a pull-up eventually.”
“I’m fine being weak. I think it’s–” she cuts off, squealing as I lift her up by her waist.
“Carter! Put me down,” she demands.
“Grab the bar.”
“No,” she huffs and crosses her arms.
“I can hold you like this for a long time, Wilder. And do you know why?”
“Because you were born with freakishly large muscles?”
I roll my eyes. “ No , because I do pull-ups. Now grab the bar so we can be done and get showers. We have to be at MJ’s in an hour.”
She mutters something about me being a hulking brute before extending her arms and gripping the bar. I keep hold of her, not letting her hold her own weight yet.
“I’m going to let you go,” I warn her.
“Okay,” she says, a touch of fear in her voice.
“I’ll be right here to catch you if you fall.” I loosen my grip. “Letting go now.”
Her grip tightens on the bar, the muscles in her arms visibly tensing.
“You’re doing great, Wilder,” I say as she continues to hang.
A couple seconds and her arms start to shake.
“Keep holding on. Give me a few more seconds. You’re stronger than you think.”
Her knuckles are turning white. She breathes in deep shuddering breaths. A few seconds later, her grip starts to slip. I immediately come up under her and lower to the ground .
“See? I knew you could do it,” I tell her, massaging her shoulders from behind. “Soon enough you’ll be able to lift me.”
She lets out a laugh, turning around in my arms.
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought,” she admits, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Thank you for believing in me.”
A glimmer in her eyes lets me know that the meaning of her words goes much deeper than this moment. Instead of responding with words, I pull her to me and show my pride for her in my kiss. We get carried away quickly–as tends to be our theme lately–and Evie has to push me away to slow us down.
She bites her lip. “We need to go get ready. I want to get a shower before Beckham wakes up.”
“I can watch him if he wakes up,” I say and tug her back against me.
She giggles and the sound is sweeter than caramel. “You need to shower too.” She presses a soft kiss to my lips. “I’m not going anywhere, Carter. We’ve got time.”
I hold her tight. “Forever isn’t enough when it comes to you, Wilder.”
“Quit trying to make me cry.” She pushes at my chest and sniffles.
“Okay, okay. Let’s go get ready.”
“I’ll try to be quick, so we can get there early and see if they need any help setting up.”
She gives me one last kiss before heading inside. It’s far too chaste for my liking, but that’s for the best.
As much as I want to spend the morning with her in my arms, it’s important for us to support Sebastian and Maddie today. It’s Maddie’s birthday, and also the anniversary of her mother, Sebastian’s sister’s, death. While Maddie thinks of MJ as her mom and Bash as her dad, today is still a tough reminder that she never got to know her biological mom since she passed right after giving birth to Maddie. It’s also hard on Sebastian, who has to grieve his sister while trying to make his daughter’s birthday the best day possible. He doesn’t get any help from Maddie’s dad either, since he left before Maddie was even born.
Ever since MJ started dating Bash, she’s taken it upon herself to help make the day the best it can be, while also leaving space for grief. And all of us are happy to help with that. Today I’m bringing over Maddie’s favorite peanut butter bars, as well as a funfetti cake with pink frosting. For her present, Evie helped me pick out a new lens for her camera, and she’s going to show Maddie how to use it.
I go to grab my phone off of my tool chest, and notice Evie left hers behind. When I pick it up, the screen lights. The first thing I notice makes me smile–her lock screen is the photo Maddie took of us by the willow tree. The second thing makes my smile drop. There’s a message from an unknown number. It came in just a few minutes ago, so she couldn’t have seen it yet.
Unknown: Hey baby, it’s Ezra. I got a new number because I figured you blocked my old one. Can we talk? I miss you, and I think I’m ready to meet our child.
Anger settles like hot coals in my stomach. Who does he think he is calling her baby ? He shouldn’t even be messaging her at all.
The garage door opens. “I think I forgot my–” Evie stops, her bubbly smile falling away. “What’s wrong?”
I hand her the phone. “I was about to bring it to you, when I saw this.”
Her face pales. I take a tentative step toward her, not wanting to crowd her, but still wanting to be near if she needs me .
“Why would he message me now? It’s been months .” Her eyes flash with anger. “He didn’t want anything to do with me or Beckham. Now he thinks he can send me a text and it’ll all be okay?” She shakes her head, disgust coating her features.
“Maybe he thinks if he can get to you, that you’ll tell Leona to work with him again,” I suggest and watch as her gaze hardens.
“That’s exactly it. He finally had to experience a consequence to his actions.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m blocking him.”
Relief courses through me. I was hoping she’d react this way, but I wasn’t sure. I’d support her no matter what, but I don’t think he deserves to so much as see a picture of Beckham much less be in his life.
“I think that’s a good idea,” I say. She clicks around on her phone, then drops her hands to her side.
I step closer and draw her in for a hug. The tension leaves her body almost instantly as she lets me hold her.
“Are you okay?” I say into her hair before pressing my lips to the crown of her head.
“I’m more annoyed than anything. But it’s okay.” She tilts her head back to look at me. “He’s blocked, the message is deleted, and I’m ready to move on with the day. With my whole life, really.”
I smile and kiss her forehead. “I like the sound of that. Maybe as a part of moving on we get you a new number.”
She returns my smile. “That sounds good. We can go next week.” She pushes up on her tiptoes and kisses me again. “Now, let’s go get ready so we can help Maddie have the best birthday ever.”
“So, how long do we have to wait before you two tie the knot?” Grayson asks as he flops down on the couch next to me. “I’ve got a bet that you’ll elope by the end of the year, but Levi thinks you might wait until January.”
I sigh, running a hand over my beard. “Could you bother someone else? Your future wife, perhaps?”
“My future wife is playing supermodel with yours,” he says, gesturing toward the glass wall that showcases the back yard.
MJ set up a makeshift studio out there so Maddie could use all of her new camera equipment she got. Evie has been teaching her, while also taking some photos of her own. I haven’t been able to take my eyes off her all day–though that’s nothing new. Her magnetism increases a thousandfold when she’s in her element like this though. She glows brighter than all the stars combined. I’m glad Maddie is out there to take photos of her, because she looks like a model herself.
Currently, Evie’s face is glued to her camera while Sloane does various ballet poses. Grayson watches Sloane with an expression that I’m sure is mirrored on my face when I see Evie. He’s unabashedly in love with her, and I’m so happy for him. Even if he seeks to torment me at every available moment.
“They seem to be having fun,” I comment, hoping he’ll leave the marriage thing alone.
I don’t have an exact plan for when I want to propose to Evie. Grayson’s on the right track that I don’t want to wait long, but I also don’t want to rush her. She did get out of a terrible marriage not long ago.
“All of the girls love her. Sloane said she fit in great at Juliette’s bachelorette party,” Grayson says .
I was worried about her going since she didn’t know them very well, but Evie has always been a people person. I’m hoping with time she’ll let that side of herself back out again.
“She said she had a good time.” I look over at Juliette and Adrian. They’re in the kitchen talking to one of MJ’s old roommates, Sophie, and her husband Ben. Ben works with Bash as an orthopedic surgeon for the Thrashers, and Sophie owns a few restaurants. She’s going to cater Adrian and Juliette’s wedding next week, which I imagine is what they’re discussing.
“I can’t believe Adrian is getting married next week,” I say and see Grayson nod through my peripheral vision.
“Me either, but I couldn’t have chosen anyone better for him. And trust me, I tried to set him up plenty of times.”
I laugh. “Oh, I know. I’m sure he’s glad that’s over with.”
“I told him he should be grateful for the experiences I gave him. Otherwise he wouldn’t have known how perfect Juliette was.”
“And did he hit you after saying that?”
“Yeah, he did.” He grins in that undeniably Grayson way. “But it was worth it. Juliette thought it was funny too.”
“You know things like that are why he didn’t let you plan the bachelor party?”
He huffs. “I wouldn’t have done anything debaucherous. I don’t know what he was so afraid of.”
“Probably the fact that he saw you looking up group plane dives on your work computer.”
“You can’t tell me that wouldn’t have made for an awesome memory!”
I laugh. “A last day on earth kind of memory, sure. ”
He rolls his eyes. “Everyone is so dramatic. It would have been fun.”
Sloane does some kind of leap, drawing his attention. His mischievous grin fades into something more wistful.
“It’ll be nice next year to have everyone settled down. No odd men out at family events,” he says in a quiet voice.
I watch him as he watches her. He waited a long time for Sloane in a way. He watched as MJ, then Adrian, then Levi got their happy endings. All the while he was living alone in a suburban family home, wishing for a wife and kids to fill it. It worked out though, because now he has the perfect woman for him. And judging by how often she’s asked to hold Beckham, he may not have to wait too long for kids either.
“It will be.”
“So, does that mean you’ll be married by next year?”
I shake my head, holding back a smile as I watch Evie show Maddie something on her camera. Maddie is bouncing with the kind of energy that comes from too much sugar. She pushes Evie toward the backdrop, having her switch with Sloane. Evie looks hesitant, but Maddie gets her laughing soon enough. She starts to strike dramatic poses, doubling over giggling in between each one. My heart grows and grows until it feels as if it’s going to burst out of my chest.
I spy MJ walking over to her, a wiggling Beckham in her arms. Evie reaches her hands out for him, then pulls him into a spinning hug. He tucks his head beneath her chin and she sways back and forth in front of the backdrop while Maddie moves around, the camera pressed against her face .
“I’m changing my bet. There’s no way you make it through November before you get married. You look like a lovesick goof.” Grayson laughs.
I shove him, but his laughter doesn’t stop. It’s hard to deny him too, because the more I see Evie, the more time I spend with her, the more I kiss her…let’s just say I might be visiting a jewelry store in the near future.