Chapter 12
“D o you think it’s too much?” I ask Lenox as we both take in one of the guest rooms.
He grunts and I turn to him. He’s only in town for a few hours—my guess is he’s visiting Suzie’s grave—but since he loves me, he came over to check on me. And bring me barbeque, because again, he loves me.
“Really? I think it’s nice. I think she’ll like it.”
A shrug this time. “Callan said she’s a spitfire.”
When I woke from my nap, I found Callan and Lenox talking about Wynter. Cal told me she played Central Square during my entire surgery and that she was fucking brilliant to watch. If he weren’t in love with Layla, I’d be worried.
“You think it’s too subdued for her?”
Another shrug.
“You’re no help,” I admonish, suddenly nervous he could be right. “What do you know about women?”
This time I get a challenging raised eyebrow, and yeah, he has a point.
“Fine. I guess I don’t know much either. I’ve never lived with anyone except you assholes on that tour bus. The last girlfriend I had was…” I pause. Think. Glance back over at him as if he’ll send me a lifeline and jog my memory.
“Meredith.”
“No.” My good hand meets my hip, and then my face scrunches up. “For real?”
He nods.
“That was like…”
“Three years ago. And you only dated her for a few months.”
“Damn.” My eyebrows hit my hairline in surprise, and I turn back to the room.
“Well, shit. Do you think I should have let her decorate it herself? I was worried she never would because she’s planning to jump ship after the season is over, and I hated the idea of her sleeping in an all-white room, which is what it was before.
” I make a displeased noise in the back of my throat.
“Then again, I hate the idea of her sleeping in here and not in my bed, but I guess sacrifices must be made for the greater good.”
“She’ll like it.”
“Right?” I exclaim. “I totally agree. What’s not to like?
It’s feminine without being over-the-top.
At least that’s what Freddy said when he went nuts with my credit card.
” My assistant loves to give it a workout, but I have zero complaints about everything he did.
My place has been transformed in a matter of hours.
Callan brought me home after the surgery, and I napped for a solid two hours while my house was filled with people and Freddy was running the show.
I woke up starving like a beast, and then Lenox showed up.
Bastard made me take one of those pain pills Wynter prescribed, which I might be feeling a little—or maybe even a lot.
I think I’m a lightweight when it comes to any sort of medication.
Just look at what happened to me in the bathroom at the club the night I met Wynter.
But at least I’m not feeling any pain, so that’s something.
“I should go.”
I frown. “No. Stay. You can meet my kid. He’ll be here any minute.”
“Kids are afraid of me.”
I roll my eyes in a very Wynter way. “They are not. They just feel your strong, silent vibe.”
He raises an amused eyebrow at me.
“I think next time I should go with half a pill.”
He chuckles softly, his blue eyes full of mirth at my expense. “Lightweight.”
“I won’t even argue that because it’s the truth.” The buzzer for my door sounds, and a smile immediately springs to my lips, along with a jolt of nerves in my chest. “Fuck. They’re here. How do I look? Hot, sexy, dependable?”
“Like a man who had surgery this morning.”
“Thanks, big guy.” I smack his shoulder and then wince because the motion jarred me a bit. “Always setting me straight when I need it the least. Come on. Say hi to my non-woman and kid, and then you can go do… whatever it is you’re doing tonight.”
“Hacking a large—”
“La, la, la, la,” I start singing over him.
“Plausible deniability. If you don’t tell me, then I don’t know what you actually do for a living other than inking people’s skin.
” Even though I do. Tattoo artist by day.
Genius hacker by night. You’d wonder when he sleeps, but after touring with him for four years, I know he doesn’t. At least not often and not much.
I open the door, and there is a happy Mason chewing on something that looks like a giraffe, and Wynter looking perfectly adorable in her yoga pants, oversized shirt, and hair up in a ponytail.
“Well, hey there. Welcome home.”
She rolls her eyes but pushes past me, wheeling him in.
She has a huge bag on one shoulder and a long, heavy-looking rectangular thing encased in green cloth on the other.
“Don’t make me already reconsider this.” Her words stop there as she sees Lenox standing over to the side. “Hi. Lenox Moore, right?”
“For real?!” I growl, looking between the two of them. “You recognized Callan first and now Lenox, but had no clue who I was?”
“Nice to meet you,” Lenox says. “I like you already.”
Wynter grins, throwing me a smug smile that only makes me want to kiss her, so she’s not winning this the way she thinks she is.
Lenox kneels down and looks at Mason. “Hi.”
Mason squeezes the giraffe thing, and it makes a horrendous squeaking noise like a dog’s chew toy.
“Sorry,” she says contritely. “It’s his favorite toy, and anytime I try to make it disappear, he cries until I magically make it reappear. I’m assuming he’ll outgrow it at some point and won’t go to college with it, but that sound haunts my dreams.”
“I can understand why. See you, little man.” Lenox ruffles his hair, and Mason reaches out, grabbing his finger and tugging it back toward him.
“See. Told you kids love you.”
Lenox allows Mason to hold his finger for a minute, and then he stands and gives me a fist pound. “Behave.”
“Yes, Thor. I’ll behave.”
I get the look he always gives me when I call him that—he never liked being called Thor, though the resemblance is uncanny—and then proceeds to ignore me in favor of Wynter. “Bye, Wynter. Best of luck to you with him.”
“Thank you. I have a feeling I’ll need it.”
“Nah. It’ll be great,” I promise. It’s only when Lenox leaves and it’s just the three of us that my heart really starts to pound. “Hi.”
“Hi. How are you feeling?”
“Great!”
She tilts her head and stares straight into my eyes. “You took the pain meds.”
“You told me to.”
She places a hand on my face, her fingers cool as they run along my cheek up to my forehead. Even in my somewhat numb state, her touch electrifies me from within. That can’t be a coincidence. Reacting to the way someone touches you—even in the most innocuous ways—has to mean something.
The fact that she’s here, with my son, has to mean something.
“You need to rest, Asher.” Her voice is laced with worry, but is it the worry of a doctor caring for her patient or a woman caring for a man she’s catching feelings for?
“You had surgery this morning. Let’s go sit somewhere, and I’ll take him out of this.
You can hang out with him while I get his dinner ready.
” Then she pauses. “Crap. No highchair.” She rubs her forehead in dismay.
“I didn’t think this through carefully at all. Maybe we should just—”
“I have a highchair.”
She pauses and peeks up at me through her lashes like I just told her aliens landed in the Public Gardens. “You do?”
“I do.” I beam a smile at her because she’s here and he’s here, and how cool is that? “I have a lot of things. Can I show you? I want to show you. Put those heavy things down. We can deal with them later.”
By some miracle, she listens and sets them on the floor. Even as she narrows her eyes. “How many of those pills did you take?”
“Only one, but this is why I never did drugs.”
She grimaces. “Sorry. You’re a big guy. I wrote you for a full dose. Take half next time.”
“I plan to, but for real, I want to show you and Mason what I did in anticipation of you moving in.” And hopefully staying.
Wariness creases her features, but she follows me as I walk—albeit like an old man with limited strength—in the direction of the guest wing of my apartment.
“Cal was impressed, and he’s an emergency room doctor, so I think that counts for a lot.
You’ll notice all the outlets are covered in those plastic protective things, and there is a gate at the bottom and the top of the stairs, and there is a brand-new deadbolt completely out of a child’s reach on the rooftop door. ”
“Asher—”
“Not yet, okay?” I glance over my shoulder at her. “Just please, not yet.”
Her lips mash together, and she continues to follow me as we move down the long hallway, stopping first at the new playroom.
“My assistant had a lot of fun with this room,” I tell her as I open the door, and Mason immediately starts kicking and thrashing in his stroller, anxious to get out and play, which I take to mean he loves it.
“Asher!” My name again, only this time with a lot of inflection. “When did you do all of this?”
I lean against the door for support and watch her face. She’s covered her mouth with her hands, and her eyes are wide. “I texted Freddy this morning after you told me you’d move in with me.”
Her head swivels in my direction. “Freddy?”
“My assistant.”
“You have an assistant?”
I smirk at her surprise. “Of course I have an assistant. I have an assistant, a publicist, an agent, a lawyer, and security when needed. I’m a professional football player, sweetheart and before that, I was a rock star. I have interests and a brand to protect.”
She grins. “I’m impressed. And this room…
” she trails off, because yeah, this room is something.
The hardwood floors are covered in brightly colored interlocking foam puzzle pieces with the alphabet and numbers one through twenty on them.
There is a small playscape—really just a few steps and a slide—a jumpy thing, a house that he can crawl through that also sings to him, a television for when he watches his signing videos, and more toys than he’ll likely ever use.
“There’s more.”
I lead us back into the hallway and point down the hall at the room at the end. “That’s your room, and yes, it’s decorated. I didn’t know if you had furniture or anything, but Freddy loves Restoration Hardware and bought a lot of pretty stuff for you. You also have your own bathroom.”
She’s silent, her eyes on the door, and I can tell she’s got a lot going on in that pretty head of hers. But I’m not done yet, and I know this will likely trip her up the most. I walk across the hall from the playroom and open the door.
“This is for Mason. I didn’t have time for them to paint it, but we can do that later.”
She steps into the room and gasps. “Asher!”
Again with my name, which I’ll never grow tired of hearing her say, but I’m hoping that sound is a good one.
This room has a crib with a cool mobile of exotic animals overhead, a plush rocking chair, a dresser with a changing table on it, and a bookshelf filled with kids' books.
There are also pictures on the wall, and though I had asked Freddy to do football, he overrode me and went with a safari theme.
I move in behind her, my chest to her back.
She’s shaking, and I can’t stop myself from wrapping my good arm around her waist and holding her against me.
My nose hits the top of her head, right above her ponytail, and I breathe her in.
“Whether you’re living here or not, I wanted him to have all this.
This will be his room. That will be his playroom.
You will always have a room to stay here, too.
I want this to be his home too, even if you do leave when the season is over. ”
She nods and I hear her clearing her throat.
“Are you still with me?”
Another nod, and when she reaches up to her face, I know she’s not speaking because she’s crying.
“I can’t do much to help you right now with him, but I want to watch how you do everything, so when I’m all healed up, I can.”
“Stop,” she croaks. “Please, stop.”
I don’t know the story yet, but I can tell Joe Cardone did a real number on her. “I overwhelmed you. I know I did. So let’s go give him dinner, okay? You don’t have to talk to me.”
She nods and presses her head into my good side and then wipes her face once more, under each eye, and then she’s unsnapping Mason from his stroller and lifting him into her arms. Without hesitation, I lean in and plant a kiss on his cheek, wrapping my good arm back around her waist as I lean into them.
“Hey, big guy. Are you hungry for…?” I raise a questioning brow at Wynter.
“Mashed peas with turkey, and pears with apricots.”
“I just threw up in my mouth, but I’m sure he’ll love it.”
She emits a wet laugh, bouncing him lightly. “It’s his favorite dinner. It’s why I packed it for tonight. He’s always liked baby food.”
“Maybe that’s because it’s all he’s ever known.” Gently, I rock the three of us from side to side. “What if you mix it up a bit? Try new things? Explore new options?”
She squints at me. “Are we talking about Mason’s diet or something else?”
I keep my voice light as I say, “I’m simply suggesting that if you take the risk and try something new—something you’ve always believed you dislike—you might discover it’s actually your favorite thing.”
“Doubtful. I still dislike football players, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”
I smile as I press my lips to her cheek and murmur by her ear. “I’ll change your mind. You won’t even see it coming.”