Chapter 40
Forty
Tweetie
The gang is meeting at the usual breakfast place because Bodhi loves to watch the pancake guy make the pancakes through the window. Plus, they know us now and have a table reserved for us every Sunday. It’s become our tradition as long as we don’t have a game.
The rideshare stops at the curb, and I’m still in shock that Tedi’s with me. But there’s one thing we haven’t talked about, and that’s what we’re telling the people inside this restaurant.
So after we climb out, I pull her to the side, out of the foot traffic. “How do you want to play this?”
“And here I thought you were going to kiss me before we went in there.” Her back is to the wall, and I’m standing in front of her.
I lean in. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
“That would really give it away when my lip gloss is all over your lips.”
“I’d go in there with red lipstick stained on my lips.”
She playfully shakes her head. “Okay, well, I have to tell them about Decker, I suppose. So, why don’t we just tell them we’re testing the waters?”
I groan. I don’t love this whole “let’s go slow” thing she’s set on, but I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it. There is still so much up in the air. My contract. Her job in New York. And all the bullshit drama from the past that we need to work past. So I understand why she wants to tiptoe into this thing. But I’m not idiot enough to let any of that stuff get in our way again. Not a goddamn chance.
Hell, I loved getting her to fall in love with me the first time, so I’m excited to do it all over again. Although I didn’t have so many rules to work around the first time, and sex was already on the menu on day one.
“Okay. Testing the waters.” I hold up my hands. “No hand holding.”
I swear a flash of disappointment lines her face before she steps around me, opening the door to the diner.
“Tweetie,” the hostess, Marla, greets me.
I stop, although I know where the gang is. “Hi, Marla, this is Tedi.”
Marla purses her lips. “Hi, Tedi. They’re in the back.”
“Thanks.” I move to grab Tedi’s hand but stop myself. We start in, and I stop outside the glass window. “This is the pancake man. Bodhi’s favorite.” I search the area, but he’s not one of the kids watching.
“Oh fun.” She steps closer. “He does shapes.” She points, and I laugh.
“Come on.” I lead the way, and she follows. I’m going to have to work on this hand-holding rule. I don’t love having her behind me without me guiding her. That, and I just want to keep touching her.
We reach the table, and the usual crew is in attendance, but I tilt my head when I see Easton and Decker there. What the hell?
“Hey, guys,” Jade says. “So happy you could make it.”
Bodhi climbs off his chair and heads right over to me. “Where have you been? The pancake man already made mine.”
I ruffle his hair. “Sorry, I slept in.”
The adults at the table laugh.
Tedi makes the rounds, saying hello to everyone, and slides into one of the only two seats left at the table. Conveniently right next to one another at the end, across from Decker and Easton.
“How are you?” Tedi asks Decker.
“I still have my vision.” He eyes me. “I see you two have figured things out.”
Easton laughs, rocking back on the two rear legs of his chair.
Bodhi runs back over to his seat when Henry tells him he needs to eat. Such a drill sergeant that man.
I stand at the end of the long line of tables. “Let’s try not to make a big deal about this, but Tedi and I are…” I look down at her. “What are we doing again?”
“We’re taking things slow. Testing the waters.”
I nod. “Yeah. That. And we’re not saying anything else. So carry on with breakfast.”
I sit next to Tedi. I have no idea how I’m not going to put my hand on her leg or around her shoulders. How do I act as if the love of my life didn’t just say yes to giving us another chance?
The waitress comes and takes our order.
“So, you move fast,” Decker jokes to Tedi, and everyone at the table laughs.
She leans forward. “I’m assuming Decker told you all…”
Kyleigh shakes her head. “Easton was the tattletale. I do have to say, I called it. Right, Eloise?”
Eloise sips her coffee and nods. “Yeah. She called it at the game.”
“You knew he was my fake boyfriend?” Tedi asks, sounding surprised.
“I would’ve done the same thing.” Kyleigh kisses Rowan’s cheek. “It was either that or Decker was a horrible boyfriend. He never showed you any affection.”
Easton laughs again.
“What do you keep laughing at?” I ask him.
“My Grandma Dori would have been so proud of me.”
“Explain,” Tedi says.
“Decker told me before we ever went to the bar?—”
Tedi’s head whips in his direction. “Decker! That was our secret.”
Decker shrugs. “You know I suck at keeping secrets, and I had to tell someone all the shit I was dealing with.”
“My grandma was a notorious meddler and matchmaker. It was actually easier than I thought.” Easton looks at the group. “Tweetie was staring at the two of them in the emergency room as if he wished the hot sauce had gotten in his eye so Tedi would kiss his boo boo. I just had to nudge him to consider that maybe they weren’t a real couple—or at the very least, that they were having problems. And then in the middle of the waiting area, I thought Tweetie was going to pummel Decker to the floor for breaking Tedi’s heart.” Easton looks at Tedi. “He was willing to step aside if you were happy. Not every guy would do that.” Easton raises his eyebrows and looks at me. “So, you can thank me by giving me your condo.”
I laugh, and Tedi looks at me with those eyes again. Soft and warm like in the past when I did something sweet and unexpected. But there’s no “I love you” sex coming my way this time. That’s okay. She’s worth waiting for.
“You want in The Nest?” Rowan asks. He flicks his gaze to Kyleigh, and something passes between them. I don’t like it. As if he’s going out just like Henry and Jade.
“No. I don’t want to move into The Nest. I want to move into one of your condos.”
“No baseball players,” Conor mumbles around his food. “Colts don’t live in nests.”
Easton rolls his eyes. “No shit, dumbass.”
“Kid ears,” Henry says.
“Sorry,” Easton mumbles.
“Maybe you could call it The Barn,” Henry says.
“Or The Stables,” I add.
“No, The Pen,” Rowan says with a laugh.
“Why don’t you three move out and we move in?” Decker says.
“Then you’d miss that Mexican restaurant near you. It’s so cute.” Tedi looks at Decker.
I turn to her. “I thought it was fake?” I wave my finger between the two of them, eyebrows drawing down.
“It’s been, what, two minutes, and he’s already jealous again. Run, Tedi.”
I throw a creamer pouch at Rowan, and he catches it.
“We met there when I asked him to be my fake boyfriend.” She smiles at Decker.
“Remind me to talk to you later,” I say to him.
Decker rolls his eyes. “Hey, I got so drunk I threw up. I took a puck in the face. And I got hot sauce in my eye. I think I was punished enough.”
“No good deed goes unpunished,” Easton says.
The whole table laughs.
“You really were a good sport. I would’ve backed out after the puck thing for sure,” Henry says.
Our breakfast arrives, and as Tedi takes a knife and fork to her pancakes, a thought occurs to me. If I don’t get another contract with Chicago, mornings like this are all over. It’ll be another team and another found family I’ll have to leave. Will I be able to handle it? Will I be able to not spiral again? For Tedi, I would, but I’d miss this. I’d miss them.
Tedi puts her hand on my thigh. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
I take her hand and put it on her lap. “No touching, remember?”
She shakes her head with a smile and goes back to eating her pancakes, joining in the conversation with my friends as if she’s been here since day one.
I finally realize only one thing matters. Wherever I go, Tedi has to be by my side. Everything else is just extra.
So I spend the rest of the breakfast thinking of ways to get us to that finish line.