CHAPTER 16 Dex Bradley
Never Been Drunk
I didn’t do any of it, but she looks impressed when she walks into the kitchen and sees our spread set up on the table.
“I told Milton we needed a post-wedding dinner, and this is what he sent,” I say.
“You could’ve taken credit. I would’ve believed you.”
I chuckle as she looks at the candlesticks glowing with a flame, the fancy plates with steak and lobster on them, and the champagne flutes filled to the brim.
I hold out a hand as I pull her chair out to help her sit, and she smiles at me as she takes her seat.
It feels like a date.
It’s not. I mean, not technically. It’s just dinner, but it’s dinner after we eloped earlier today.
Fake or not, we’re spending the next two years together, and there’s something far more comforting in that than I’m ready to admit.
She holds up her glass in a toast after I sit beside her, and I touch my glass to hers.
“To the next two and a half years,” I say.
She repeats me, and we each take a sip.
“Whoa,” she says, and she takes another sip.
I chuckle, something I seem to be doing a lot around her. She’s just so…na?ve. Young. Pure. She’s so unlike all the others. So unlike Tawny, who had my baby in secret and didn’t bother to tell me until she needed something. So unlike the nameless host of others who came before Tawny and even after.
But Ainsley…she has the sheltered innocence thing down pat, and the more time I spend around her, the more I’m starting to like it.
She’s still wearing her dress. Her hair is still in that braid thing she did for our wedding. She looks sweet and innocent because she is.
She doesn’t know what good champagne—or good whiskey, for that matter—tastes like. She’s never had it. She doesn’t expect a single goddamn thing out of me other than to step up and accept the responsibilities and consequences that I’ve created, willingly and knowingly or not.
And as I glance up and our eyes connect after we each swallow that first sip of champagne, I can’t help the words that plow into my brain.
That’s my wife.
My wife.
It’s for show. It’s for the media. It’s for her protection. It’s for my sponsors.
But as I share this post-wedding meal with her, I can’t help but wonder if it’ll ever transition into something that’s for us.
“I’ve never had champagne like this,” she says, nodding toward her glass. “What is it?”
“Cristal,” I say, nodding toward the bottle on the counter.
“It looks expensive.”
I laugh. “Three-fifty for that bottle.”
“You could buy, like, fifty bottles of the kind we get for New Year’s Eve for that.”
“You only drink champagne on New Year’s Eve?” I ask.
She lifts a shoulder. “I just turned twenty-one last year.”
“And you didn’t drink before that?”
She twists her lips. “I told you, I don’t really like how alcohol tastes.”
I narrow my eyes at her, knowing full well she doesn’t like it because she’s been drinking the cheap shit. “Have you ever gotten drunk?”
Her hand flies to her chest, and she’s nearly proper as she says, “No!”
“Come on, Birdie. You’re twenty-two, and you’ve never been drunk?”
“Tipsy, sure. But drunk to the point of getting sloppy?” She wrinkles her nose. “It just never appealed to me, to be honest.”
I wonder what else she hasn’t done.
“We need to fix that. I’ll get you hammered someday.”
She lifts her glass. “One of these and I probably will be.” She takes another sip, and then she sets her glass down. “But I can’t. Jack’s going to wake up at three, and again at eight, and I can’t be drunk when I’m taking care of him.”
“Are you always this responsible?” I ask.
“You’re paying me to be this responsible, remember?”
“Touché.” I cut into my steak, and it’s cooked perfectly.
“Still, every person in their early twenties deserves at least one night with no responsibilities. I was there for all of my siblings except Madden, and now I’ll add you to the list of people I got drunk.
I’ll see if someone can watch the baby overnight sometime so we can hit the town. ”
She laughs. “Aren’t you supposed to be appearing more wholesome? Getting some girl two-thirds your age wasted doesn’t feel like the way to do it.”
“Two-thirds my age?” I make a face at her that clearly lets her know how much I disapprove of that message.
“My mother informed me that you are closer to her age than mine,” she mutters.
I bark out a laugh, and I’m about to say something totally inappropriate about a mother-daughter trio when I bring it back to the topic at hand. “Regarding the wholesome vibe, we’ll dodge the media. Doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun. Maybe Vegas-style fun.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It means VIP lounges, bottle service, high-stakes gambling. Taking risks and not worrying about the consequences.” I lift a shoulder.
She swallows the bite of lobster she just took and shakes her head. “And I’m supposed to just let you take care of me while you get me wasted?”
My hand flies to my chest. “You don’t trust me?”
She laughs as she picks up her glass. “I trust that you’ll hand me a good time.”
I can most definitely give her a good time. Probably an even better time than she ever dreamed of.
I shake off the thought and cut into my steak some more, not really sure why this feels so much like a date when, to be honest, I haven’t been on a date in the traditional sense in years.
Many of them. Maybe back to the college days, back before I was playing pro football and women cared about more than just that fact.
But Ainsley is different. I know it’s cliché to say the current woman holding my interest is different, but in this case, it’s true. She’s my opposite in most ways, but she’s more interesting to me than anyone else I’ve been around in months. Years, even.
Maybe it’s because she’s so different from me.
I suddenly wonder how many men she’s been with.
How many men have kissed the lips I briefly got to touch today at the end of the ceremony.
The lips I haven’t stopped feeling against mine since it happened.
I wonder how many cocks those lips have been wrapped around.
How many men have fucked her until she bit her bottom lip between her teeth as she came.
It’s not my business. She’s just my nanny. My sister’s friend. A girl helping me out.
But she’s also my wife, and the side of my brain that keeps reminding me of that fact wants to know the answers to those questions regardless of whether it’s my business or not.
I’m getting to the point where I want to make it my business.
And that’s a dangerous place to be since it’s completely new territory.
“What about you?” she asks.
“Huh?” I have no clue what she’s talking about. I was too focused on how many dudes she’s banged to remember where we left off.
“When was the first time you got drunk?”
“I was thirteen,” I admit.
“Thirteen?” she practically spits.
I lift a shoulder. “Madden was fifteen, and he gave me a bottle of tequila. I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to chug down half the bottle at once.
” I shrug, and she laughs. “Speaking of getting drunk, there’s another charity event next week.
Want to go public as my wife and we can turn it into our fun night out? ” I ask.
She gasps a little at my question. “Who will watch the baby overnight?”
I shrug. “My coach, maybe. He and his wife have little kids, and I trust him.”
She contemplates that for a few seconds as if it’s her kid to find good care for, and my chest tightens a little.
She cares that much for Jack. Already. We’ve barely even started down this road, and she’s trying to make decisions for what’s best for my kid as she continually assures me that I’m capable of doing it too.
She finally nods. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
I grin. “You won’t regret it.”
“That remains to be seen,” she huffs, and all I can do is just laugh.