Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GARRETT
T wo weeks later…
Not a single word in over fourteen days. And before that, Maren began texting one word answers, until…nothing.
Fuck. I raked a hand through my hair and released a frustrated sigh. Guess I should’ve seen this coming. After all, it’s not like we were married for real. What a fucking cliche. I tossed my pen onto my desk and sat back in my chair, hands linked behind my head and stared up at the ceiling.
“Hey, just checking in-” Harris smirked, one arm on the door frame. “Why do you look like a lost puppy, Coach? Miss your wi-”
A shot him a glare, but he just laughed. As he shut the door behind him, he added, “Maybe you should talk to HR about adding her to your insurance. Or at least as a beneficiary in case you keel over, old man.”
I sat up, pushed back off the desk and stood. Pretending to look for a binder on the shelf next to my desk, I shot back, “Maybe you should make sure you still have a parking spot after I sic Xavier on your car.”
Harris snorted. “Fucker has been after my spot since he came here. Letting it go.” Hand up in surrender, he chuckled. He sat down in the chair in front of my desk, ankle on his opposite knee, hands laced together. “So, any thoughts on the rookie receiver?”
“The sooner we get him and Knight together, running drills with Ty, the better. Get the nerves out early.” I checked my phone, even though, deep down, Maren wouldn’t break her silence at this point. She wanted a one night, married only Vegas fling. At least I was her first. No other man could claim that fucking title from me. Fuck, now the thought of some other man touching her-
“Did you just growl , Garrett?”
“No-”
“You did.”
Did I? Shit. I roughed a hand over my jaw. “Keep it to yourself?”
“I haven’t told anyone about your marriage, so-”
“Maren stopped texting me.”
“Maybe she’s busy?”
The chair slid back as I sat back down. I roughed my hand over the scruff on my jaw. “For two weeks?”
“Shit. No wonder you like a fucking mess.”
I shot him another patented glare. “I do not.”
He arched his brow. “Have you looked in the mirror?”
Truth be told, I’d avoided every damn mirror in my place because the one time I caught a glimpse of my reflection, the haunted and pissed off expression staring back at me made me angrier. Because I should’ve told her I wanted to see her again, but I hadn’t wanted to scare her off. And I didn’t think she’d ghost me like this. “Not lately,” I admitted.
He leaned forward, both feet planted on the floor. “Did you catch feelings?”
I scoffed. “Are you reading Delinda Bennett novels now, Harris? ‘Catch feelings’? Really?”
“Doesn’t make it any less true.” He rose up, pushing the sleeves of his Fury hoodie up. “Damon said to tell you he started the rookie on his new training program.” Damon Ward, Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist and the team’s head of physio was also engaged to the team owner’s lawyer, Miranda.
“Good. Let’s go before the native’s get restless.”
“And Xavier’s trying to get everyone over to his new place this weekend to meet his sister at his house warming party. We’d better get in there before they get too riled up.” Harris clapped me on the back. “I fucking love this time of year.”
I nodded. “Except now, the expectations are even higher. Thank fuck we don’t have any team drama.”
Famous last words.
I parked my SUV in the driveway, eyeing the multitude of cars, from older models to a few flashier sports cars, to Knight’s signature Jeep, parked right up front. Probably because he refused to let his fiancee walk very far, given how far along she was in her pregnancy.
An image of Maren’s body, stretched out, and marked by my cum on her breasts and belly entered into my head from our one night together. And then I thought about how fucking gorgeous she’d be, her belly round with my baby. Fuck. I needed to stop, and let it go.
It was never meant to be, and I had to face facts.
My wife…was not going to magically show up. She wasn’t really my wife, in reality. Time to let go. I unbuckled the seatbelt and psyched myself up for a conversation with Xavier.
Nobody talked like the guy, except when he was pissed, then he sounded normal. But I'd only discovered that once, a few weeks ago, at a preseason check in. And it had something to do with his sister. He actually sounded normal, instead of like he took words, threw them together in a cup, then yelled YAHTZEE and said whatever rolled out.
“COACH! Snatch up a sparkle or two, then slide onto the grounded happiness of your heart.” Xavier, in all his grinning and big bear bodied glory. He motioned to the back of the house as he ushered me inside. It was a nice place, not overly extravagant, with an eclectic yet sleek look. Bright pops of color were dotted around the house. I spotted Harris and Damon just outside on the oversized deck. I grabbed a bottle from an ice chest and headed outside.
The sun was shining overhead, the humidity already becoming a factor in the July heat. Xavier had huge hurricane wind inducing winds blowing around. Thank fuck the deck was under a huge second story deck above use, shielding us from the sun. Even at seven in the evening, the temperatures were in the typically hot range for mid-summer.
Across the way, Sebastian Lockwood stood next to his very pregnant fiancee, feeding her from a plate while she playfully rolled her eyes. Next to them, Ty stood with his girl, and watching the four them make eyes at each other made a whole I hadn’t known existed open wide.
Fuck that. I knew it existed. It had ever since Vegas, if I was honest with myself.
I checked the time on my watch, figuring an hour or so would be the perfect amount of time before making a discreet exit. After all, these guys didn’t want to party with their coach around. Forty-five minutes later, I’d managed to ‘not mope around’ as Harris so succinctly put it, and was grabbing a bite to eat, when I heard a voice behind me that stopped me in my tracks.
“Really, Xav, I’m fine. I’ll binge watch something in the A/C. I don’t need to-”
My fucking heart stopped beating. Because I hadn’t heard her voice in over five months. When I turned around, she was there. The girl I thought about far fucking more than I should’ve. The girl I spent one mother fucking amazing night with in Vegas. And married, even if it wasn’t real.
“Coach, hop a car and meet my baby sister, Ren. Ren, meet Coach Forbes.”
Her eyes widened, lips softly parted as a breath escaped, but there was tension in her shoulders. A trembling hand darted out towards me, and she said, her voice like a balm to my soul, “Nice to meet you, Coach Forbes.”
“Ren?” I took her hand in mine, and did my best not to yank her against, loving how her soft skin felt.
A quick nod, but then looked down at our entwined hands. And that’s when I noticed.
My eyes shot back up to her face, panic written all over her beautiful features. A hand went to her belly, a small bump, but it was definitely there.
Holy fuck. My wife was pregnant.
“Xavier calls me Ren. But it’s Maren.” She bit her lip, her eyes pleading with me. When Xavier waved to a few of the guys across the lawn playing corn hole, she shook her head and mouthed, “Please.”
I sent her a stern silent message that said, this conversation isn’t over, Wife.
Fine, her eyes shot back, still pleading with me.
“It’s nice to meet you, Maren,” I murmured, tamping down my reaction as Xavier redirected his attention to us. “Are you staying with your brother, or new in town? Xavier mentioned you a few times, but…”
“She’s nesting in the upper levels if I say-”
“Xavier, I can take care of myself. And no,” She glared at her brother playfully, then blinked at me, because I couldn’t stop staring at her. “I am not staying with my brother…permanently, anyway. There was an opening with my company near Xavier and I missed my family.”
“And the dead drum donor-”
“Xavier! Not now, ok?”
The big guy shrugged, and said, coherently, “I know I promised not to kick the guy’s ass if I found out who-”
“Yep. And you pinky promised. So, no take backs.” Maren glared at Xavier, and something about the way she put her hands in her hips made her belly even more obvious.
Fuck, she was gorgeous. And that silent back and forth. My hard on noticed every fucking nuanced moment. The way she pleaded, eyes wide and reminding me of how she looked with my cock down her throat, biting her lip as she came, and the last time I filled her up.
Shit. Was that it? I used a condom, right? The entire night replayed on mind, and fuck I remembered the last time she begged me to not use anything, just once. It took every ounce of my control not to fill her beautiful, tight pussy.
“No take backs,” he agreed, though from the look on his face, he wanted to throttle whoever knocked up his baby sister. And that guy was standing right in front of him. He handed her a plate piled high with food. “My nephew needs a burger.”
“Your niece wants pickles and mustard on it,” she teased.
My eyes widened. “A girl?”
“I’m waiting to find out. But, It makes Xavier crazy.”
He added pickles and squirted spicy mustard on her burger before returning the top half of the bun to her burger. Fuck, I should be doing that. “What makes me crazy is you not telling me who-”
“Uh uh. You’re talking all normal, which means you’re angry. Not happening. And I will tell him, when I am ready.” She licked her lips, avoiding my gaze.
Things just got really complicated. She gave me one last fleeting glance, along with a tight smile, and went back into the house.
“She won’t tell me, but says she is going to tell the guy and made me promise not to say anything,” he muttered, his usual happy demeanor replaced by a scowl.
“Why do you sound-”
He shrugged. “I started talking late, and my parents brought me to a speech therapist. My dad had fun with it, and it made my mom smile. And when they had Ren, she giggled all the time when I talked. Just stuck. But,” he waved as Maren passed the sliding door, arms loaded with snacks. “If I find the guy, and we’re having a conversation.”
“She’s an adult.”
“She’s my baby sister. I didn’t chase off every douchebag to have her get knocked up by some asshole who didn’t stick around or have the respect to make sure she was okay. But, that’s a family matter, Coach. No need to sweep the buzz out to space.”
Just like that, Xavier was back. Though the guy who was probably going to kick my ass still lingered right under the surface. We were going to meet, sooner or later. There was no way I was going to let Maren go through this alone.
She was my wife, even if it stayed in Vegas. I’d find a way to make her mine.