Chapter 4 #2
Last year, I’d told Will I was finally ready to get a tattoo, and he’d talked me out of it. He said tattoos were trashy and I’d regret it. Looking back, Will could really be a bit of a dick.
“You’re still mad at me.” Baird’s broad shoulders slumped.
I realized I was scowling at the memory of my ex-fiancé and smoothed my features.
My chest squeezed at Baird’s forlorn expression. The man was six foot five, built of pure muscle, and he could squash most people between his giant paws. Yet he made me feel protective of him.
“Nope.” I stepped back, gesturing for him to come in.
Baird had only been at my place once before. Thankfully, I’d tidied up last night and there were no underwear drying on my radiators.
His expression lightened with relief as he strode in, giving me a flash of that cocky grin.
Baird didn’t talk much about his dad because he’d taken off when he was a baby, hence why he’d taken his mother’s surname instead.
But he did tell me his dad was Scottish Italian, and I gathered that’s where he’d inherited the olive skin that made his teeth gleam white.
The smell of bergamot and lemons accompanied him, and I felt another flush of inappropriate attraction. Especially when my gaze devoured his broad back and tapered waist as he strolled down my hallway.
He was like a Marvel superhero brought to life.
“Tea? Coffee? Water?” I asked, trailing him, pulling a wee bit self-consciously at my crumpled cropped pajama tee.
“Chamomile.” Baird followed me into the compact kitchen. He seemed to fill the entire space as I made us both tea.
“What brings you here?” I asked, even though I suspected I knew. He made it difficult to stay annoyed with him.
“To apologize.”
I glanced over my shoulder, and his gaze jerked up from my lower back to my face.
It was not unusual to catch Baird staring at my arse or legs or chest. We were friends, but he was a man who loved women, and I did have all the female bits he adored, so I didn’t take it personally. “You don’t need to.”
“I do.” He took the mug I offered. “Maia, you’re my friend, and I don’t want to lose your friendship.”
I gently tapped my mug against his. “Well, cheers to that. Come sit.”
Once we’d settled in my living room, him making my sofa look tiny and me in my armchair facing him, I asked, “What’s going on with you?”
Baird pushed his hair off his face before taking a sip of the tea. I waited. He gave me a small, sexy grin at my serious, determined expression. “I’m fine, babe.”
Babe.
The one and only time he’d met Will, he called me babe so many times I thought Will’s head would explode.
When Will went to the loo, I’d had to ask Baird not to do it in front of my partner.
He’d grinned like an idiot who’d won a pissing contest. I’d playfully tried to shove him into the bar counter.
Tried being the operative word. It was like trying to shove a hundred-year-old oak tree.
That only made Baird laugh harder. But he’d stopped calling me babe in front of Will.
“I don’t believe you. If you don’t want to talk about it, fine. But just be honest.”
“I am fine.” He leaned forward. “I’ve got a lot on my plate. The season, the castle reno … and I just need to decompress a bit. I might have gone about it the wrong way.”
“Are you talking about the partying or the dangerous hobbies?” I referred to the past few months of extracurricular activities that included him snowboarding on one of the most difficult trails in Switzerland, tandem skydiving in Fife, and motor racing against his friend, Daire Montrose, a Scottish Formula 1 driver.
I repeat: He thought it was a good idea to race against a Formula 1 driver!
Baird grinned unrepentantly. “You say dangerous, I say fun. And I’m going to take you skydiving one of these days. I see the way your face lights up whenever I mention it.”
I wrinkled my nose because he wasn’t wrong. There was a part of me that longed to shrug off this safe little cocoon I’d built for myself. When I mentioned to Will it might be fun to skydive, he’d scoffed and told me I’d hate it. I thought he was simply protecting me from myself.
Yet, if I thought about it, I used to take calculated risks before I met Will. Going off to London for university was the biggest one. Had I stopped living a bit after I met Will? Had I allowed him to stifle me?
Hmm.
“Hey. You okay?” Baird leaned forward, brow furrowed with concern.
“Don’t change the subject,” I evaded. “You know you’ve gone off the rails since …”
“‘Going off the rails’ is a bit dramatic. I’m enjoying life. But the partying stuff … It won’t happen again. It can’t. The new club owner has me by the balls.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not only can I not put another foot wrong but he wants me out in public doing positive PR. Volunteer work, that kind of thing.”
I tried not to chuckle. “Well, that sounds awful. What an evil thing to make you do. Helping people.”
Baird made a face at my sarcasm. “Ha, funny. C’mon. It’s not about the helping part. It’s the PR part. I mean, I hate that fake bullshit. I know it’s a reflex for people to film absolutely everything, but filming your ‘good deed’ to post on social media gives me the fucking boak.”
“Right?” I agreed. “Every time someone shares one of those reels where they film themselves doing something nice for a stranger or a friend, and people are all like ‘You’re the loveliest, you’re the kindest,’ I’m like, really?
You’re buying into this? It’s self-aggrandizing, narcissistic BS.
You do a good deed because it’s the right thing to do.
It’s not something that’s premeditated. You don’t film yourself doing it to post on socials to have a million strangers pat you on the back. ”
Baird chuckled. “Tell me how you really feel, babe.”
“I just did.”
“Well, exactly. I’m going to be that wanker posting my good deeds online.”
“It’s different. You have to do what you need to, to stay on the team.”
“Aye, well, I’d already decided after this morning not to be a prat.” His eyes darkened. “And I willnae try a hard drug again. I mean it, My. I felt like shit after it, anyway. It’s no’ for me.” His accent thickened with his emotion.
Relief moved through me. “Good. I’m glad to hear it.”
“Do you …uh … do you … can you tell me about your mum?”
The thought of explaining my background nauseated me. It was like being stripped naked in front of people so they could judge all my defects. I rubbed at my eyes, giving my pulse a minute to slow.
“Let me just take out my contacts and then I’ll tell you.” I placed my mug on the coffee table, stood, and strolled into the bathroom.
“I forgot you wear them,” he called after me.
“I don’t forget. They’re a pain in the butt, and there are many times I’ve been tempted to spend my well-earned savings on laser surgery.”
I heard his approaching footsteps as I pulled my contact lens solution out of the bathroom cabinet.
“You should just do it.”
He filled my peripheral. I turned my head to find him leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, his biceps straining the sleeves of his T-shirt.
“I can’t spend my savings on eye surgery.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m saving for a deposit on a house. In this city, that might take me a million years. Not all of us are professional footballers, you know.”
“I rent.” He shrugged.
He did. He rented the coolest flat I’d ever seen down in Dean Village. His bedroom looked like it was floating above the kitchen in a glass cube. No joke. “But you can afford to buy.”
“Get the laser surgery, My. Life is short.”
I muttered under my breath about responsibilities and such as I tipped my head to capture the contact off my eyeball.
“I don’t know how you touch your eye like that.”
I frowned as my vision blurred in front of me. “You get used to it.” I fumbled for my glasses and shoved them on. Vision clear, I put everything away and then walked over to him. “All done.”
Baird’s eyes swept over my face. There was a roughness to his voice as he said, “You’re right. Don’t get laser surgery.”
“Why?”
“The glasses are sexy. You look like a hot librarian.”
“Flirt.” I gently shoved past him and reached for a hair tie off my sideboard. With a swish of my long hair, I tied it up into a messy bun as I returned to the sitting room and flopped back on my armchair.
The good thing about never wanting to pursue a romantic relationship with the most beautiful man I’d ever met was that I didn’t give a shit about my appearance.
My breath hitched at the realization. Because honestly, the only people I’d ever been comfortable not being “well-presented” in front of were Dad, Grace, and Lockie.
Baird was the least judgmental person I’d ever met, though. He made me feel like I could be fully myself with him.
“You all right?” he asked as he sat down again, his long legs sprawling toward mine.
“Uh … fine.”
“You sure?” His gaze dropped to my hand for some reason. “You’re not wearing your engagement ring. I thought it was because of swimming … but … you’ve been off these past few weeks.”
Just like that, the truth blurted out of me. “We broke up.”
Baird’s face slackened. “For real?”
“He asked me to step aside while he tried to figure out if he wanted me or his ex-girlfriend.”
“Are you fucking joking?” Baird exploded from his seat. “I am going to fucking rip off his nutsack!”
I launched out of my armchair, grabbing Baird to halt him from his angry departure. “Stop! Stop. Will’s not worth another tabloid exploit.”
“You are!”
While that was lovely, I tugged harder. “Baird, please.”
Just like that he stopped, whirled, and yanked me into a bear-hugging crush. “Fuck, My, he’s a prick. He never deserved you, babe. Never.”
I accepted his embrace, pressing my cheek to his warm, hard chest. Tears burned my eyes because why didn’t Will believe I deserved better?
He was the one who had spent three years in my bed.
The warm, safe envelopment of Baird’s masculinity only reminded me that cuddles like this were no longer a certainty in my future.
My favorite thing about Will had been his hugs.
A sob caught in my throat.
“Fuck, I’m going to kill him.” Baird’s voice was gruff with emotion as his embrace tightened. “Nutsack. Off.”
A giggle broke through my tears, and I leaned back to look up into his beautiful dark eyes. It amazed me that he could make me laugh when I was at rock bottom. “Stop threatening to take off his nutsack. Trust me, he needs all the help he can get in that department.” Catty, but I was allowed to be.
Baird’s eyebrows shot up. “Oi, oi. Spill the tea.”
I smirked at his playfulness. “Nope.”
“If he not only chose another woman over you but failed to bring you pleasure, I feel like it’s almost a legal requirement for me to remove his nutsack.”
“We are not talking about that. Especially since that’s the least of my problems.”
Instantly, Baird became serious. “What’s happening?”
I sat down and proceeded to tell him about the situation at work. “And now I could lose everything I’ve worked for because I don’t have a fiancé to present to them,” I finished on a shaky exhale.
“Well, isn’t Becky a conniving wee rat.” Baird shook his head.
“I’m sorry. That’s shit … I don’t know what to …
” His expression suddenly slackened and then immediately intensified.
“I think I’m having a plan. Aye. There is definitely a plan forming.
” Baird stood, pacing my small living room.
“Two birds. One stone. It could work. It could totally fucking work.”
I peered up at him in confusion. “What are you rambling on about?”
He suddenly whirled on me. “I’ll be your fiancé for the campaign.”