Chapter 47
WILDER
I never in a million fucking years thought there would be a time when I was happy to be back in New Orleans.
But after spending the last few days on the road for an out-of-state conference, I’m so fucking glad to be home.
Only because that means I finally get to see Maisie.
I’d hardly seen her leading up to the conference because I spent the week practicing with the team, and when I wasn’t, I was in meeting after meeting with the coaching staff.
Needless to say, I’m not even stopping by my own house. I’m going straight to her and making up for the last week I’ve spent missing her.
Preferably with my tongue first, and then we’ll go from there.
Jesus, I even miss how her pussy tastes.
I’m past losing my mind. I’ve already lost it.
Before I pull out of the parking lot of the arena, I shoot her a text.
Me: Just got back to the arena. Hope you’re not busy because I’m already on my way.
A second later, it shows read, and dots move across the screen as she responds.
Sunshine: Sounds like you missed me, Coach. ;)
Me: Fuck yeah, I missed you Sunshine.
Sunshine: I guess I missed you too. A little.
Me: Ah, you want your ass spanked tonight? That what you’re doing here? You can just ask, baby. You know how much I love when you run that mouth.
Sunshine: Unfortunately… No Can we take a raincheck? I’m not feeling very good tonight.
Me: Says the girl who showed up at my house while I had the fucking flu and refused to leave. See you in ten.
Sunshine: Wilder.
Sunshine: I’m… it’s not the flu. It’s you know, that time.
and I’m gross, soooo gross. Wearing my fat pants and eating cookie dough out of the package while watching Practical Magic.
On the heating pad because I might actually die.
I’m pretty miserable and would not be very fun to hang out with tonight.
Sunshine: No
Wilder: So, we don’t have sex. Not the only reason I’m coming over.
Sunshine: Sorry, but I can’t let you witness me in this state.
Wilder: You’re telling me I can’t spend time with you because you’re on your period?
Sunshine: Yes. Exactly.
The muscle in my jaw aches from how tightly I’m clenching my teeth together as I read it.
So, she’s at home hurting, and I’m supposed to just pretend she didn’t just tell me that, go on about my day and not think about her being miserable?
Yeah, no.
Fuck that.
I have no idea what I can even do to help her, but there has to be something.
Pulling up Camila’s contact, I press the Call button with one hand, and with the other, I put my truck in drive and turn toward the parking lot exit.
Thank fuck, she answers after it rings a few times, but in true Cam fashion, it’s chaos.
“Wilder, hold on, Brennan is dealing with like a level twelve poop explosion, and he keeps gagging, and I think he might throw up—actually, I might throw up too if he does. Sorry.” The words rush out before I can say a single thing, and I chuckle when seconds later, I hear Brennan retching loudly.
“You got this, babe.” A few seconds later, there’s rustling, and then she’s back. “Okay. Hi!”
“Cam.” I laugh. “Sounds fucking nuts over there, yeah?”
There’s a loud, drawn-out exhale before she says, “So. Nuts. But, God, I’m still deliriously happy. Lily is getting so big, and I am kicking motherhood’s ass and taking names. I love watching how much she changes every day. Did you get the picture I sent the other day?”
“Yeah. Can’t believe she’s got a tooth.”
“Me either. You don’t want to know how I first discovered it. My tit still hurts.”
I groan. “Please fucking spare me. Listen, I’m calling about something… important. I need help, and I don’t have long.”
That piques her interest. “Oooh, hit me. What’s going on?”
“I’m… There’s a woman. Who I’m… seeing.” The second I say it, she’s fucking screaming like I just told her I got picked up by another team in the league. “Cam. Focus.”
“Okay, okay. Shit, Wilder, holy shit! She’s incredible, isn’t she?”
I shove down a swallow.
Fuck yeah, she’s incredible.
I don’t say it out loud because I don’t want Cam to make it even more of a big deal than she already is.
“You’d like her. She’s… amazing. Her name is Maisie. But it’s complicated, Cam. Like real fucking complicated, and I’ll tell you more later, but now, I need you to help me. She’s on her period. Miserable. What can I do? What can I get to help?”
I’m already driving to the closest pharmacy because I’m going to assume whatever I need to get her, I can probably get there.
Silence floats through the speaker. So much that I glance down at the screen to make sure Cam’s even still there.
“Prepare for the most grueling interrogation of your life tomorrow, but now, you’ve got to take care of your girl. Here’s what you need to get her.”
Forty minutes later, I’m standing in front of Maisie’s front door with an obscene number of bags in hand and a pounding headache after the shit I just went through.
Which is not shit compared to what she’s going through, but…
I’m a thirty-four-year-old man who just got my first lesson in women’s reproductive health while standing in the middle of the tampon aisle at the pharmacy.
Obviously, I’ve had respect for women before today, but I can honestly say I see them in an entirely new light after this.
I ring the doorbell and wait the minute it takes for Maisie to crack open the door.
When she sees me standing there, her eyes widen behind the small fraction she’s opened it.
“Wilder?”
“Let me in, baby.”
She groans. “I told you, I’m a hot m—”
I push the door open slightly with my foot, and she steps back, allowing me to step past her into the apartment.
When I turn and look at her, my stomach dips, my heart working overtime to keep up with the racing of my pulse.
Her hair is tossed up on the top of her head in a messy bun, and she’s wearing one of my T-shirts, an old, worn navy blue one from a summer training camp at OU.
There’s a hole in the center, and you can’t even read what the letters say anymore from where they’ve peeled.
Along with what I’m going to assume are her “fat pants,” which is fucking insane because she’s perfect, that are an oversized pair of pink sweatpants that she’s got rolled up beneath the T-shirt.
She’s beautiful to the point that it’s hard to breathe.
I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about that she looks anything other than beautiful.
I shake my head and set all of the bags onto the ground and close the distance between us. My hands slide along her jaw, cradling her face in my palms, and I lean down and kiss the shit out of her, tasting the sweet flavor of the ChapStick she must have only just put on before I got here.
Then I pull back and look down at her. “You’re beautiful. Now. Always, Maisie. Don’t say that about yourself ever again.”
Her mouth opens, probably to argue, but then she closes it.
I grin.
And then that delicate space between her brow is furrowing, and she puts her hands on her hips, blinking up at me. “Okay, but what are you doing here, Wilder?”
I don’t immediately answer.
Reaching down, I pick up the bags off the floor and turn down the hallway toward her kitchen. I can hear her shuffling behind me on my heels, but I’m still not answering her.
“Wilder.”
“Hm,” I hum, setting the bags onto the counter.
Her hand curves around my forearm, and I stop and look down at her.
“What is all this? What is happening right now, and don’t do that thing that you do.”
My lip curves. “What thing?”
“You know what thing,” Maisie huffs, pinning me with a glare. “That whole… silent, broody, not answering my question because you’re avoiding it thing.”
Damn. She’s got me pegged.
Sebastian chooses now to appear in the doorway, his thick, fluffy tail flicking as he lazily saunters into the kitchen.
Straight for me.
Fucking cat.
He meows incessantly, rubbing himself against my legs and covering me with hair without a damn doubt.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter as I pull out the bag of cat treats I picked up on a whim.
I passed them as I was walking to the checkout, some type of buy-one-get-one deal, so I grabbed them because maybe I can convince him to leave me the hell alone if I bribe him with these fuckers.
Using my teeth, I tear the bag open and then grab a few for him. “Here. Now, go on.”
He happily snatches them out of my hand between his teeth and obliges, at least putting a few feet between us.
I put the bag down, and that’s when I realize that Maisie’s staring at me like I’ve grown another head, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open in an adorable O.
My brow pinches. “What?”
“W-what? What?” she cries as she walks over, stopping right beside me. “You bought Sir Sebastian treats, Wilder?”
Oh fuck. “Yeah? He annoys me unless I’m feeding him.”
Her mouth is already curving into the kind of shit-eating, all-knowing smile that I want to kiss right the hell off.
“Don’t make a big deal out of something that isn’t,” I say. Maisie only nods, that smile never leaving her lips.
“Fine. So we can just say that you came over to drop off treats for Bash and not make a big deal out of it.”
I reach for her, curving my palm along her hip and pulling her to me until she’s in my arms. “Nah, I came here to take care of you, but we can call it whatever you want.”
She smells so fucking good, like vanilla and honey. And after a week of not having her in my arms, not touching her or tasting her lips, this is what I needed.
Just this.
“Well, no fun stuff because…” She trails off. “I told you this is not a good night to hang out.”
“Maisie. I haven’t seen you in a week, and I just want to be here with you. I don’t give a shit about anything else. I just want to be here. With you. Alright?”
I haven’t seen her since the night at Jack’s and the diner afterward.
“Okay,” she finally murmurs, giving me a soft smile. “You can rot with me if you insist. But I get to pick the movie.”
As she says it, a low chuckle tumbles out of me until her face crumples slightly, and she reaches down, clutching at her abdomen.
“You okay?”
She nods. “I’m just cramping. I need to lay down with the heating pad again.”
“Go lay down, and I’ll be there in a second.”
I unload some items from the bags I brought into her fridge and freezer for later and grab several things that she might want now.
The fucking cat follows me from the kitchen, all the way to Maisie’s bedroom, and then hops up onto her bed and settles into a ball on the other side of her.
She’s bundled beneath the covers that are so poofy I can hardly see her face as she lies on her side, but she sits up against the headboard when I walk through the door.
“Got you a few things,” I say, setting down one of the bags onto the bed beside her. It’s overflowing, which I realize now is probably a bit overboard, but fuck, it was complicated. Even with Cam’s help.
When I start pulling it all out of the bag, Maisie’s eyes widen like saucers, and her hand shoots out, closing around my wrist. “Wilder.”
Her eyes glide between the stuff and me, and then to the stuff, and back to me.
“You… You got…” She drops my hand and starts picking it up, one at a time. “Tampons? And medicine?” The pills shake in the bottle as she sets it back down and moves on to the other things. “And bubble bath? Candy? How’d you even know that?”
I shrug, wondering why the fuck my shirt suddenly feels so tight. I reach up, tugging around the collar. Too damn tight. “You told me, and I remembered. When we were texting that day, you sent me a photo of you eating them.”
Her throat works, and her eyes are shining. “I didn’t think you’d even remember that. I… I don’t know what to say, and I’m really trying not to cry, but this is the most sweet, thoughtful thing I think someone’s ever done for me, and now I’m crying, and I’m sorry I—”
I cut her off by sinking down beside her on the bed and pulling her into my arms. “Don’t cry, Sunshine. It’s just some shit I picked up at the store. Wanted to make you feel better if I could.”
I feel her sigh as she buries her head against my chest.
I’ve never been a cuddling kind of guy. I’ve never cuddled anything in my life until her, but lately, I find myself wanting to come here not even to hook up with her, but just to do this.
It brings me a sense of peace I’ve never really felt before now.
“Well, it worked. Thank you… I— Just thank you, Wilder.” The words come out muffled from her face in my shirt, and I press my lips to her head in a kiss.
“Welcome.”
She sighs and pulls back to look at me. “Sorry my period kind of ruined tonight. I had big plans for lots of orgasms, but obviously, she had other ideas. You totally don’t have to hang around while I’m not very much fun.”
I take her chin between my fingers. “Don’t care, Sunshine. Let’s just chill and order some takeout. You can lay on your heating pad and force me to watch another one of those cheesy-ass movies you love so much.”
That makes her smile, a wide, bright one that splits her face. My favorite kind.
“You’re sure?”
I nod. “Yeah, baby, I’m sure. Now, pick a movie before I change my mind. I’m still trying to forget that Legally Blonde ever exists.”
She tosses her head back and laughs, and I lean down, stealing a kiss.
“On second thought, gonna need you to distract me with your mouth because I just realized you’ve got me watching movies that came out before you were fucking even born.”
Christ.
“Not my fault you’re ol—”
I promptly shut her up by sealing my lips over hers and showing her just how fucking old I am.