19. Sophie
CHAPTER 19
Sophie
Y esterday, when Alex mentioned the possibility of us being together, I felt a mix of emotions. On one hand, I was elated that he saw a future with me and our children. On the other, I was frustrated because he had never openly expressed his feelings for me, making me question if they even existed at all.
“Why do you look so nervous?” asked Danny, stirring in the spices, smells of cumin and paprika filling the kitchen. “Is it because you’re scared of what I’ll think of him?”
“No,” I said matter-of-factly. “It’s because I’m worried about what you’ll do and say tonight.”
Danny gasped in his overly dramatic way, abandoned the spoon on a small plate, and walked toward me, his arms folded across his muscly chest. “Do you really think I’ll go out of my way to embarrass you?”
“Yes.”
He wrinkled his nose and shook his head as if I had just disappointed him in the worst way possible. “Is that really what you think of me?”
“Yes,” I said again, equally serious. “You literally told me five minutes ago that I look like a bloated seal in my charcoal blouse.”
“Well, you did. Luckily you changed.” Danny held my gaze for a minute longer, neither of us blinking—another childhood game we hadn’t kicked—and then he turned back to the kitchen. “Well, for your information, the main reason I want to meet this guy, the father of my
nephews—”
“We don’t know the sex,” I interrupted. “We don’t want to know yet, not until the baby shower.”
“Call it a feeling,” he said, adding the tomatoes I had diced earlier, together with the sauce, beans, and broth into the pot. “Anyway, as I was saying—”
The front bell rang.
Danny’s head whipped in its direction, and I knew what he was about to do: he was going to answer the door first and spill something terribly embarrassing about me to Alex. It was a typical Danny move; he once ruined a date with a cute senior I had planned on losing my virginity to by telling him that I had terrible morning breath, like the kind you’d get from a tooth abscess. Charlie had refused to stand within three feet of me for weeks.
“Don’t you dare say anything stupid,” I said, sharply pointing a finger in his direction.
But Danny never listened to me, and just as the bell rang again, we both sprinted into the hallway—me, at more of a jogging pace considering I was carrying extra weight and felt perpetually exhausted.
He got there first and yanked the door open, revealing an awkward-looking Alex standing on the top step, holding two bottles of wine.
“Well, well, well. Look who it is. The man who knocked up my sister.” Danny swaggered over, enveloping Alex in a hug before stepping back with a smirk on his face. “How do you do, brother-in-law? I can call you that now, can’t I?” His eyes flicked to me mischievously, knowing full well that Alex and I weren't officially together yet. "Or maybe not yet, Soph?" He raised an eyebrow suggestively.
Heat flushed my cheeks and my heart rate progressively stepped up the longer Danny blocked the doorway. The whole evening suddenly seemed like a terrible idea. Yes, Danny wanted to meet Alex, but I also wanted Alex to meet my brother, to bridge the gap between my two worlds. It was as much my idea as it was Danny’s, and now it all seemed way too soon, as if I was rushing into something I wasn’t prepared for—as if I was diving into deep water without knowing how to swim.
“Please ignore my brother,” I said quickly, walking forward and pushing Danny out of the way. “Come in.”
“Something smells great,” Alex said, walking in. He kissed me on the cheek and lifted up the bottles of wine for me to see. “They’re both nonalcoholic and come highly recommended.”
“Good idea,” Danny said, in that over-eager way that had me rolling my eyes. “Sophie’s been pining after wine. I’ve even caught her staring at the Merlot like she wants to make out with it.”
“He’s lying,” I said. “He’s very good at it, that’s why he’s such a good lawyer.”
Danny gasped, and then he walked off muttering something under his breath that I chose to ignore.
“Thanks,” I said, trying not to pay attention to the sudden clanking in the kitchen. “This is a game changer.”
“I won’t advise drinking the whole bottle though,” said Alex. “Everything in moderation.”
“Noted.”
I led the way to the kitchen, though Alex already knew his way around my house, and embraced the fluttering flaps of butterflies in my stomach. Alex wasn’t just walking close behind me, he was also resting his palm against my lower back. His hand was like a hot coal, one of those lovely therapeutic ones at spas.
“By the way, Becks is joining us tonight,” I said, breaking free from Alex’s touch before it consumed me, and walked way too fast to the kitchen cabinet to retrieve plates and bowls.
“She’s just running late.”
“What about Caleb?” Danny asked, finishing up the chili “I always thought the two came in a pair.”
“He’s out of town. At some convention or other.”
“Comic-Con?”
The bell rang again.
“Speak of the devil,” said Danny, turning off the gas at the hob. “I’ll get the door.” This time I didn’t race him to it. I wanted at least two minutes alone with Alex to warn him about my brother, and needed at least a hundred, or however long it took for Alex to kiss me so hard I forgot my name.
“Just so you know, whatever Danny says about me tonight, it’s probably a joke.”
Alex chuckled. His golden eyes were bright, his hair neatly done, and his whole outfit— chino pants, a white shirt, and boat loafers—made him look like he was from old money. Far too old money for this house.
“Don’t worry, Soph.” He smiled, and my stomach clenched, my whole body desperate to leap on him and convince him to take me right there on the counter. Though I doubted Alex needed much convincing.
“I brought dessert!” interrupted Becks, ambling into the kitchen and dropping a huge tub of chocolate mousse on the counter.
It wasn’t much later that we were all sitting around the dining table, Alex to my right, his elbow just touching mine, leaving what could only be called a hot spot on my skin. Becks and Danny were sitting across from us.
“Tell me something interesting about yourself,” said Danny, waving his fork at Alex.
“Weird question, Danny.”
"No, it's not," he argued. "You can learn a lot about a person by what they find interesting about themselves. For example, I collect vintage cuff links and once spent nearly ten thousand dollars on a set. It means I like nice things and tend to splurge." He then ignored
Becks' gasp of " Ten thousand dollars . Are you mad?” and looked at Alex expectantly.
“Mmm, it’s not exactly the easiest question, is it?” Alex looked down at his bowl of chili as if it had the answers and then shrugged. “Apparently I talk in my sleep.”
Danny shook his head. “That’s boring. Give me another one.”
“Um . . . ” Alex scratched his smooth, cleanly shaven jaw with his right forefinger. “I’ve visited six out of the seven continents in the space of one year.”
“Really?” I asked, not sure why this surprised me so much. Maybe because it hadn’t come up in our conversations up until now; lengthy, get-to-know-you kind of conversations. That amount of traveling was bound to have some stories, good, bad, and ugly. I just had no idea why he wouldn’t share them with me. But I was determined to find out. The next time we were alone, I was going to ask him why he had omitted an entire year of his life when I was just starting to piece together the puzzle that was Alex Roberts.
Alex glanced my way and smiled. “It was right after residency. I spent all the money I had and took one year off to travel. I never got to Antarctica, but I hope to do it one day.”
Danny looked pleased. Lifting his glass to his lips, he asked, “Have you been to Cusco?”
“Not Cusco, but I did spend some time in Lima.”
“Sydney?”
“Yes.”
“Venice?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think of it?”
“Too crowded.”
Danny narrowed his eyes, as if evaluating Alex’s worth, and smacked his lips together. “I am not usually one to be protective, that was usually Sophie's role among our friends when we were younger. However, I like you, Alex, and I believe you are a good person. Please don't do anything to hurt Sophie. If you do, I will make an exception and find you wherever you are just to kick your butt.”
My jaw dropped as Danny's unexpected words hit me. I glanced over at Alex, hoping he would walk away from the table and tell Danny to piss off.
But instead, Alex looked at me with a gentle expression and responded to Danny in a serious tone, "Noted."
They exchanged a nod, a silent agreement between two respected men. “Approved. Now, next question. I’ll hand it over to you, Becks. "
Danny pretended his fist was a mic—just another one of Danny’s quirks—and, with a flourish, extended his hand toward Becks, as if he was passing her the imaginary microphone.
Becks, who had been friends with me for long enough to know how Danny worked, took the invisible mic and made her own. “What made you become an orthopedic surgeon, Alex?”
“Is this really a game of twenty-one questions?” I puffed, pressing my lips thin and gazing at both of them as if they were being ridiculous—which they were.
Becks frowned at me. Danny pulled a face. And then Alex, the good human being that he was, chuckled and dropped his hand to my knee, squeezing reassuringly. “I don’t mind. I actually enjoy the social element of twenty-one questions. So, to answer your question, Becks, I always knew I wanted to be a doctor. It goes back to when I was a kid and my mom bought me that board game, Operation, you know the one with the tweezers and the buzzer, and I guess I caught the bug . . . But my interest in orthopedics came much later . . . ”
But I couldn’t concentrate on much of what Alex said. I was far too busy thinking about his fingers brushing small circles on the inside of my thigh. My jeans did nothing to thwart the heat. Actually, they made things worse, trapping in the heat like a furnace.
“Right before I had to choose a specialty, a friend of mine got into a bad car accident and had a few massive surgeries to stabilize the fractures. I was working at the same hospital at the time and got a great look into orthopedics. I think I just fell in love with it.”
“Sounds like a calling,” said Danny.
“How about you?” Alex asked, keeping the conversation going far better than I was. It was like my lips were glued together, and all I could do was listen to Alex’s lovely voice as he spoke. “Why’d you go into law?
“Because I like to be right,” said Danny. “And if I’m not, there’s nothing better than defending myself and convincing everyone else that I am. It was just a natural progression for me after school.”
“That says a lot,” Becks grinned, angling her body to get a better look at him. “So, with all that money and charm and good looks,”—she waved her hand over him in a sweeping gesture—, “why are you still single?”
“I know,” I quipped, well aware of my brother’s reputation as a ladies' man. He was single by choice. “Danny is very particular when it comes to the women he dates.”
“I love a difficult woman,” said Danny with his mouth full of chili. He finished chewing, swallowed it down, and added, “That feeling of walking on eggshells, of not knowing if I’m going to be scolded—hopefully with a bit of spanking—or not.” He rolled his shoulders and made a gasping sound that was massively inappropriate around the dinner table. “It just gets me going.”
“You’re a strange guy,” said Becks, eyeing my brother. Then she laughed out loud. “Do you know what would be funny . . . If we set him up with Vicki. Now she’s a difficult—” Becks cut herself off when she realized what she had just said and looked at Alex, her eyes big and bulging. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
“Don’t be.” Alex smiled. “You’re right. She is. She had me walking on eggshells for a long time.”
I pointed sharply at both Becks and Danny. “And if we could please refrain from setting him up with her. I don’t think Vicki wants to be my sister-in-law any more than I want to be hers.”
“Who is this Vicki?” Danny grinned, leaning back against his chair. He had that silly, amused expression on his face that I knew was trouble.
“My boss. Remember? I’ve talked about her before.”
“ Oh .” He nodded, his gray eyes widening, that smile curling even more. “The dragon, yes, I remember. Well, now I’m even more intrigued.”
I shot my brother a look, then turned to Alex and shook my head, quite sure that guilt was painted on my face. “I call her a dragon once, I merely mentioned that she blows smoke like a dragon. Not that she is one.”
Alex laughed and moved his arm around my shoulder, pulling me toward him. He kissed me on the temple. I didn't even mind the PDA in front of Becks and Danny. It was as if Alex and I were turning a corner, moving a step up the ladder, inching closer to something more meaningful. The way Alex brushed his thumb across my shoulder meant something. The way he kept stealing glances and smiling when I caught him, the way he acted so protective, so caring, always wanting to know if I was alright, and happy, meant everything. There was something monumental about the way he kissed me—not just passionately, driven by desire like that first time, but tenderly as if each kiss was a promise from him. It almost didn't seem to matter that what had started this whole situation was just a silly fling.
"How about you give me Vicki's number, Soph? Maybe I can talk her into a better person, it will be even better if she is pretty," said Danny, his voice jolting me out of my thoughts. He basically threw his cell phone across the table before glancing at Alex. "As long as it's fine with you, Alex."
Oh gosh, he was not joking.
"Perfectly fine," Alex said, and I believed him. No part of Alex was holding onto Vicki, and every part of him was holding on to me. I leaned into him, melting into his side like butter, and experienced an undeniable feeling of happiness that had eluded me for god knows how long.
“Any advice?” asked Danny.
“Don’t get on her bad side,” said Alex and Becks at the exact same time.