6. Tuevo
CHAPTER 6
Tuevo
I finished my third beer and switched to water. That didn’t stop the fun or the side-splitting laughter as Caleb and Cameron kept drinking. Hailey left an hour ago after she told Meredith she had to head home to Darrick. Dalton claimed he was exhausted too and said he’d wait with her for her Uber and head back to the hotel.
Cameron and Caleb gave him shit for being too old to hang out with the kids, to which he’d rolled his eyes and agreed. Twenty minutes later, Meredith got a text from Hailey saying she was home safe.
It was the only time of the night I saw Meredith frown and purse her lips with frustration.
I considered telling her that if she told Hailey what she’d told me, her friend could move on to finding someone better, but I didn’t. Hailey’s and Meredith’s choices were their own.
Through the night, Meredith slowed down her drinking of whiskey sours and switched to a Coke, and by the time Caleb and Cameron decided they’d had enough too, Meredith was leaning against me, her head on my shoulder like this wasn’t our first time meeting.
Like I wasn’t the one who freaked out a few hours ago at her bold statement.
Instead, my arm was draped around her, hand settled low on her hip. My thumb had dipped beneath her cropped sweater, and I was brushing that thumb along the silky, soft skin of her lower back, drunk on her vanilla-scented shampoo or perfume.
“I should head home too,” she murmured. Sleepiness and possibly the whiskey made her words slow. She turned to me, shifting closer so my arm was still on her lower back. Her hand hit my chest and a zap of it speared straight through my shirt to my beating heart.
“The hotel the team has me in right now is where your brothers are staying. Want to come back with us?”
She gave me a lazy, soft smile. “I think their room might be full.”
“Good thing mine isn’t.”
“All right then, hotshot. Show me your place.”
If her brothers weren’t right there, I’d kiss her. The storm brewing in my chest that hadn’t stopped all night demanded it. But I could wait.
Hell, I didn’t care what we did once we got back to my room. I’d spend all night talking to Meredith if that was what she wanted and I already knew I’d never grow bored.
“You fools ready yet? We’re waiting.” It came from Cameron, and he and Caleb were standing at the end of the table, arms crossed over their chests. They weren’t identical twins but similar enough they’d be impossible for a stranger to tell them apart. It was the smirk lifting at the corner of Caleb’s mouth that would have made me know which one he was if they were dressed alike.
It was the same look he gave opponents on the ice before he told some nasty your mom joke that would send them spinning into a rage.
“What?”
“Hurt her and you die.” He shrugged. “That’s all.”
“Oh, is that it?” Meredith asked, sweet as apple pie.
“That’s it,” Cameron chimed in. “I also paid the rest of the tab, so let’s get out of here. It’s getting fucking cold.”
It was November in Nashville. Thanks to the heat lamps, the cold hadn’t bothered me all night. “Still a hell of a lot better than Indiana.”
“Don’t remind me. Winter is bullshit.”
“And that’s why I’m never moving back to Colorado,” Meredith sang and looped her arm through mine. “Never again will I live where it snows six months out of the year.”
She had a point. Born in Toronto, I’d moved to New York when I was five. I now held dual citizenship, but other than the occasional visit to my mom, I never returned to Toronto. And those visits were either before May or after October.
The hotel the team put me up in until I could find my own place was right across from the arena where the home games were played. Craziest thing, waking up that morning with a picture of me slapped onto the glass, reflective walls of the arena with long-time power players like Maxim Rolffe and Alexei Petrov. But there I was, all ten-foot-tall full body of me, caught in a media blitz I’d done before I played my last game in Virginia last week, decked out in the blue and white of the Avengers uniform.
“You’re really big,” Meredith cooed, her body leaning against me as we passed the arena.
“Things your big brothers don’t need to hear!” Cameron shouted from in front of us.
“Idiots. Do boys ever grow up?”
I couldn’t remember ever truly being a kid, but when it came to Cameron and Caleb, they’d had a different life. “Most do, I figure.”
“Thank goodness. God bless the women who find those two yahoos.”
We headed into the hotel and when the elevator stopped at her brothers’ floor, Meredith gave them both hugs that lasted so long, I had to hold the elevator door open for them. “Love you guys,” she said, and I didn’t imagine the sniffle or the sly wipe beneath her eyes.
“You’re still here in the morning, come find us before our flights leave. We’ll have breakfast, all right?”
“I’ll text.”
“Good.” Cameron slapped my back and wished me luck and Caleb clasped our hands together, wrenching me toward him as he pounded on my back harder than necessary.
“Know I said I’m okay with whatever this is, but I also wasn’t kidding about the killing you part. Good luck, man, and keep in touch.”
He said it all so kindly, switching from threats to good luck wishes, I pulled back, laughing. “I’ll do my best,” I assured him. “On both accounts.”
“Good.” He kissed Meredith’s cheek and we waved goodbye as the door finally closed.
“More threats of bodily harm?” Meredith asked, showcasing that beautiful, teasing grin.
I held out my hand. “Come here.”
She settled her hand in mine and all the turmoil normally coursing through me calmed. God, I had to be a madman for considering her gift was legit. Sure, she was right about the girl cheating and her brothers obviously knew. The story she told me from when she was a little girl was wild.
But this? This connection?
I couldn’t explain anything about it other than that it had to be some kind of magic. I never felt this way about women.
Certainly never trusted them so easily or so quickly.
I tugged her toward me until her hands were on my chest. Her head was tipped back, looking me in the eyes, and the end of her hair brushed along my hands. “What?”
“This.” I cupped the back of her head and held her to me, wrapping her in my arms. “I saw you crying saying goodbye to your brothers. Thought you might need a hug.”
“Thanks.” It came out muffled, from where she was pressed against my body, and I bit down the desire stirring beneath my belt. “They’re idiots, but I love them.”
“You’ve got good brothers. Good men in your life.”
“The best.”
We stayed like that, hugging, not speaking until the door opened closer to the top on my floor. With her hand in mine, I guided her down the hall to my room and opened it, then pushed the door open with my arm extended so she could enter first.
It slammed closed behind us, but Meredith wasn’t looking at the room, nor the view of the city.
She was looking at me, bottom lip stuck between her teeth, already slipping out of the boots she’d been wearing. She immediately fell three inches shorter and I tossed the keycard and my wallet to the small table in my suite’s kitchen.
“We don’t have to do anything, you know, but I wasn’t ready to say good night. We can go to sleep, talk… Anything.”
“I don’t want to go to sleep or talk, Tuevo.”
Thank God. “What would you like to do then?”
I took a step toward her. She mirrored my movement and came toward me. Her hands pressed against my abs and slid up to my chest. She rolled to her toes. As she moved, she whispered, “This,” right before her lips brushed over mine.