33. Tussle and Echo
tussle and echo
Strider
I’d be lying to say ice didn’t rush through my veins at her words. Adrenaline or something like it streams where my blood should be. I must tense, because she does too.
One second passes, followed by another and another.
I feel no fear, no worry, no anything other than resolve. I already knew the direction my life was heading, but this is fuel on the fire to make it happen sooner.
I slide my fingers to lace with hers and pull them to my lips. After kissing her knuckles, I wrap her up with our joined hands. “How are you doing with it?”
“You’re not panicked?” Her voice is higher pitched than usual.
“No.”
“Did you plan this?”
I don’t like her tone or the accusation it brings. And my first reaction is sarcasm. “You mean, did I decide to potentially hurt someone hours away from me? And hurt myself in the process?”
Her back stiffens. “And how in the world would this hurt you?”
“Baby.” I kiss the point of her shoulder. “Let’s back up. I want to know how you are with all this.”
“Panicked. Freaked. Scared. A whole wealth of emotions. And you’re hurt?”
“No. No. No. I never want to hurt you. To have you scared and alone—I won’t have it.
That’s what I meant. As for me, I can’t imagine knowing I have a son or daughter and not being right there to watch them grow up, screw up, to guide him or her.
It would kill me to not be a part. That’s me hurting myself in this process. And I don’t want that either.”
Her tense body relaxes.
I squeeze the fingers of our joined hands. “Is that why you’ve been in your head and so watchful?”
She nods, her head scraping up and down against my chest.
“Have you taken a test?” I hold my breath.
What does this mean?
She shakes her head. “My body’s been… off is a good word for it. I just realized my cycle should’ve started Wednesday. And it’s Saturday.”
“And you’re regular?” My words are odd and a little stilted. I grew up with two sisters. I’ve slept with women. I know the deal, but I don’t really know it.
“Very.”
I can’t decide if the anticipation is excitement or some other unnamed emotion. “Let’s go get a test.”
“Seriously, how are you not freaking out?” She asks on a rising voice.
“Freckles, I knew before my wheels touched down in Peoria that you were endgame. Well, you and me. This is confirmation.”
“The timing is jacked.” She wiggles into my back, and my dick notices.
“Maybe. And maybe it’s perfect. You’re not doing Ranger shit. You’re surrounded by family. My business is stable.” I’m not flaring up. And I’m not twenty and an idiot. “And it’s me.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You’ll see.” I kiss her temple. Energy and excitement warring inside me for dominance.
We fall silent. The warm water surrounding both of us, lulling us. Her fingertips draw patterns along my forearms, though I don’t know if she recognizes it. She does this while we’re in bed, and I love it.
The quiet is broken by her stomach growling. What time is it? Shit. I haven’t fed her.
“God, I’m a nightmare.” She sounds embarrassed.
“Why? Because you’re hungry? It’s natural.”
“I wish I were suave or”—she flails her hands, water flinging everywhere—“what is it when women look and act all polished?”
I lean in to whisper in her ear. “I want you, Mirren. Freckles, silliness, wide smiles, brothers with terrible timing, embarrassing moments. You. Just as you are. Okay?”
Her exhaled sigh is music to my ears.
“Now, do you want door dash or room service? Both will take forever. Or we can go out. What sounds good?”
Her stomach rumbles again. Her groan and my laugh tussle and echo off the marble walls. “Something good and fast.”
And without further ado, she stands, her perfect round ass right at my eye level. A groan escapes me.
She whirls. “Seriously?”
I probably look sheepish but the boy in me—the man in me—loves her butt. “I make no apologies, woman. Your ass is a work of art. And it does it for me.”
I spin her, kiss her belly, then swat her ass. “Let’s go. There’s shit to do.”
Mirren
The man is too perfect. He says the right things, does the right things, is calm in the face of crisis, and makes me feel seen.
He’s too good to be true.
And he just dropped his lips to my stomach. No worry. No panic. No freak-out.
Maybe he’s not right in the head. Perhaps he’s perpetually positive. That won’t do.
“Your face looks like you’re trying to do complex math.”
I look down on him, scrunching my complex-math face, and flip him the bird. “I’m trying to figure out if you’re normal. And what I’ve gotten myself into.”
Water sluices down the ripples and dips of his muscles as he stands. “Those are two wildly different questions. Now, let’s get you fed.” He’s out of the tub and tossing a towel to me.
The man is a conundrum. He carried me in here like a groom over a threshold and is leaving, having heaved a towel my way.
I watch his ass as he goes. He admired mine, but his is muscled, tight, and has those little dimples at the sides. He even has them right above his cheeks. I wonder if that’s genetic.
Before that thought can percolate, I wrap myself in the towel, find my toiletries bag and freshen up a little. Out on a date in Nashville with my man with his slutty little glasses is worth the effort.
In no time, we’re on the street, hand-in-hand, watching the people passing by. We’re not in the super touristy area, but it’s not like the downtown business districts in most major metros where it’s dead on a Saturday night.
It doesn’t take us long to find a hole-in-the-wall gyro shop and grab a table. We order one chicken gyro and one lamb one, an order of fries with some Greek dressing and feta on them, and two huge bottles of water.
The owner, Dimitri, delivers it to our table himself and chats us up about recipes and how long he’s lived in Nashville. It’s not long enough not to have lost his original accent, but long enough that his English words are tinged in a southern drawl. He’s delightful.
He leaves us, returning to the kitchen. I catch the words “in love” but nothing more as he walks away.
The meal is delicious. My mind is exhausted. My body is sated. My belly is full. And my heart is… content.
Never in my life have I had such peace in a time of so much strife. The holidays, the fact that the agency is investigating the man in the booth across from me and that I have to disclose our relationship, my potential status as a mom, how my brothers will react to the news.
Strider grins, and his eyes crinkle behind his glasses.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re back to complex math on your face, but you’re moaning with each bite and dancing in your chair with each french fry.”
I shrug. “I was hungry.”
“And your brain is working out all kinds of scenarios that we don’t know we need.” He extends a hand across the table. He squeezes when I take it but lets go when his gyro starts to collapse. “We will make it work. Me and you, Freckles. We’ve got this. No matter what, okay?”
How can he say that?
“Stop squinting at me like you can read my mind with your eye-daggers. I mean it. We’re not eighteen. We’re adults who communicate. So long as we’re honest, we will be fine.”
Am I being dishonest by not telling him he’s being investigated? To get technical, I’m being treasonous if I do. Rock, meet hard place.
I nod and eat my gyro. When we’re well and truly stuffed, we wave goodbye to Dimitri and step back onto the street. Though our hotel is to the right, Strider tugs my hand to the left and leads me down a block off the beaten path.
I understand why when I see the swishing doors and the well-lit red W sign. He’s taking us to the pharmacy. In and through, into the aisles of pregnancy tests. He studies each, asking questions I do not know the answers to.
The man grabs four different kinds, smiles as he shrugs an arm around my shoulders, and leads us—much to my mortification—to the front. At the last minute, I steer us to the self-checkout machine and fling all of them into a bag quickly as he taps his card on the screen.
“Ready?”
Nope. Not in the slightest.