Chapter Fifteen
SAY IT WITH A TAMPON
Crinkle. Thump. Thump. Crinkle. Thump.
“Trzy …” I mumbled. “Not now.” I rolled over and that’s when the bed didn’t feel familiar and my brain jump-started. I peeled open one eye and then the other. “Cage?”
“Good morning. You talk in your sleep.” He stood at the end of the bed with his hands shoved into his pockets.
“I don’t.” I rubbed my eyes.
“You do.”
“What is…” I sat up “…all of this?”
Boxes and boxes of tampons covered the foot of the bed.
“I got super, regular, with applicator, without applicator, organic …”
“Um … I’m not having my—”
“Period. Yes, I know. I witnessed that fact more than once last night.” He smirked.
I blushed.
“I want to be the that guy.”
Tampons. Tampons were my proverbial long-stemmed roses. Tampons took my breath away.
“You bought me tampons,” I whispered, still in a daze.
The bed dipped as he sat on the edge. He laced his fingers through my hair and cupped my head as his lips brushed my ear. “I bought you tampons because I kinda like you—a lot.”
I loved this man. I loved him so much it brought real pain to my chest.
“Now, since you missed your cab and hotel stay last night, you might as well come up for birthday breakfast.”
“Birthday breakfast?”
“Yes.” He grabbed the bag and piled the tampons in it. “All food choices belong to Hayden and Isa today, so they agreed on chocolate chip pancakes with bananas and whipped cream for breakfast.”
“And my leg?”
He laughed. “No worries. My mom explained it to them last night. Now it’s your turn to do what you do best.”
“But aren’t you about out of condoms and doesn’t that seem a little inappropriate for a birthday party?”
“Yes.” He adjusted himself. “And so is the hard-on you’re giving me by talking about it.” He tossed the tampon bag by my suitcase. “I bought condoms too.” He winked. “Take your time, pancakes will be waiting, and then you can show my sisters your cool leg. The other thing you do best.”
Come to find out, what I did best was eat chocolate chip pancakes with two eight-year-old girls. Once I showed them my leg and the other two in my suitcase, they wanted to try them on and were bummed that they could not because they had two feet already.
Aww, to be eight again.
“So how did you two meet?” Brooke asked. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I knew nothing of you until you showed up yesterday.”
I dried the dishes from breakfast after she washed them.
“Actually, I met him in Omaha shortly after his father died.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
“She’s Jillian’s sister-in-law,” Cage scared me as he snuck up behind me, taking the dry pan from me.
The off-limit topic between us had been breached. I didn’t know where to go from there.
The problem was I didn’t know Jillian Knight.
I knew Jessica Day—Jessica Jones. Of course they were the same person, but lives at risk and all that jazz complicated the situation.
My sister-in-law was once involved romantically with Cage’s father.
It was an extremely weird situation. Cage told me Jessica/Jillian contacted him after his father died.
She didn’t share much because he didn’t want to know, so she offered him her overdue condolences and officially said goodbye.
I assumed he wanted to remember her as Jillian, the woman who in many ways gave his father a life, even if cancer took it in the end. I didn’t know what to say. Jessica was my family. Our relationship had nowhere to go if we could never discuss her.
“Jillian got married? That’s great.” Brooke seemed genuinely happy. “Kids?” She’d already asked more questions than Cage did.
I gave him an uneasy look. He gave me a weak smile, but it felt like an OK to answer his mom.
“Yes, a boy. Grant Thomas Orion Jones—GTO Jones. The story is he was conceived in the back of the same vehicle—a red ’67 GTO—as my brother, Luke.
Grant is 18 months and so stinking cute.
He looks just like my brother, but has his mommy’s personality—fun.
” I probably went too far. I didn’t even look at Cage.
The enthusiasm for my little nephew, and the sister-in-law that I practically worshipped, was too hard to hide.
Cage set the pan down and retrieved his phone from his pocket.
“Banks, what’s up?”
I tracked him as he paced the kitchen.
“I am. She is. Hold on.” He held out his phone. “Banks. He wants to talk to you.”
My eyes narrowed at the phone as I took it. “Everson?”
“It’s been more than a week. You said you’d be gone a week. You didn’t leave me your cell number.”
“I said a week or so. You never asked for my number. What’s wrong? Is it Shayna?”
“I’ve interviewed fifteen different nannies, but I can’t decide and that’s probably because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. She hasn’t had a bath since you gave her one. That seems bad, right? I can’t do this, I can’t fucking do this.”
“Slow down. It’s fine. She’s fine. The bath thing is pretty bad, but I’ll help you.”
“How can you fucking help me when you’re not here?”
“Please tell me she’s not standing there while you’re dropping all these f-bombs.”
“She’s watching TV in the other room. When are you coming home?”
“Um … I’m not sure.”
“Today. I’ll pay for your ticket.”
I laughed. “I don’t need you to buy me a ticket.”
Cage continued drying dishes with Brooke, giving me the occasional narrow-eyed look.
“Not today. I’ll get a flight home tomorrow.”
“A morning flight.”
“An available flight. Bye.”
I handed Cage his phone.
He pocketed it. “Sooo … we’re flying back tomorrow?”
Brooke pulled the drain on the water and wiped her hands. “I’ll give you two some privacy.”
“I’m sorry. He’s having a rough time with Shayna.”
“It’s fine.”
Were we a couple? Were we having our first fight? It didn’t feel like a fight, but his “fine” didn’t really sound fine.
“You don’t have to leave tomorrow. In fact, you should stay with your family. I’m sure they’d love to spend as much time as possible with you during the offseason.”
Cage nodded slowly, more of a processing nod than an approval nod. “That’s … fine.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes.
I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’m yours for the day, Monaghan. I do believe you promised me a bounce house and some cake.”
He tugged on my ponytail. “Did I mention I kinda like you—a lot?”
I giggled. “You did and you said it with feminine hygiene products. Move over, Prince Charming.”
He kissed me, letting his tongue make a leisurely exploration of my mouth. My hands slid down to his ass, giving it a firm squeeze.
He groaned. “Lake … hands off my ass unless you want me to throw you over my shoulder and haul your sexy ass downstairs.”
I kept my hands right where they were.
He chuckled, biting at my lower lip. “I have a love/hate relationship with your stubbornness of calling my bluff.”
“You love that I want you to haul my ass downstairs, but you hate that you’re not really going to because as we speak there are people gathering out back for kid games.”
“Mmm … later. You’ve been warned.”
It wasn’t a warning. It was a promise, one that I intended to ride all night long.
I nearly cried when Cage drove me to the airport in his mom’s car the next morning.
For some reason Minneapolis felt like reality, and Beijing and Portland were just a dream—the one that Cage Monaghan starred in as my leading man.
Would my carriage turn back into a pumpkin when the plane touched down in Minnesota?
“I’ll fly back tomorrow. I’m already on Flint’s shit-list for being gone so long … and probably a few of my coaches’ too. Stay out of trouble.” He wrapped his arms around me as we stood by the curb.
“And by trouble you mean jail.”
“I’ll have Flint and Banks keep a close eye on you.”
“You ever going to tell me about Flint? Who is he?”
“He was a wide receiver at Nebraska, two years older than me. Called it quits after an ACL injury. Now he’s my agent, but the kind that goes above and beyond because we’re friends too.”
I rubbed my lips together and nodded. He grabbed my ass and squeezed it harder than I’d ever squeezed his. My eyes grew big.
“And should you see Flint before I get home, don’t be hitting on him.”
My head jerked back.
“And don’t give me that look like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“I-I …”
“He told me the day he bailed you out of jail that you flirted with him.” He quirked a brow.
“He’s full of himself.”
“He said you called him handsome.”
I shrugged. “Well he’s not unpleasant to look at and his name is Flint.”
“You like his name?”
“Uh … yeah.” I looked up at him and smirked. “Are you jealous?”
He bit his bottom lip and nodded. “Maybe.”
“I like—”
“Don’t you dare say you like me jealous. You think that now, but fair warning, guys don’t like to be jealous, and I make a living with my hands so busting them against another guy’s face is not good.”
He was right, but Oh. My. God. That turned me on so much I wanted to shove him into the backseat and have one last good-bye that would most likely have resulted in an arrest.
“Then kiss me like you mean it.”
He did. He kissed me like he’d never get to kiss me again.
“Bye,” I whispered, completely breathless.
“Bye.” He left one last kiss on the tip of my nose before releasing me.
I’m pretty sure I walked like a drunk into the airport.