Chapter 37
PACE – MID NOVEMBER
I Love Her
The sight of the Audi parked at my house when I arrive home fuels the irrational adrenalin I’m experiencing. It feels like waiting for the kick-off of a trophy game rather than coming home.
The thing is, last night, or rather the early hours of this morning, when I drove home from the airport, I forgot that the working week hadn’t started yet and Annie doesn’t live with me full time. She lives with me in the middle of the week and last week she didn’t live with me at all.
After being desperate to see her the whole weekend, I turned up to a home in darkness.
To a tidy lounge and the smell of cleaning chemicals mixed with fragrance sticks.
I didn’t tread on a kids’ toy when I walked through my front door, or hear the laughter or tantrums of Nelson, Annie and Betty.
No one rushed to tell me how their day had been or smiled for no other reason than to welcome me home.
I lay in bed in near silence and I realized that these days I sleep lighter, listening out for Nelson.
Strangely, I don’t mind one bit. I still woke as early as Nelson would this morning and I was bored for hours before training.
I drank my coffee alone and decided to have breakfast at the training facility because the house was too quiet.
I don’t know when it happened but my place has stopped feeling like home without Annie and Nelson in it.
They’re not even mine but it’s like I’m missing a limb when they aren’t around.
I don’t only want them in my life, I’m starting to need them in it.
It’s terrifying. I’ve seen how people let each other down. I’ve seen what happened to my mom every time she relied on a man. How my dad and Darcy’s dad hurt us. Yet, as scared as I am, I know there are only two people who can fix it.
As soon as I open the front door, before I’ve even set down my bag and keys, my foot slips on a wheeled toy and I dilute an expletive as I stagger to keep balance.
“Oh Lord, sorry, darlin’,” Betty says, rushing to me from the rug in the middle of the lounge floor, where she’s playing with Nelson.
I’m happy to defy a snapped spinal cord long enough to see Nelson drunk-tottering toward me, falling on his ass after a few steps. Cute. As. Hell.
“Don’t worry about it, Betty. It’s good to see you,” I tell her, bending to collect the toy bus that she takes from me.
“You, too, darlin’. Sorry about the game.”
I’m too busy rushing to scoop up Nelson to be down about the Bears’ loss anymore. It happens. No one died. We’ll get back on track.
“How’re you doin’, buddy?” I ask, holding Nelson above my head, delighting in his belly chuckle. I bring him to me and rub my beard into the crook of his neck. That never fails to get him squealing.
Then I raise him up and do the whole thing all over again. Until he lets rip on the biggest wet fart a man ever heard and the unmistakable stench of baby crap fills the air.
“O-oh,” Betty says, reaching out for Nelson. “Here, let me clean him up while you go say hi to Annie. She’s working on her project upstairs.”
But she isn’t because Annie is currently walking down the staircase into the lounge with that big wide smile on her face, eyes that look as alive as the hammering of my heart feels under my ribcage.
She’s wearing one of my hooded sweaters and a pair of short shorts, slipper socks pulled up to her calves and long hair braided down her back.
I can’t feel my legs. So, I’m surprised when Annie reaches the bottom stair and they carry me across the lounge toward her. Rush me to her.
God, I’ve missed her so much. I’ve been so worried about her. But here she is, strong as ever, welcoming me home.
I forget everything else as my hand finds the nape of her neck, my other reaching for the small of her back, until her eyes bulge and it finally hits me that I can’t kiss her the way I want. The way we kissed in Dallas.
I pull her into a tight hug, head to my shoulder where I can only waste my kiss on her temple, not her mouth. Even so, my eyes close as I breathe her in, her perfume, her shampoo, her.
Everything in my torso is threatening to explode, my head is pounding as my blood thuds in my veins. She’d have to be dead to miss how much it’s killing me not to be with her.
“That’s quite a welcome home, Tanner Pace,” she says against my shoulder because I’m still holding on to her, not daring to pull away and let her see the truth written all over my face.
I don’t just admire her strength anymore.
I don’t just feel the need to help her because she’s been through a rough time.
I’m not only trying to help my teammate’s sister.
I love her.
I’m in love with her.
“Annie…” My words break as if someone upstairs is looking down on us and telling me to stop. Stop before I say something I can’t take back and I ruin our pinky promise. Stop before I give her someone else to think about, to feel guilty about, another pull on her that she doesn’t need.
I know this can’t happen. I need to swallow it.
But I can’t bring myself to smile as she nudges back from me, my hand still holding the nape of her neck. She sees it. I know because the smile she gives me is fake.
“I made lemonade,” she says, too high pitched to sound remotely normal. “Would you like a glass?”
She unravels herself from my hold and heads to the kitchen as my eyes close and I’m reminded of my earlier thoughts… the stakes have never been higher. I can’t fuck this up.
“Lemonade sounds great,” I tell her, drawing in a breath as I stare out to the pool, and the safety cover I’ve had installed now that Nelson is more mobile.
I’ve adjusted my home for them and I want them to be here and feel comfortable. I can’t scare her away. I won’t.
Aaron comes over and makes us all dinner. I goof around with Nelson while Annie works on her school project and I fall in and out of conversation with Betty as she potters, always restless if she isn’t doing something for someone.
But the whole evening, I’m trying to calm some boyish hormone-fueled frenzy that was ignited in Dallas and re-energized the instant I held Annie earlier.
No matter how much going down on her and seeing the way her mouth fell open and her fingers fisted my hair as she orgasmed drove me wild.
It was one moment. A night that Annie clearly didn’t want to go any further. Not to be repeated.
Once Nelson and Betty are in their own rooms, Annie and I shower and switch into loungewear – both shorts and T-shirts, Annie’s significantly skimpier and cuter than mine.
Her shorts are short, her top tight fitting and showing her perfect shapely hips.
She has socks pulled up to her calves. I shouldn’t be as turned on by a woman in loungewear as I am by Annie.
I hand her the controller and turn on the fire to heat the space. Annie finds her usual spot in the middle of the sofa and crosses her legs beneath her. I take up my usual position right beside her, legs kicked up on the coffee table as she searches for something to stream.
She doesn’t choose a movie, she plays music instead but I’m not focused on what. I’m acutely aware of two things: the first, Annie’s proximity; the second, that there’s something sticking in my ass.
Shuffling, I dig behind me and pull out… “What is this?”
Annie chuckles. “It’s a tickler.” She grabs the stick full of feathers from me. “It’s for sensory play.”
Then she switches onto her knees and comes so close to me I can smell her minty breath and the sweet strawberry scent of her body wash as she brings the feathers to my brow and slowly draws them down my nose, forcing me to close my eyes under the soft, sweeping touch.
She isn’t even touching me, yet every hair on my body stands to attention, every nerve in my system shifts to red alert.