Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
By the time we gathered around the coffee table for dinner, my hands ached, and August’s hair was a tangled web of knots.
He’d been a champ through the whole thing, barely complaining as we tried again and again to get the damn French braids right.
Luckily for me, I had time until Anna had hair long enough to do anything other than the little pigtails she seemed to love, so when she curled into my lap, begging for my attention, I called it quits.
Kinsley ordered dinner from favorite Chinese food restaurant, not even complaining at all our demands and exceptions.
We were a needy bunch, but that was the life of a pro athlete.
I’d ignored enough of my body’s demands over the years, too busy focusing on drowning out the noise to think about the long-term impact.
Now that I was finally doing well on the field, I needed to keep it up—even if Kinsley’s orange chicken smelled like fucking heaven.
After passing out all the tins around the living room, we all settled into places on the couch or pulled over chairs from the dining room table.
The apartment wasn’t much, only a good-sized living room and a spacious kitchen.
I’d tried to make a dining area but never used it, eating all my meals on this spot from my couch.
Plus, over the past few weeks, I’d been over at Kinsley’s for most dinners.
If I had a game or was traveling, she ate alone, but I took care of my girls, even from the other side of the country, ordering some of her and Anna’s favorite meals for takeout.
She’d tried to make me stop when I first started, but there was no way I would.
She was carrying enough stress on her shoulders.
Between her hours at the law firm and caring for our daughter, ordering her dinner was the least I could do.
As she grabbed her own food, Kinsley settled between my legs, finding a spot on the floor.
She poured some of her portion onto a pale pink plate for Anna, one of the newest additions to my cabinet.
Even though we hardly spent any time here, I made sure my apartment was ready for my little girl, spending hours converting the den into a makeshift bedroom.
Sippy cups sat along my bar glasses, and plastic protectors covered every outlet.
“How are things going at the firm?” Cam asked Kinsley. Her spine went straight, and she paused chewing.
“It’s…okay,” she sighed. “We’re working on this merger between two biofuel companies, so it’s a lot of staring at screens, making sure every period is in the right place.”
“Sounds tedious.”
“You have no idea,” she grumbled, slumping her shoulders around her meal.
I frowned, unsure I’d ever heard Kinsley say anything positive about her job, much less that she enjoyed it.
In fact, it was little secret she couldn’t stand dealing with real estate holdings, cursing over zoning regulations regularly.
Gray’s face lit up. “You know, Devyn’s been looking for an associate to join her. It’s a lot of small town cases, so it might be equally tedious, but you’d have more choice in which ones you take on.”
Damien frowned at him, “Didn’t she hire someone last month?”
“Don’t remind me,” he frowned. “He only lasted three days. Tried to mansplain something to Devyn a few too many times, and she fired him.”
Damien bellowed a loud laugh. “Sounds about right. Surprised she’s kept you around this long.”
“Me too,” Gray said. “But if she tried to leave me, I’d only follow her. She’s not getting rid of me that easily. Anywhere she goes, I’m following.” He turned toward Kinsley. “Think about it. You have her number if you need more details.”
She shook her head. “I’m certified as a paralegal. I never made the leap to go to law school.”
The conversation turned to our next game, Damien’s first back on the field with us in almost a year.
But I couldn’t let go of Kinsley’s words, recalling the stack of LSAT prep books in her closet.
She must have planned on going at some point, but what stopped her?
My answer hobbled over seconds later, sticking her pink plastic fork into my container.
I helped her spear a piece of broccoli, watching as she brought it to her mouth, only to spit it out seconds later.
“Yeah, I don’t like it much either,” I mused as I took the rest of it off her fork, giving her a little piece of chicken instead.
She hummed as she chewed it, wiggling her little legs in excitement.
Even as I smiled down at my daughter, my mind drifted to Kinsley, hating that she’d given up her dreams to be a mom, that she’d taken a job she couldn’t stand just to give Anna a better life.
Well, no more. If she didn’t want to work, my salary was enough to cover us for the foreseeable future.
And now that I wasn’t blowing half my money on drinks and pills, there was more than enough to set aside for Anna’s future.
An hour later, our friends cleared out of the apartment, leaving us to Anna’s nightly routine.
She loved my big bathtub, for which I’d grabbed dozens of toys shaped like movie characters.
She lit up when she found them, chewing on the red crab as Kinsley washed wisps of her hair.
After I’d scooped her up and got her dressed, I sat down in the glider with a book.
She lasted only three pages before her eyes fluttered closed, her hand still holding the edge of my shirt.
It broke my heart to put her down, but I had to talk to Kinsley, and I didn’t want to put it off.
Tucking Anna into her crib, she stirred for a second before settling.
With one last kiss on her forehead, I walked into the living room and found Kinsley cleaning up from earlier.
I leaned against the doorframe, content to just watch her for a moment.
Every day with this woman seemed better than the last. She’d brought a peace I’d been chasing my whole life, gave me a reason to rush home—a reason to keep going beyond the ball field.
With her soft smiles and gentle touches, she healed a part of me I’d ignored for far too long.
When she turned and found me staring at her, she jumped, holding her hand to her chest. “Shit, Jace. You scared me.”
“Sorry, mama. Just wanted to watch you for a little bit.”
“And?” she said, walking toward me with a seductive sway to her hips. “Do you like what you see?”
“I love it.” I love you. God, it was so fucking clear now. This feeling, this pull between us, had to be love. There was nothing else that made sense. Kinsley had captured my eye from the moment we met, but now, she owned my mind, my heart, even my soul.
I’d opened my mouth to tell her as much, but Kinsley paled, her lips floundering open as she searched for a response.
Fuck, was that fear in her eyes? Ever since we returned from California, we seemed to be on the same page, but maybe I was rushing into things.
We hadn’t been together long, not long enough to be so sure, but there was no putting this back in the bottle, no hiding the fact that I loved Kinsley.
But I could hold it back a little longer if that was what she needed.
Reaching out, I grabbed her hips, pulling her flush against me. Her brown eyes found mine, and they’d shifted into something more sultry. My cock stirred in my pants, coming to life whenever Kinsley was close. “You didn’t have to clean up.”
“I wanted to,” she said, nestling into my embrace. “This place is so clean. I felt bad that Anna disrupted all your stuff.”
“This is her place too. She can make a mess of anything she wants. Doesn’t matter to me.”
“Please,” Kinsley snorted. “Don’t think I missed your cabinets.”
“What’s wrong with my cabinets?”
“You have everything in perfect rows, all lined up by size and shape.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “How do you even walk into my house?”
“Because it’s yours.” Sure, I liked my things organized a certain way for efficiency, but when I walked into Kinsley’s place, I wasn’t worried about that.
Not that her home was messy or dirty. It felt lived in—how a home should be.
I didn’t mind searching for the ingredients in her spice drawer because she was cooking by my side, didn’t worry about the toys littering the floor because it made Anna happy.
Every picture frame and item told a story, and I was desperate to learn them all; I wanted to add my own pages when the time was right.
She beamed up at me. “Smooth, hotshot. Saying all the right things to get lucky.”
That made my cock jolt to attention, already growing hard with Kinsley flush against me. “Then I’m going to keep my mouth shut before I say something stupid.”
“Works for me,” she teased, toying with the hair at the base of my neck. “You like it when I tell you what to do, how much I can’t hold back when I want you.”
“Oh yeah?” I smirked as if I hadn’t already made the connection. Kinsley was always responsive, but she came alive when she barked out commands, and I eagerly complied, her pussy gripping me like she never wanted to let me go. “Then tell me what you want, Kins.”
She pursed her lips, tapping the plump lower one with her index finger. “Bend me over that couch and show me how much you want me, how much you’re dying for another chance to be inside me.”
“Done.”